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RE: Can anyone recommend a plugin that provides a 3-D effect?

Posted by weltersys (P) on December 22, 2007 at 21:42:21

In Reply to: Can anyone recommend a plugin that provides a 3-D effect? posted by DBB on December 21, 2007 at 20:04:14:

Happened to go through the "Plug in" section of the Sweetwater catalog at breakfast today, seems there was a dsp for everything but what you are looking for. There might be something close, read through and see if you find something appropriate in the small print of some multi effects plug in.

Back in the '80's, there was a company called Q sound that was looking for investors and had some patented "holographic" sound presentation that could be "decoded" through 2 channels. I think home theater added surrounds at around the same time, made it a hard sell I'm sure, have not heard of them since.

The stuff I have heard that does "3D" simulation, or "Mono Reprocessed for Stereo Sound" is usually done by alternately boosting and cutting frequencies on the left and right channels, making the difference from left to right stand out more. Useful for effect, not so good for sound quality. You could easily experiment with graphic or parametric eqs and see if you care for that effect, go for frequencies between 500-5k.

Recording and playing back with a minimum of a tetrahedron (3 base triangle and one overhead) set up is the way to really achieve 3-D.

Binaural Head Microphone recording sounds great also, but requires headphone playback to get the effect, and since every person's ears are shaped differently, compensation eq may be needed.

An interesting element of dimension can be added by mixing the reverse polarity ("phase reversed")sum of the left and right channels to a rear "phantom" channel. All that will appear in the phantom channel will be difference information between the left and right mix, which usually consists of reverb, panned placement, and out of phase information. A true mono recording would leave the phantom channel silent.

You can hear what this sounds like by simply hooking up a third speaker +& - terminals to the L & R + amp terminals. As always, make sure no stray wires short anything. Surround type speakers will work OK, if you happen to have a match to your L R speakers, better yet.

I was a bit reticent to try it when Yanni told me about it mid -70's, but I figured if it worked for him, I'd give it a try. It has worked fine with every receiver I ever owned, and have tried it with pro amps and car stereo amps also. Now one has experienced any amp problems using the phantom set up that I have heard of. It is used on the center channel of some HT for certain settings, but the effect is much stronger when coming from behind.

Initially, the sensation of space the phantom provides is appealing and revealing, after a while I find the effect grows old, as music is not actually mixed for playback this way. Horrible out-of phase background vocals, pianos, awful room ambiance, suddenly pop out of a mix. Well recorded music can benefit, poorly recorded can sound sometimes hilariously awful.

I did put a phantom speaker in my small sailboat cabin, that way anyone can hear stereo wherever they are seated.

If you don't already have dsp capable of phase reverse and duplicating tracks, a phantom channel can be done analog by "Y" cording Left to an additional channel, Right to an additional channel. Use a phase reverse adapter (pin 2/3 swap) or the phase reverse switch on one of the additional channels. Derive your mains normally, and the phantom using post fader aux sends with both additional channels at the same aux level.

Anyway, these are some techniques that I know work. The experiments will cost you little or no money depending on the hardware and software you already have.

Have fun listening!

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