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New method to make surround from stereo with Ambisonics


An Eye of Horus guide, rev. 1.01 from 08-31-2003
The original forum.doom9.org list
01. INTRODUCTION

Almost 2 years ago, Dr. Freudiana send me a copy of Alan Parsons' CD "Stereotomy" converted to DTS format with Ambisonics. This sounded so excellent, that I wanted to try it myself. With the help of Dr. Freudiana I made my first conversion. (Jeff Wayne's War of the World). Again an excellent result and I was sold and decided to publish the method so everyone could give it a try. This was more than one year ago and that guide is still online here. The last year however, it seems like Ambisonics got into a new spotlight. A lot of new software and methods are developed.
Time to take advantage of these new methods and write a complete new guide !

02. THANKS

- dr. Freudiana
- Kempfand , who did the most of the hard work and coding and who was the one to put the ideas into something working ! We had a fun time trying out each others ideas and listening to the results !
- Nicky Lois , for going where no one entered before, exploring new horizons and thus being a source of inspiration
- DSPGuru , for making all these excellent tools and for supplying the space for this guide !
- The makers of all these wonderful tools, like Dave Malham and his team. For more information :
http://www.york.ac.uk/depts/music/dgm.htm
and
http://www.dmalham.freeserve.co.uk/vst_ambisonics.html
- And all the other makers of tools used in this guide

03. GOAL OF THE GUIDE

To make 5 mono Wav files from a stereo source with Ambisonics, that can be feed into a surround encoder like Surcode CD or Soft Encode.
Before you start however with the conversion-process you must decide your goal.
1. stereo to DTS CD with use of Ambisonics (reguires 44.1 Khz stereo waves)
2. stereo to AC3 or DTS stream to use on DVD with Ambisonics (requires 48 Khz stereo waves)
Information about Ambisonics can be found here :
http://members.tripod.com/martin_leese/Ambisonic/faq_latest.html#SECTION4 or on other places.

My native language is not English. The advantage is that my English can be easy understood by all other non English speaking people, but can sometimes lead to confusion for the native English speaking part of the world :-) That's why I include pictures for every step that's not quite clear and strongly advice every reader to ask if something is not clear. Sometimes a simple rephrase can do wonders !
In this guide the standard settings are for 44.1 Khz . If a 48 Khz setting differs, it will be mentioned. If nothing is mentioned, the routines for both samplerates are the same.

04. DOWNLOAD NEEDED SOFTWARE

The following software is needed.....

1. Plogue Bidule (current version v0.6502): PlogueBiduleInstaller.exe
Source: http://www.plogue.com/bidule/
Link: http://www.plogue.com/index.php?option=com_remository&Itemid=31&func=fileinfo&parent=category&filecatid=1
Although the software is still freeware and in beta, the makers want you to register by email before you can download !
Just fill in your name and emailaddress and you will receive an email with a link to the downloadpage.

2. B-pan Ambisonic Encoder
Link : http://www.dmalham.freeserve.co.uk/pc_vst_ambisonic.zip

3. B-Proc Ambisonic B-Format Processor
Link: http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/mustech/3d_audio/vst/yorkvst.zip

4. Emigrator
Link : http://www.gerzonic.net/zips/Emigrator_1.0_win32.zip

5. Besweet latest stable version (1.4)
Link : http://dspguru.doom9.net

6. R8Brain 1.6 This is additional software for up- and downsampling
Link : http://www.voxengo.com/downloads/#r8brain

05. INSTALL AND SETUP SOFTWARE

The setup of the software is the most difficult part of this whole guide. So please pay some extra attention to this. You only need to do it once.

Pre-setup : your stereo files need to be in the samplerate for the goal you have in mind.
If you want to make AC3 streams or DTS streams for DVD, they need a conversion to 48 Khz.
We included a freeware tool "R8brain" that does a nice job and has a built-in batch routine.
Of course you can use every soundeditor you like, i.e. Besweet, Sound Forge, Cool Edit, Soundwave. They are all capable of converting 44.1 Khz to 48 Khz.

1. install Plogue Bidule in the recommended directory
2. in this directory you'll find a directory called "VSTPlugins" .
Unzip all other software except Besweet/split/sure to this directory
3. Unzip and/or install Besweet/besure/besplit
4. the setup :
Run Bidule, it will do a search for installed VST plugins and you will end up in the start screen.

However, if you have another product installed with a directory called VSTPlugins, it will take the plugins from that directory instead of the right ones. Steinberg software is an example of this kind. So we must be sure we have the right plugins.
- Click "Close" on the 'Tip Of The Day' box

- From the "Edit"-menu chose "Preferences"

- If "VST Plugins Path" doesn't point to the VSTPlugins directory of Bidule, double click on the setting and you can change it to point to the right directory.
- In this same screen you can also chose if you want to work with 44.1 Khz or 48 khz !

- Click "OK" , the program starts scanning again for VST plugins and we can continue the setup.

- Remove everything from the main screen, by clicking on an item and pressing the "delete" button on your keyboard. The square in the right hand bottom corner cannot be deleted :-)

- When all is deleted, you will see that the square has become black.
- If you changed the bitrate setting : Close and restart the program !

Now we need to place the tools on screen that we need.
- Goto the small window left from the main screen , called "Palette"
- chose "audio file" , "player", "2 channels" . select it and drag and drop it in the main screen.....

- now chose "VST", "Swiss Center" , "BPan_e_gui". Select it and drag and drop to the main screen.

- Do the same with "VST", "York Music dept.", "bfprocedit"

- And "VST", "gerzonic", "emigrator"

- Go on with "Audio File", "Recorder" , "6 channels"


Now we must make connections between everything on screen. This is a bit difficult to put in writing (a pictures says more than a thousand words) but I give it a try. Move the boxes on you r main screen a bit , to make room.

The little squares on top of the boxes are inputs, the ones on the bottom are outputs.
- step 1 : connect the two outputs of "Audio File Player" with the inputs of "BPan_e_gui" (click on the left square and drag it to the left square of Bpan_e_gui, then do the same with the right one)

- step 2 : connect all 4 outputs of "BPan_e_gui" with the inputs of "bfprocedit"

- step 3 : connect the outputs of "bfprocedit" with the four most left side inputs of "emigrator"

- step 4 : connect the 6 most left outputs of "emigrator" to the 6 inputs of "Audio File Recorder" as follows:

Output Pin Emigrator > Input Pin Audio File Recorder
1 > 3 = C
2 > 1 = FL
3 > 5 = SL
4 > 6 = SR
5 > 2 = FR
6 > 4 = LFE (an empty wav)

- step 5 : check all your connection again. Your Screen should look like this :


Now it's time for some fine-tuning of the modules....
- step 1 : double-click on module "Bpan_e_gui". In the middle of the upcoming screen , you see the two panners. Turn the left panner to the left (90 degrees counter-clock-wise), and turn the right panner to the right (90 degress clock-wise). Leave all other settings as they are. . You can close the "Bpan_e_gui" window.

- step 2 : Double-click on the "bfprocedit" module. Leave the default setting, but turn the left-most wheel a bit to the left (by 36 degrees counter-clock-wise) . Close the window.

- step 3 : double-click on "emigrator". In the upper part of the module is a selection box. Standard it says "stereo". Change this to "Pentagon". .

At the bottom you see a slide bar. Move the button completely to the right. . You can close the window now.

- step 4 : Now we'll link the playing in "Audio File Player" with the recording in "Audio File Recorder" . Goto the "Tools" menu and chose "Parameters".

In the "source" window, select "Audio File Player", "playing" and then in the target windows select "Audio File Recorder", "recording". Now click on "Link". . You can close the window.

- step 5 : In the "file" menu chose "Save as" and save it with the name "stereo2surround.bidule".

Setup is finished !

06. CONVERSION TO AMBISONIC

- step 1 : Double-click on "Audio File Player". In the opened player, click on the most right square at the bottom (blue down pointing arrow) and select a stereo wav .


Close the Player.
- step 2 : Double-click on "Audio File Recorder". In the recorder window you can chose the name of your output file. . I gave it the name "result.wav"


Close the Recorder.
- step 3 : Press the Signal Processing Button (6th icon from the left in the toolbar)
The small red square on top of the icon , turns into a green one... .


- step 4 : open the "Audio File Player" and click on "Play". .

The process starts........
When the process is finished, you'll end up with "result.wav" which is a Wav file containing 6 channels.

Time for a DSPGuru tool :-)

Goto the directory where you have those tools and run Besweet with this line when you want to have 6 mono wavs in 44.1 Khz (for DTS CD): (of course you need to replace my L:\stereo2surround directory and my result.wav and my temp- prefix, with your own choices !)
BeSweet.exe -core( -input L:\stereo2surround\result.wav -output L:\stereo2surround\temp- -type wav -6ch ) -ota( -G max ).


Now go to your directory and........... there they are..... ! : 6 complete mono files !

Ready to encode to DTS CD or when you used 48 Khz one : AC3 or DTS stream .

FINISHED !!!!!

07. PECULIARITIES

- When you use Bidule for a second time, you will see it doesn't come back with your last settings. You have to reload these. In "05. Install and Setup " we saved our settings under the name "stereo2surround.bidule". Goto the "file" menu, chose "open" and load in "stereo2surround.bidule".

- You can avoid this by going to the "edit" menu and chose "Set current patch as default".

Every next time you start Bidule, it will start with "our" screen.

- Some individual modules on your screen, didn't save their settings too :-( . So you have to redo them.
>> bfprocedit : you have to place the wheels again in their desired positions. (see above)

>> emigrator : chose Pentagon again and move slider to the right (see above)

>> link and samplerate : check both to be certain they are set as intended
>> Audio File Player and Audio File Recorder : Of course you need to give new names for your original and end result wave's. (see above)

08. TIPS AND TRUCS

- Don't like the sound of the end result : Experiment
Every module has a lot of settings. The settings in this guide are the ones we prefer. You can change them and always can go back to the defaults of this guide. Or add other modules ! Just experiment !!
- You can listen to the results of every small change in the settings in real-time ! Add the "Microsoft Sound Mapper" from the "Palette" window,

"Audio Devices", "Output", "MME", "Microsoft Sound mapper" to the main screen and connect it to 4 outputs of "emigrator". From the output of "emigrator" you now have 9 connections. 5 to the "Audio File Recorder" and 4 to the "Microsoft Sound mapper". Start these 4 connections at position 2. Pos. 1 stays empty. Pos. 2 and 3 connect to Pos. 1 of the "Microsoft Sound mapper" and Pos. 4 and 5 to Pos. 2 of the "Microsoft Sound mapper". A picture makes it a lot more clear :-)


09. END

If you still have questions or remarks..... Just post them here.

Have a fun time !!! We did !!!

__________________
"If it ain't Dutch, It ain't much :-)"

Last edited by Eye of Horus on 6th September 2003 at 21:59