New VST Effect for Stereo to 5.1

[mrtunes]

Thought some people here would like to use this:
http://www.stevethomson.ca/vi/



Cheers

[guns1inger]

Look interesting. Going to have a play.

Thanks

[mrtunes]

Just to clarify, my original post might've implied I made it but I didnt!

[daamon]

@ mrtunes: Looks like an interesting find. Have you submitted it as a new tool (if it's not there already)?

www.videohelp.com/toolsedit.php?newtool=1

[mrtunes]

hey no I didn't, I'll do that now. I haven't tried it cause I don't have a 5.1 mixing setup here so someone let me know how it is!

[mikiem]

haven't produced anything with it, but playing around after reading your post (Thanks) seems to work OK in Vegas. And it seems less hassle then doing the same thing natively in Vegas as well. Have to actually do something with it to make any quality judgements though -- all I can say right now is I got 6 wav files out.

[Abond]

If s.o. is looking for some guides:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=83752
Especialy this one looks very interesting:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=105684

[dipstick]

It does work!

I used it in conjuntion with Kristal Audio Engine to create the tracks. Kristal Audio Engine is FREE, so their is no excuse not try it out. You really need to pay attention to the sound levels, because it's easy to get clipping when combining all the tracks. You still need an AC3 encoder that lets you import the tracks and combines them into 5.1 AC3.

I played the resulting 5.1 AC3 in PowerDVD and it reported that it was 5.1 Dolby Digital. I'm not sure if it really sounds better, because I don't have 5.1 Audio card. I guess I'll have to compile an entire Album onto a Music DVD to test it out. It takes some work for every song, so only my favorate music collection will get the treatment. Time to break out Led Zep.

[equinox137]

If you want to get PowerDVD or whatever to report the AC3 as 5.1, all you need to do is edit the tag in the .ifo file. That is probably all this software does anyway.

There is no way to convert 2 channel stereo into legitimate 5.1 surround . . . hate to burst the bubble, but it can't be done.

[dipstick]

Nobody said it is True 5.1 Suround from Stereo.

What it does, is split up the 2 channels into 6 channels to simulate 5.1 Suround. You end up with 6 channels that you can encode to 5.1 AC3. It allows you to adjust the sound characteristics of the FLFR - LFRE - SLSR to create a simulated 5.1 Suround Sound.

[Abond]

all you need to do is edit the tag in the .ifo file.

I think dipstick played the ac3 FILE, not DVD.

[stevethomson]

IIt takes some work for every song, so only my favorate music collection will get the treatment. Time to break out Led Zep.

Hi, I'm the guy who created V.I. Actually I used a lot of Led Zep material when testing and trying the different settings to come up with it. Try Black Country Woman or Gallow Pole through V.I. They jump right out of the speakers and truly come to life!

You're right about the risk of clipping. That's why I keep repeating throughout the guides I've written that limiting is essential for outputs of these conversions. It is very easy to get "overly enthusiastic" with the controls. Plus, the process of extracting ambience sometimes removes phase cancellations that eliminated peaks in the original stereo track.

Tell me, with Kristal (great prog, by the way), did you run three passes to get the files to disk? I did a guide for doing the same thing with Foobar, and the advantage is that you don't need to run them in real time. This can be much faster than recording an audio file three times at normal playback speed. It's not so bad for individual songs but downright painful for a movie soundtrack!

Regards,
Steve.

[mrtunes]

Ahhh cool! I was going to send you an email from your website to notify you that you've got some publicity here but you beat me to it, good man Steve.

[stevethomson]

Nobody said it is True 5.1 Suround from Stereo.

What it does, is split up the 2 channels into 6 channels to simulate 5.1 Suround. You end up with 6 channels that you can encode to 5.1 AC3. It allows you to adjust the sound characteristics of the FLFR - LFRE - SLSR to create a simulated 5.1 Suround Sound.

Actually, it all depends on how we define "true 5.1 surround." Very little of what's commercially available in 5.1 was actually recorded with 5 microphones and then the lowest frequencies filtered to form the .1 channel. If a recording engineer points a microphone at a sound source, records it then pans the track to a surround channel in a 5.1 setup, does that make it true surround? What if it's a stereo microphone and he pans it to both surround channels? I've read discussions on pro forums among engineers who talk about how the like to set up digital reverb for 5.1 mixes. Many take a sound and use a 5.1 panner to place it near the front and then use a small reverb for the front channels with a big reverb for the back. Is this true 5.1 surround? What about 5.1 remixes of classic albums for DVD-A such as Fleetwood Mac's Rumours, etc. Heck, the 5.1 release of the Beach Boys Pet Sounds can't be "true 5.1" because the album was recorded in mono!!!

If all of the above--which are common practices on commercial 5.1 recordings and movie soundtracks--constitute true 5.1 surround to many people, then so does taking a stereo recording and using an effects plugin to pan it among 5.1 channels! So yes, you can take stereo and turn it into legitimate 5.1. It won't be the same as using a 5-channel microphone to recorded discrete tracks, or an ambisonic microphone to capture the 4 tracks required for it (including height info). The only valid difference I see is that taking a stereo mix and converting it to surround is not as easy because the various sounds are already mixed together. It's easier when one has a multitrack source file and then the various individual sounds can be placed anywhere around the listener.

Maybe what makes this less legit in some people's eyes is that it's being done at home on a computer instead of in a studio, even though in a sense it's exactly the same thing, applying digital effects to create a sound field distributed among 5.1 speakers.

In the end, if it sounds good, enjoy it! I think if you play around with V.I and get the right combination of source file and levels, you're going to be astounded with the quality of surround that's possible.

Regards,
Steve.

[stevethomson]

Ahhh cool! I was going to send you an email from your website to notify you that you've got some publicity here but you beat me to it, good man Steve.

Hehe thanks anyway! I saw the referring address in my web site provider's stats. It was either this or a Brazilian forum where V.I was discussed. My Portuguese sucks so here I am. Doom9 was V.I's nursery so there are a few threads over there too. Glad to be here too though. This site has been tremendous for video issues. I just haven't really checked out the forum before.

S.

[mrtunes]

Ahhh cool! I was going to send you an email from your website to notify you that you've got some publicity here but you beat me to it, good man Steve.

Hehe thanks anyway! I saw the referring address in my web site provider's stats. It was either this or a Brazilian forum where V.I was discussed. My Portuguese sucks so here I am. Doom9 was V.I's nursery so there are a few threads over there too. Glad to be here too though. This site has been tremendous for video issues. I just haven't really checked out the forum before.

S.

LOL yeah it's not easy picking up new languages just to discuss your new plugins. I originally found out about the plugin on KVRAudio.com although there's no discussion about it to my knowledge since most users there aren't into 5.1 mixing. What's your background that led you to make this toolset? Are you a film mixer? I didn't know Synthedit is capable of mult-channel plugins.

And yes this site is fantastic, it's been of great help to me and the forum is top notch. That's why when something like this grabs my attention it's my duty to notify people here about it.

[dipstick]

stevethomson wrote

Tell me, with Kristal (great prog, by the way), did you run three passes to get the files to disk? I did a guide for doing the same thing with Foobar, and the advantage is that you don't need to run them in real time. This can be much faster than recording an audio file three times at normal playback speed. It's not so bad for individual songs but downright painful for a movie soundtrack!

I imported 3 instances of the song into the Waver. I then used the Mixer to apply your effects to each wav file, one effect for each. This is where you can adjust the levels to keep them from clipping. Once that was done, I went back to the Waver and exported each one seperately. So the short answer is yes, it took 3 passes.

I think you created a great tool and can't wait to see what "Whole Lotta Love" sounds like in 5.1 surround. That song was meant for 5.1 surround sound.

Thank's for the great tool!

[stevethomson]

Are you a film mixer? I didn't know Synthedit is capable of mult-channel plugins.

No I'm actually a tech writer by profession. I just really love music and audio/video technology. I started playing around with a tremendous audio program called Plogue Bidule (www.plogue.com) and this led to experiments in surround sound. V.I has been around in Beta versions on the Doom9 forum since Nov. 2004 actually. I just never got around to implementing a couple of ideas and wrapping it all into a "releasable" state until last month.

Synthedit supports multichannel IO if you register it. It seemed like a good investment of very few dollars (as is Plogue Bidule, by the way).

[stevethomson]

I think you created a great tool and can't wait to see what "Whole Lotta Love" sounds like in 5.1 surround. That song was meant for 5.1 surround sound.

Thank's for the great tool!

You're very welcome. Yeah WLL through V.I can be pretty spectacular. The middle section really gives a sense that it's rotating all around you.

I really wish Kristal would add a multichannel bus. It's a tremendous program as is but that would make it even better. As for avoiding clipping, I highly recommend Kjaerhus's Classic Master Limiter. You can add it to the master output section of Kristal or in the second effect slot. You could also put it on the master section then add reverb on the surrounds, perhaps the freeware SIR convolution reverb with some high-quality free impulses from www.noisevault.com. There's one 24-bit set there recorded at the Concertgebouw. They sound tremendous.

[guns1inger]

If anyone is interested, I have just posted a guide to using V.I in Sound Forge and Vegas. Most of it is applicable to other audio apps as well. You can find it here -> https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?p=1457678#1457678

Let me know what you think.

[stevethomson]

If anyone is interested, I have just posted a guide to using V.I in Sound Forge and Vegas. Most of it is applicable to other audio apps as well. You can find it here -> https://forum.videohelp.com/viewtopic.php?p=1457678#1457678

Let me know what you think.

Excellent guide, gunslinger. By the way, you're right about MP3s not being the best source. Not only is the stereo image often mangled, but I've found that V.I unmasks a lot of compression artifacts that are sort of buried in the mix. The psychoacoustic tricks that aid in compressing sound to 2-channel MP3 just don't work when you start digging around underneatht it all!

I've played around with V.I in Vegas but I wasn't able to succeed with anything. the original V.I plugin loads as a track effect but it doesn't seem to work. It won't load on the surround master bus (I also have a prototype 6-in/6-out version of V.I that won't work either in on the surround master bus). I tried adding the 2-IO plugins to three tracks but I couldn't get the routing sorted out. I'm still a complete Vegas newbie so perhaps with a bit of time, I'll sort it out.

Thanks for the guide.

Regards,
Steve.

[stevethomson]

By the way, if anyone is looking for other guides based on V.I Suite plugins, I've published the following guides over at Doom9. I'll redo them in PDFs for download from my site soon, but for now you can check them out online:

• GUIDE: V.I Stereo to 5.1 Converter VST Plugin Suite
• GUIDE: Using V.I with Plogue Bidule
• GUIDE: Using the V.I in Nuendo and Cubase
• GUIDE: Converting Stereo to 5.1 Surround for FREE (using Foobar2000 and bridge plugins)
• GUIDE: Using Wavelab to create 5.1 files
• GUIDE: Using Audition 1.5 or 2.0 to create 5.1 files

Enjoy!
Steve.

[guns1inger]

I played around a bit in Vegas with the busses but like you, couldn't get it all tied together. I think it can be done with the 2 IO effects, but you would still have to process the tracks and cancel channels for the centre and LFE, so it's not realtime. I'll keep playing and hopefully put together a Vegas only guide soon.

[stevethomson]

I played around a bit in Vegas with the busses but like you, couldn't get it all tied together. I think it can be done with the 2 IO effects, but you would still have to process the tracks and cancel channels for the centre and LFE, so it's not realtime. I'll keep playing and hopefully put together a Vegas only guide soon.

Yes I think you're on the right track. From what I've been reading, it amounts to duplicating tracks a few times, cancelling channels, then panning to the appropriate outputs. Keep going!

[dvd3500]

Doesn't Audacity support VSTs?

[stevethomson]

Doesn't Audacity support VSTs?

Not very well. It uses a "VST enabler" addon that offers no GUI support. I've tried it with the 2-IO V.I plugins and it doesn't support them. If you want a good freeware program that supports VSTs quite well, try Kristal Audio Engine. It's more of a multitrack recorder than a wave editor, but it works well and support VSTs very well.

Regards,
Steve.

[dvd3500]

OK. Thanks, eh!

[ranosb]

Aren't you the same person that incorporated HDMp3 as well?
http://www.macworld.co.uk/digitallifestyle/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=25467

[lacywest]

interesting ... keep this thread alive ... please

[SallyDog]

Aren't you the same person that incorporated HDMp3 as well?
http://www.macworld.co.uk/digitallifestyle/news/index.cfm?RSS&NewsID=25467

"Thomson" isn't a person! Sorry.