Some could say the Amiga beat it with its four-channel, vari-speed, 8-bit PCM playback… but for me, it's only ever been outclassed by modern PCs running VSTis. "The SID was designed by MOS to be sold to synthesiser companies (so it's fitting that the engineer who made it quickly left Commodore/MOS to start Ensoniq!), and was leaps and bounds ahead of all of the other stuff I'd heard at that point. It had ring mod, PWM, hard-sync, not mentioning the Hubbard-style 'wavetables' (changing waveforms rapidly) that were soon abused by most composers, and it played samples through the infamous $D418 volume trick. There's always someone to give a quick answer, and they're much better technically than I am."Some sources, like the infamous IBM704, who sang Daisy Bell in 1961/1963, were taken from vintage vinyl recordings" Which was the most challenging to reproduce in software, and why? Your latest product, chipspeech, recreates seven classics 80s voice synthesis chips. ![]() Guys, feel free to ask questions on SBU as well. If you've come across some of the Bowie 5.1's that were recently put into circulation, the separation's pretty ridiculous on some of those. When used correctly, though, it gives, by far, the best separation of anything I've ever come across. ![]() "ArcTan" is another animal altogether, and the most complex of the modes, and one Zeerround can always explain better than I do. The "Slice" mode is similar, but adds another "cut" in the sides in order to increase differentiation between what's in the fronts and rears. What Center Cut doesn't have, but SPEC-CC does, is the ability to move more from that center into the sides to prevent distortion and harshness with some sources. What you were listening to with your Aerosmith was full stereo in the fronts, center output from that split in your center, and side output from that split in your rears. It's a different "approach." SPEC-CC (what you had chosen in your screenshot) is based on the algorithm used by another popular extraction tool, Center Cut GUI, which splits a stereo file into center and sides. The main programmer behind SPEC, Zeerround, had only spent about 3-4 months working with the program before developing the first build of SPEC, and look where he is now. My opinion is that, unless you're starting with a 24/96 source to begin with (and I don't even think a 24/96 needle drop counts) the gain from going from 16/44.1 to 24/96 is negligible. Plogue has little to do with that, as my answer to #3 said. You then encode to whatever you want, which partly answers question #4.Ĥ. FLAC or WAV work fine, but starting with a lossless source matters, and picking a strong source matters.ģ. There's a whole lot of learning which has to be done to get to that point.Ģ. The goal would be to make everything free to start to finish, but it's not there yet. There are no outside VSTs used within SPEC, as its all in-house developed, so there's nothing within SPEC itself that will cost you anything. I believe the "your first conversion" guide on SBU has you encoding to ac3 as a free workaround. The only two programs for which there is no free alternative are Plogue and whatever your DTS or MLP encoder of choice is. I have it set so that I can monitor the audio:ġ. Here's a look at my messy desktop with the software laid out. You can get the Plogue Bidule as a demo that runs for 45 days, but it only costs $75, so it's a no brainer to buy. ![]() It looks and feels complicated, but they have very detailed instructions on how to use everything over there, so even an old guy like me figured it out. I just know that it works and works well. All 3 tunes generated excellent surround mixes through the SPEC 4.0 processing.Īt this point, I have no idea what I've done, or how I did it. I tried "Dream On" and "Dude Looks Like A Lady" from an Aerosmith folder I had, and also Paul Simon's "Stranded in a Limousine". I had some stereo wav's on my PC, so I used those. So far, I have everything at default, and the results are very impressive. Of course, I tried it in the past using the SQ or QS script in audition, as well as using the MATRIX mode in old quad receivers, mostly to put a stereo only track into a quad compilation where there were one or two tracks that never were released in surround.Īnyway, by using the tools that the SurroundByUS group has put together, in only an hour or so I was hearing stereo tunes played back on my PC in what I have to say was very impressive surround!! I've never been a huge fan of upmixing, generally preferring a "real" surround mix and not giving much thought to taking a stereo recording and forcing it to be quad or 5.1. I spent some time over at today, and tried the software that they recommend and that some of them have created, and wow, was I impressed.
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