Getting the sound *out* of the speaker

[Tomke]

The last years I've been hearing a way to treat the properties of certain sounds (or all of the sound) to make it literally jump out of the speaker. I heard it at first in the theater speaker systems, and whenever mr Zimmer seems to be involved this effect is always there, nowadays.

It is sort of a 3D sound where (unless you're sitting on the front row) the sound is perceived as originating from in front of the actual speakers. When I'm sitting in the middle of our local 400 seat theatre for example, certain sounds is perceived as originating from a place near the first row. It adds to the depth of the sound in a amazing way.

This effect is the most present in the very low end, such as basses and low percussion, but sometimes it's present when a clear solo instrument - such as oboe - is playing over the top of the rest of the sound. I've also noticed that the reverb tail afterwards, seems to be heard more from within the speaker than outside of the speaker - like the "dry" sound did.

I'm not talking about RSS, Surround, or anything like that, 'cause I can clearly tell that this is something else. It sounds like the sound is being treated with some kind of carefully set compression along with being a bit out of phase. Almost all of Hans Zimmers massive pieces from lately has this and when you hear this with headphones it creates a slightly awkward effect. This is not something totally unique, because you can feel sort of the same thing from a great recording of a drumkit (for ex) as well. I guess it is also a result of us being able to do more accurate recordings today than before.

I'm sure some people here recognize what I'm trying to describe. I'd like to find out more about it and start experimenting. The problem is that I don't know what to search for

So, now you tell me(!) or I put the to work on you
Thx for any input or ideas

[FredProgGH]

Well, there are spatial enhancement plugins that do an out-of-phase thing to push the sound forward. In fact I just mixed an album and the whole thing was mastered that way (the Waves Spatializer I believe). It almost went out like that until someone finally figured out that it really screws around with the high frequencies, making them really smeary and weird and when it got A/B'ed to the original mixes everyone realized that it sounded way better without. But applied in the right way in can be a pretty nice effect.

[A_Sapp]

That's weird. I remember playing Zelda 64 on headphones years ago, and there was a cutscene where three faeries flew into the sky, all with the same whooshing sound effect. The resulting phase made it sound like the whoosh was literally above me - obviously unintended on their part.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

The sound that is most up front tends to be the one with the least manipulation. So, the idea of getting things to pop out forward is more related to creating a sense of depth in the things you **don't** want pushed forward. Phase tricks tend to push things to the periphery, rather than forward.

[Herman Witkam]

Don't forget that compression pushes the sound forwards too.

[Bruce A. Richardson]

But not too much, or your dog will bite you!!

[tim rosvall]

Bruce forgot to tell you that the only effective way is to have a real pianist, guitarist, sax player etc. suspended in space 30 feet in front of the speakers.

[Alan Lastufka]

Sounds like Q-Sound or a derivative of it to me. Listen to Roger Waters' "Amused to Death" for a great example of it in action. It is a technique that involves fudging with the phase relationships to move sounds around, but I'm not sure what they are doing to them.

[howardv]

One mastering trick is to do manipulations within an M/S chain. Rupert Neve made some reference to the technique in an interview a while back.. http://www.masterpiecemastering.com/interview.pdf

Howard
Ragtime Press