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Old 30th September 2005, 12:58   #21  |  Link
ursamtl
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You're absolutely right about the excitement this "journey" can bring. Back when I was in university in the 70's I discovered something called a Hafler circuit in one of those 1001 electronic projects magazines. It provided a pseudo-surround effect by connecting a speaker across the two positive speaker outputs, resulting in a difference signal going to the speaker. By today's standards, it might be somewhat primitive (although Dolby Pro Logic II's music mode is basically the same thing with a couple of tweaks), but the door it opened up into the center of the music mixes was amazing. The one big reason I added the on/off switch to V.I was to be able to switch back and forth instantly between the two version to hear just what's happening to the sound. It truly amazes me how stuff that's buried in the mix or sitting there sounding one-dimensional jumps out and takes on a whole new level of realism when the the plugin is switched on. It's almost like putting on the special glasses glasses at a 3D film.

One thing I noticed is that you mentioned that it's 100% about the music. There is one school of thought that believes music should never have a center channel at all! I was reading comments about this recently on the Sursound mailing list. Some people feel that a center channel should only be used for movies to help "lock" the dialog to the screen. I'm not entirely convinced of this myself, but it does provide food for thought. One thing I do need needs to be avoided it piping all the vocals or dialog through just the center speaker. That can end up sounding like a mono source sitting in the middle of a separate stereo field, with the whole thing sounding disjointed. That might give maximum separation, but the whole listening experience isn't as unified or full.

Yes, specise_8472 has done some VSTs for these threads, although he doesn't seem as active on this forum lately. You might also talk to johnman on here. He's a very talented programmer who's done some amazing work on wavewizard. I use a development program to do my VST plugins. I did start studying C++ but I'm not nearly at the level required to take the source code for Center Cut and turn it into a VST plugin. I did look at it and some of the code looks quite understandable, but I'm not ready to start coding on that level yet.

Have a good weekend,
Steve.
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Old 5th October 2005, 22:46   #22  |  Link
f@chance
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ursamtl
Ok well here's something to play with. This evening I threw together a new VST plugin to take a stereo input and create a center while subtracting it from the left and right. The plugin, which I call 2-2-3, has one simple knob. Turn it to the right and you get maximum center channel and maximum subtraction. If the knob is all the way to the left, there is no center channel and the left and right outputs are the same as the source left and right. The settings in between vary the balance between the new center and the phantom center created by the stereo channels.

Simply copy the dll file to your default VST plugins folder. You can download it here:
2-2-3 CENTER CHANNEL GENERATOR VST PLUGIN
Please let me know how this works for you. I'll clean it up and add a better interface in the near future and then include it in the next V.I suite release.

Regards,
Steve.
Steve, I played around with it trying to correct a messed up sound track and I like the center speaker's enhanced dialogue. Created the front and left and center MONO WAV files. But I have a few questions and maybe I over looked something on how to operate it.

I added a 2 channel Audio File player and opened the stereo file with it. Connected the two outputs to the 2-2-3 two inputs. I assumed that the left pin is Left and the Right pin is Right.

Opened three 1 channel Audio Recorders. Connected the 1st output pin of the VST to the 1st recorder and saved it as Left.wav. Connected the 2nd output pin of the VST to the 2nd Audio recorder and saved it as Right.wav. Connected the 3rd output pin of the VST to the 3rd recorder and saved it as Center.wav. Sofar so good but now when I click on the play button of the player the recorders don't start in sync, am I missing a step here.

To correct that I started all three recorders then started the player and fixed it in Sound forge by deleting the blank part at the beginning and end.

I do like the way it produces the front sound stage and I am trying to encode it as DD 5.1 with the 3 Sourround & LFE files generated with the V.I VST.

Any help on starting this thing in sync with the player?

Thanks
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Old 5th October 2005, 23:07   #23  |  Link
ursamtl
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Hi f@chance,

It's really not too complicated once you've done it a couple of times.
  1. Click the Parameters button in Bidule and expand the "tree branches" for each device you want to link.
  2. Expand the Audio File Player branch on the left Source pane, and each of the three Recorders in the right Target pane.
  3. Select Play on the Audio File Player and Recording on the first Recorder.
  4. Click the Link button. Your linked objects appear in the bottom pane.
  5. Scroll down in the top right Target pane to the second Recorder and select its Recording "leaf" (leave the left pane player selection there).
  6. Click the Link button again. Your second pair of linked objects appear in the bottom pane.
  7. Repeat this again to link the Player's Play "leaf" to the third Recorder's Recording leaf.
  8. With all this in place, turn Bidule's processing off clicking the Off toggle button at the top of the screen.
  9. Set up your filenames for the recorders, etc., and when ready, click the player's Play button.
  10. Click the On toggle button at the top of the screen to turn the whole thing on all at once.
I haven't tried three separate recorders going at once, but I seem to recall reading something about possible sync problems. Still, it's worth a try. Let us know how you make out.
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Old 6th October 2005, 08:45   #24  |  Link
f@chance
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ursamtl
...I haven't tried three separate recorders going at once, but I seem to recall reading something about possible sync problems. Still, it's worth a try. Let us know how you make out.
I knew I was missing something, thanks a lot. I will try later when I get home. Now regarding the possible sync problem how would you save the 3 channel output from the 2-2-3 to a file? Take a 4 channel and leave one empty?

Sorry for this but I am new at the whole bidule thingy but I like it.
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Old 6th October 2005, 12:48   #25  |  Link
ursamtl
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You could just add a 3-channel recorder and then split the files later using Besweet, WaveWizard or other file splitting programs. Still, go ahead and try the three single-channel recorders. In theory, they should work, especially if you sync them as I described.
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Old 7th October 2005, 01:07   #26  |  Link
f@chance
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I tried the hooking them up so that the player starts everything and it works like a charm. But regarding the 3 channel recorder, they go 1, 2, 4, 6 channels NO 3 channel, am I missing something again?

Thanks
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Old 7th October 2005, 01:42   #27  |  Link
ursamtl
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No, I am! It's been awhile since I actually looked at the palette in Bidule to see what's available. I set my default layout to one with a 2-channel player and 6-channel recorder, so I'm rarely adding from the list of available recorders. Anyway, if you got it working with the three single-channel recorders, great!

Last edited by ursamtl; 7th October 2005 at 23:13.
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Old 7th October 2005, 23:14   #28  |  Link
ursamtl
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Daphy suggested I make my default bidule layout available as a download, so here it is. Simply download this, then unzip and open it. If you've got a different Audio Device setup from ASIO4ALL, then you'll have to substitute yours for the ASIO4ALL output I have on mine. When you have the layout set up the way you want it, simply choose Set current patch as default from Bidule's Edit menu. You can do this with any layout you choose and then whenever you open Bidule in the future, your chosen default layout will be there.

Enjoy!
Steve.
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Old 8th October 2005, 00:22   #29  |  Link
ursamtl
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Quote:
Originally Posted by daphy
THX Steve, new toy to play with!

What do you think about to make something like a Q-Sound coding for SL,SR?
Ok well here is a simply pasive QS decoder based on a circuit on the Wendy Carlos web site and using Christian Budde's excellent Phasebug plugin (with his permission).

You can download DeKQS here. I'm actually fairly impressed with the surround field it gives. I still prefer V.I because it seems to extract more room ambience, but DeKQS isn't bad at all.

Enjoy!

Last edited by ursamtl; 8th October 2005 at 03:06.
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