Ambisonic Bidules

[greekgoddj]

Greetings,

I have noticed that some of you use Ambisonics in your conversions. I think some of you might be interested in the Ambisonic Bidule plugins I have been writing. These are not Bidule patches, but plugins, specifically for use in Bidule. You can find them at: http://www.digenis.co.uk/downloads.php

Ciao!

[greekgoddj]

They have been updated, and there is a Universal OS X version too.

[ursamtl]

Aristotel,

Welcome to the forum. I've seen your name associated with Ambisonics a lot when looking around the internet for information, so it's nice to communicate with someone who really knows the field.

There actually aren't too many bidules on here that use "real Ambisonics" as far as I've seen. There was a guide (since deleted by its author) for conversion of stereo to 5.1 using the plugins written by Dave Malham and Ambrose Field (and others) with the idea that since they had 2-channel inputs marked "left" and "right" that they were designed for stereo-ambisonic conversion. However, when I wrote Dave Malham on Sursound and asked him about this, he stated that this was incorrect, that the left and right denotations were only to adapt the plugins to limitations imposed by the version of Steinberg Nuendo they were using at the time (1.6 I believe). (Actually he and others on Sursound suggested that a more convincing stereo-5.1 conversion could be done with a basic old-fashioned Hafler approach). The results of the bidules presented depended on the source, but mostly to me they sounded like taking a stereo field, collapsing it to about 25% of its original width and then doubling it to the rear speakers, sort of a very narrow double stereo but nothing resembling the kind of "holographic" effect of surround sound.

At any rate, last year I downloaded the decoder plugin created by Dr. Bruce Wiggins and then some of the ambisonic source files available at the old ambisonicbootlegs site. I must say that hearing real, properly recorded Ambisonic material played back through a proper decoder was a fascinating experience. It truly does give that sense of being immersed in sound, the "close your eyes and you are there" feeling. I've been too busy lately to experiment much with surround but your bidules merit exploration as does the new http://www.ambisonia.com/ site that succeeded the ambisonics bootleg site.

I'll be sure to check out your bidules. I notice that the only encoder bidule you have listed on the page to which you linked encodes mono material. Could this be adapted to encode the two channels of a stereo signal separately with the result being a reasonable upmix of the stereo image to Ambisonics? If not, how about Super Stereo bidules, have you done any work with these? I ask this because the biggest Ambisonic interest on this forum tends to be the stereo conversion to 5.1 surround for use with DVD soundtracks or for audio-only surround discs (converting music).

So thanks for posting the link to your bidules. I look forward to trying them.

Regards,
Steve.