Stereo to 5.1 upmix on a budget

[idris]

I'm looking at stereo to 5.1 upmix plugins and so far I've found the following:

Soundfield UPM-1 : Seems well thought of, but almost certainly out of budget at the moment
Waves UM225/226 : Quite a few reviews seem to think it's not that great
Iosonos Anymix : Cheap, but I can't find much in the way of reviews
DTS Neural Upmix : Mid priced and often suggested as "you could also look at ..."

In the short term I need a quick and cheap way to upmix a zero-budget feature from stereo to 5.1
I have stems for dialogue, spot fx/foley, atmos and music.
(Longer term I may want more from a plugin.)

Any opinions on Anymix vs Neural?
And what the best way to tackle the upmix is?

[Meads]

If you have stems, the Waves works fairly well, since you can choose different settings for each stem.
If you only have a mix, the Waves tends to spread dialogue wi(l)dely to all front speakers. The only way to prevent that seems to be narrowing things down so much, that the whole mix becomes very center-focused.
At least that's my experience - maybe I'm just not smart enough to deal with it correctly...

However, for low/no-budget productions it should absolutely suffice.

[nst7]

Keep in mind that you can download the demo's of these and try them and see how you like them.

[Henchman]

Yep. Try the demos.
My guess, it's either iosono ar UPM will do the trick.
And. I would do the separate stems, and combine them.

[mikevarela]

Happy With Neural

You might want to do it stem by stem

BG's/atmos/design separate and upmixed with neural.

Fx panned as needed, foley too (mono and likely center), music stereo into reverbs that return a little to the rears. I'd be careful with the upmix here, listen back if you choose this due to phase issues and cloudy center.

Dialogue center with no upmix

[idris]

In terms of doing it stem by stem, am I right in thinking that means having an upmix plugin on each stem, with the outputs going to a single 5.1 master channel?

Without actually downloading any ofe the plugins yet, I haven't got my head round the routing yet. From what I've seen some of the plugins need to be on 5.1 tracks to start with. What's the best/normal/only way to feed them with stereo inputs?

[Meads]

Originally Posted by idris

In terms of doing it stem by stem, am I right in thinking that means having an upmix plugin on each stem, with the outputs going to a single 5.1 master channel?

Exactly.

Originally Posted by idris

Without actually downloading any ofe the plugins yet, I haven't got my head round the routing yet. From what I've seen some of the plugins need to be on 5.1 tracks to start with. What's the best/normal/only way to feed them with stereo inputs?

Once you insert the plugin on your stereo-track, it becomes a 5.1-track.

[matt-o-]

I am happy with Anymix Pro. It's not only an upmixer, but also a very powerful pan. You can pan a stereotrack beyond the boundaries, and have a proportional level and hi-freq loss - very impressive !

Still not so deep in detail as TC Unwrap (as upmixer), but you can get very satisfying results.

I used it in the last projects (since changing to HDnative) and am getting used to it and like it.

[emilano]

I've heard that unwrap is the best, but i can't test it since im on a native system and its TDM only. I'm using them mostly for music in film (i.e. to get stereo music into 5.1 in a quick and simple way during a film mix). I tried out anymix vs neural dts. The neural beat it pretty soundly. Though anymix gave it some nice bass and felt good overall on casual listen, upon closer inspection its clear that the whole mix becomes pretty cloudy and unfocused and loses its top end edge. It still sounded nice, but unfocused. Might be ok if you don't really need to focus on the music. Neural retained the focus and sounded good. I've also heard that anymix uses phase and may not be compatible with certain TV station specs whereas neural is.

[Serge Perron]

In terms of doing it stem by stem, am I right in thinking that means having an upmix plugin on each stem, with the outputs going to a single 5.1 master channel?

I realize that there is 0 budget, but for many reasons it is always better to print 5.1 upmix stems as well as the 5.1 comp, in the same manner as an original 5.1 mix.

Serge