SurroundByUs.com

One Question - during a conversion can the parameters be made to change during a track or just one setting per track? Kind of like integrating a time-line into PB?

Car - That's a good idea - I just want it on my remote which works great otherwise -has a ton of buttons plus the software supports multiple - remote switchable profiles.

Sorry about the post faux-paux will be careful in the future - are you saying that a .bidule of an album is illegal in some way - or just the finished .wav files etc?


Where are you guys located? I am in Los Angeles.

Let me clarify something here.

.bidule technically refers to Plogue Bidule layout file, such as "Spec-4.0_Public_Release.bidule", and as such is not illegal to post, discuss, etc.

I think in the above question and answer Fan51 assumed that bsw11 was using ".bidule" to refer to converted music.

Hope that's clear.

There are a few things we can do here, however.

BSW, you mentioned the conversion being done with ArcTan. If you're asking for what bidule was used for that conversion, then that's an easy question to answer. ArcTan's one of the four modes in SPEC, and SPEC can be found in the "methods" section of this site. From there, there's really specific album-to-album tweaks that are going to take place according to what you're hearing with your source, so replicating what you'd hear on one album with another really isn't going to work very well. Using ArcTan already gets you a good portion towards the way of replicating what you're hearing.

It also offers us a unique opportunity here, though, to think about how we approach converting a certain album. You mentioned the album "Forever Changes" by Love, which is, for the most part, an album with mostly spare, organic-sounding instrumentation and a prominent vocal. To me, while I'll probably get a "good enough" result with a variant like SLICE, which is capable of some pretty serious separation, I wouldn't look that way first when converting. I'd, rather, look to something that's going to take what's in that stereo mix and naturally spread it across the channels. I'd start with ArcTan at it's defaults and play a bit with the sliders. If I found that I wanted a bit more separation with the rears, I'd then blend in some SLICE rears, which is an option found in the ArcTan variant. More than likely, with an album like that, I wouldn't go in that direction.

Getting used to what each variant does can really help you predict what may sound best. SPEC-CC gives you the full stereo in the fronts, with one "cut" occurring between what goes in the center and in the rears. SLICE offeres a second cut in the fronts for more separation, with both methods offering an option third cut in the rears (the "wrap") for a "rear center" effect. SPEC-LCR offers the full stereo in the fronts with center and rears derived from more tradtional LCR-type algorithms. ArcTan does something different altogether than the rest and is based more on positioning in the overall soundfield. Thinking about what is going to do what with the music allows you to make an educated guess as to where to look first.

Your interest in looking at what's floating out there in cyberspace, along with some of what I've heard from Timbre4 as far as reviewing conversions, while certainly not what we had in mind when we created this site, is definitely something we have to consider as we think about the evolution of this site over time. While there's lines we'll never, ever cross, it does give us food for thought, as moderators and site owners.