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Re: four-channel output/surround reverb



<DELURK>

Have been interested in surround sound for a while; however, have not had 
the budget to experiment much, as of yet.  I know of at least two products
which will do surround reverb, the Lexicon 960L and the Eventide System
6000 (I believe Orville is also surround-capable, but not sure to what
extent).

Theoretically, Sony's new "modelling" reverb is capable of this if you can
obtain 4-channel "recordings" of the spaces you want to model.

I also seem to remember another product which emulates 4 channel reverb by
crossing the internal outputs of some of the "sub-reflections" into the
inputs of the other 4 reverbs -- you can probably experiment with this
with existing gear, depending on how many reverbs you have and submixes
you are capable of.  Specifically:  create 4 mono reverbs, FL, FR, RL, &
RR; each one should be short (early reflections only); mix the dry signal
with one of the other reverbs as the input to one of the other reverbs in
a "tire rotation" manner; monitor outputs; change parameters to taste.
You may also want to send the outputs of the above described setup into 4
regular mono or 2 regular stereo reverbs (I.E. FL -> FL, FR -> FR, etc.)
if you have enough equipment.  In this case, you will want to leave the
early reflections fairly short and dry, and use the later reverbs for the
tails.  The "pre-reverb" portion can also be done with 5 channels -- you
can either listen to, or ignore the output of the fifth channel.  Lastly,
you should also probably be able to emulate the four-channel version of
the pre-reverb with two stereo reverbs (left as an exercise for the
reader).  

I have also been playing a thought experiment in my head of what a quad-
chorus would sound like.   (-:

There have also been several good articles on surround sound in magazines,
lately, one of which eludes me at the moment (will get back to you on
that), the other being the issue of EQ with Jason Miles on the cover, 2000
Issue Two (should still be available).

On a side note -- I originally got interested in this after hearing some
of James Dashow's wonderful 4-channel recordings which he created on a
computer.  He is absolutely the _master_ of space.  He can make things
sound like they are coming from a pinpoint location, or he can spread the
sound so that it sounds like it is coming from the entire listening plane.
But he was using more than just reverb (in fact, I'm not even sure he did
reverb), he did it more with the phase relationships of the sounds coming
from the 4 monitoring positions.  I don't know if he did any papers on the
topic, but if you find any, let me know!

</DELURK>
--
I remain,
:-Peter aka :-Dusty :-Chalk

On Mon, 20 Mar 2000, Dennis W. Leas wrote:

> I've been experimenting with four-channel looping.  That is, looping 
>through
> four discrete output channels.  Looping sounds that rotate in your sonic 
>space,
> etc...
> 
> How do you do four-channel reverb?  Every reverb unit I'm familiar with 
>does
> stereo at most and mono at least.  Anybody doing four-channel or 
>surround-
> sound reverberation?  Any links?  Ideas?