Thread: Making Surround Sound CDs

Tweet

I want to make surround sound CDs for my backyard for 2010. Has anybody else done this? What program are you using? I used Neverwinter Nights in 2009 and it was cool but it tied up the laptop.

There are a few threads here devoted to people sharing their handywork. The background soundtracks that I've heard created are VERY good. I'm at work now, but I'll try to remember to look for my links this evening.
You could always do a search on the forum here.

What I've done is save the tracks to a disc in MP3 format. Then I use a cheap portable MP3 player to play the tracks through amplified speakers. This is small enough to place in different areas throughout the yard without a massive stereo rig.

The problem is it's an expensive venture. You need software at the minimum and there aren't a lot of cheap options. If you want to have a lot of control, you'll need a decent mixing board. The cheapest and simplest way is multiple cheap mp3 players. You can find them for $5-$10 on woot.com and geeks.com often. Then you can use audacity (free) to coordinate the tracks and split them off to separate mp3's and transfer them to the players.

Originally Posted by shadowopal

The problem is it's an expensive venture. You need software at the minimum and there aren't a lot of cheap options. If you want to have a lot of control, you'll need a decent mixing board. The cheapest and simplest way is multiple cheap mp3 players. You can find them for $5-$10 on woot.com and geeks.com often. Then you can use audacity (free) to coordinate the tracks and split them off to separate mp3's and transfer them to the players.

If going the mp3 player route, today may be the lucky day. Woot.com is currently having a woot-off. Instead of selling only one item per day, they will now put up new item as soon as the current item sells out. Cheap mp3 players are almost certain to come up sooner or later.

Here is how you do it. First, you need DAW software (i.e. Nuendo, Cuebase, Sonar, Pro tools). You then need a 5.1 speaker system to mix on. When you have your mix, you export it as a Dolby AC3 file (this is another up to $1000.00 piece of software). You then use DVD architect or similar DVD authoring software to burn the DVD with. Play that DVD through a Dolby surround decoder back into some speakers, and you are good to go. Unfortunately, it's not like making a CD, you almost have to put on the lab coat and pocket protector, and have thousands in audio software and speakers. Not a good project for the first timer.

Bill Ehrsam

Depending on what sounds you want to surround your haunt with there may be cheap options. I used a program called 7.1 Soundmixer (created by our our favorite Insane Genius, Phoenix AU) that I think was free (I got it with Exorcist) to create a cd with 5 separate voices that came out of 5 separate speakers.

I used a wave recording program from Creative Labs to create one file with all of the sounds on one track. Then for each sound I wanted coming out of a unique speaker, I turned the volume of everything I didn't want coming out of that speaker to zero. You save that file as say speaker 1. You repeat this process for each sound you want. When you are done, you will have 5 sounds all the same length since they were created from the same original file. 7.1 Soundmixer allows you to make a single file out of the 5 separate files but retains the speaker separation via 7.1 sound channels Left Front, Left Rear, Left Side, Center, Right Front, Right Rear, Right side. Playing back the file through a surround decoder/amplifier connected to speakers will give you the effect you are looking for.

When I did the 5 separate voices, I learned that the Side Channels in 7.1 played at a significantly reduced volume, so I did not use those tracks. You can use those channels, it's just that the sounds coming out of those are pretty faint.

Interesting. got a link to mr Pheonix's site?

You can PM Phoenix here in the forums. Look for Phoenix AU in the member list. In the meantime, here is something I stumbled across today. It is a link to some Microsoft program that does essentially the same thing.

Creating 7.1 Audio

That's cool too. I'd rather support a local though.

Originally Posted by buckaneerdude

You can PM Phoenix here in the forums. Look for Phoenix AU in the member list. In the meantime, here is something I stumbled across today. It is a link to some Microsoft program that does essentially the same thing.

Creating 7.1 Audio

All my program does is add a GUI to the microsoft Wav2AVIMux, this is why I give it away free.

I'm sure that if you really want to support locals then find the locals who like to rip off my ideas, after all its always better to deal with people who are incapable of anything original, yet think its fair game to copy other peoples work!