Live quadraphonic mixing

[Nut]

G'day!

I have a simple question, though I know the answer will not be so simple..

Is it possible to mix live music in surround sound without purchasing crazy specialist equipment, etc ?

The way I am imagining it is through the use of software like Ableton Live. I have been told that is it possible to program Ableton in such a way that you can use an ordinary joystick as your surround panning controller.

I cannot think of a cheap way to do it in the analogue world, but that is why I am here talking to you

Does anyone have any expereince with this idea ? Any useful links or stories ?

Cheers!

[Mr P]

You can do it easily, and crudely, on an analogue mixer with sufficient sub-mix busses or post-fader aux's. Of course this will make live panning of sounds round the room clumsy at best. If you do want to do that sort of thing, then maybe a digital mixing desk would be a better option. The Yamaha DM1000 I use all the time has a (tiny) joystick and facilties for surround panning, though I've never needed them.

By crazy equipment, I presume you are talking about an Acousmonium of some sort?
Maybe the BEAST.

The correct answer, for you, depends on how you plan to use it and what format(s) you wish to mix in.

Best,

Phillip

[mohthom]

B.E.A.S.T.'s gear isn't that crazy - there's just a lot of it. It's all powered, if I remember correctly, by a DACS 3D desk. They have control over 100 loudspeakers (in a 3d environment), but in about 32 subgroups. Article as an introduction to the system at Birmingham . . .

Diffusion: theories and practices...

There's a huge difference between mixing (presumably multi-channel, live) to quad and diffusing from stereo to a large speaker array. It's also worth noting that in Manchester's system (MANTIS) the whole diffusion can be performed without a hardware controller (but there is a 32 fader precision system in place, manufactured by DACS and IRCAM) as the whole thing is computer-based.

The joystick can be used to place individual sounds in the quad environment, but not to 'do' the whole mix. Otherwise, how would they sell us faders and desks? I've an old Amek mixing desk that was built for Quad, and it does have an X-Y panner in it, but they're so unuseful that I ripped it out.

I'd be far more concerned with looking at a 'custom' solution to do what you want - including (if you're mixing on just one console) building a surround patch to do what you want in Max/MSP or PD or equivalent.

One way to do what you're talking about, depending on track count, is to either use a mixing desk split in half (and direct sends to the second half of the desk to control the rearL and rearR on a buss), or two seperate desks - one for front and one for back. The real question, for me at least, is why do you want to do it to yourself?

MohThoM

[Nut]

The idea behind the madness is a bit of a long story, but worthy none the less.

I have been in cohorts with a company that possess a 44ft high Geodesic dome and a soundsystem that suits the concept of quadraphonic sound for about a year now. We have done a number of festival gigs, but only ever in stereo or "pseudo surround".

To rewind a little, a geodesic dome is one of these:

Geodesic Domes Australia - Event Domes

That is the 60ft version of the one I have worked with..

We fly the speakers off the frame at certain points and the subs move around depending on what we're after.. but as you can see, the environment begs for true quadraphonic sound.

The second part of the story is a public arts lab/festival called Underbellly. At this event i'll be in a position to set the dome up indoors and take some real time to experiment with mixing live music in quadraphonic with other engineers and musicians that are keen to explore the possiblities with me.

I have brainstormed the crude analogue method already and have set it aside as a backup, but ideally i'd like to have true seamless panning and control.

I'd love to be able to create panning loops and apply that loop to a channel, or grab ahold of any instrument and drag it around the space as I see fit. For pure electronic performances it would be idea to tempo match these panning moves so that the panning can become part of the rhythm, etc.

Pd is quite possibly the best answer, although my programming skills are probably not quite up to the task.

Hmm..

[mohthom]

It's well worth the cash (esp. if you can get a student discount) to pay for Max/MSP and actually get a program that works. PD is OK, but in the words of Eric Lyon, if you ever get a distro that works, never EVER change it! For me, the difference between the two isn't just the UI (the nuts and bolts are pretty similar), it's stability.

Given what you're trying to achieve, I hope you don't mind if I offer a couple of better suited suggestions to have a look at

SARC / Sonic Arts Research Centre / Queens University Belfast
recherche.ircam.fr/equipes/temps-reel/nime06/proc/nime2006_140.pdf

Or, possibly more usefully, I'd suggest that you do a little reading into Ambisonics. Tony Andrews (of Funktion-One) has mixed a number of ambisonic dance events, and may be a useful help. I've had a little contact with him and find his claims a little inflated, but it can't hurt to check out About Funktion One.

I don't know Ableton Live enough to be able to say anything about it's abilities to perform live-recorded panning on the fly, but it sounds like the looping-stuff you want to do suits ableton well. If it were for me, I hope you don't mind if I suggest that this would be at least a 2 computer setup - and that I wouldn't like to run both the audio playback (with any heavy effects) and the 'panning' from the same machine, unless you've got some pretty hefty new MacPro machines kicking about. For MANTIS, theres's a dualG5 and an octocore MacPro running the show if I remember correctly.

Maybe a method to work would be computer1 processes audio - all output to seperate tracks (or stems if you're limited on track count - this could also be a strategy if you're wanting to keep things simple), and a second machine takes the tracks/stems and provides the ambisonic/panning control, and matrixes to your loudspeaker array. The advantage of the ambisonics is that you can get away with using a far fewer number of speakers, and you can plot sounds (using the materials to hand) anywhere in a hemispheric 3d environment - including beyond the limits of your dome! For the breifest of breif introductions,

Ambisonics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Keep us posted!

MohThoM

[ESL]

Here's another tool:

Spatialisateur
Spatialisateur is a software suite for the spatialization of sound signals in real-time intended for musical creation, postproduction, and live performances.

WWW Ircam: Forum Studio

[Nut]

Thanks for all the help so far guys, much appreciated!

I'll be off in research land for a while now I think, but i'll be back to think out loud soon enough