Any opinions on SRS vs. Unwrap

[jimlongo]

I've read through some old posts, but most of them seem kind of dated (before the plugins were even released), and I was wondering what opinions are of these upmixing plug-ins. I've downloaded a demo of SRS Circle Surround but i don't see that option for Unwrap.

I have a show to mix in surround that consists of a lot of stereo music cues and i'm looking to use one of these to give me a surround music source.

i'm leaning towards the SRS plug-in because of the outrageous cost of Unwrap, is it worth it?


Also what in the world is SRS Surround?

[TheHenchman]

Well, you could try doing what most people do, and just add a bit of 5.1 verb to the stereo cues.

[jimlongo]

I don't mind that if I had stems, but this is rock/pop mixed cues, I don't think it would be satisfactory.

[mr.armadillo]

A fun thing to do which occasionally works if you don't have any plug ins:
Copy the stereo mix to 2 mono tracks, flip the phase on one track (which will eliminate the center information), delay those tracks and put lightly into the rear speakers. May sound phasy, but not without charm. Kind of the poor man's Dolby Pro Logic decoder.

[Stylin' Audio]

The feature is called Xtract in the SRS decoder. Works pretty well, is quick and the results seem to fold back down again without too much drama.

[TheHenchman]

Originally Posted by jimlongo

I don't mind that if I had stems, but this is rock/pop mixed cues, I don't think it would be satisfactory.

Ah, I see, rock/pop cues.
I never do anything weird with them.

[TheHenchman]

Originally Posted by mr.armadillo

A fun thing to do which occasionally works if you don't have any plug ins:
Copy the stereo mix to 2 mono tracks, flip the phase on one track (which will eliminate the center information), delay those tracks and put lightly into the rear speakers. May sound phasy, but not without charm. Kind of the poor man's Dolby Pro Logic decoder.

Yeah, but when you go to fold them down when doign the LTRT, things will get really weird, won't they?

[doug_hti]

Originally Posted by TheHenchman

Yeah, but when you go to fold them down when doign the LTRT, things will get really weird, won't they?

I usually do verb, but I recently used the pro logic decoder, dropping the rears a bit on a cue that i wanted a bit more energy. It sounded great and folded down to ltrt (and decoded) fine. I didn't expect it to be fine, but it was.

and it passed a LOT of QC passes.

[jimlongo]

Originally Posted by doug_hti

I usually do verb, but I recently used the pro logic decoder, dropping the rears a bit on a cue that i wanted a bit more energy. It sounded great and folded down to ltrt (and decoded) fine. I didn't expect it to be fine, but it was.

and it passed a LOT of QC passes.

While experimenting with the SRS plug in today, I started trying to use the Dolby Surround Tools encoder to surroundify the music. It actually does a really good job . . . probably better for LCRS than the Circle Sound - at least it is better after re-encoding the whole mix to Dolby Surround, BUT the advantage with the Circle Sound plug-in is that you can easily get a phantom center, so derive a Quad.1 musictrack which I think is a much better idea than the huge C channel that the Surround Tools leaves you with - that would be hard to work with.

The quibble I have with the Circle Sound is that when you listen back to your decoded LtRt the C channel gets kinda loud.

So anyone for UnWrap?

[jeremiahmoore]

Folks might wish to check out Cycling 74's UPMIX plugin. I have not used it personally, not having the need at the moment, but a friend designed it with awareness of folddown and matrix surround compatibility.

http://www.cycling74.com/products/upmix