Ableton Forum

because live is such a great tool for artists working in surround (electro acoustic compasition and installations) and for working to video...

can we have

customisable surround panners, so you select the number of outputs for example 8 mono or stereo pair...then you can place the speakers anywhere in space, place them the same in the sortware graphic version then pan around with a graphical interface! (a bit like the cubase surround panner but customisable)

YILA wrote:because live is such a great tool for artists working in surround (electro acoustic compasition and installations) and for working to video...

can we have

customisable surround panners, so you select the number of outputs for example 8 mono or stereo pair...then you can place the speakers anywhere in space, place them the same in the sortware graphic version then pan around with a graphical interface! (a bit like the cubase surround panner but customisable)

Here here! I'd like to try to get Ableton do allow for X,Y,Z panning, as well (surround with elevation!). If we can describe where each of our speakers is, why not include a 'height' feature, too!

tottally -

a 3d box (or other room shape) where you just drop speakers in and then pan with a ball would be cool.

One neat feature that would be very useful for Live users, would be the ability to change your speaker placement after the fact. For example, you are at home and you have a 5.1 setup. You mix in Live using 5.1 spekaer placement. Then when you go to the gig they have only 4 speakers, so you just set Live to pan in 4 speaker mode and your panning moves get executed in a 4 speaker arrangment.

Or, let's say you mixed in 5.1 but you get to the gig and they have had to place their surround speakers in some weird location due to the shape of the room. Then you could just re-map the speaker location in Live and it would essentially re-pan your sounds compensating for this new speaker placement.

This would be easily possible if Live recorded the aparent location of the sound in X,Y,Z space (as opposed to recording automation in a specific format such as 5.1 or 7.1).

This is really standard operating procedure for surround panning systems...but most systems don't allow you to define the number and placement of speakers. To me, this one feature would set Live apart from the crowd when it comes to surround panning.

Vance

In the past I've used Linux and it's oldschool, headcracking uncomprehensive programs. And guess what? most of them had surround implemented (oh, and automated also, so you could record the sound mouvement). Even those small open-source progs that had been under developpement for not even a year or so had it. Some progs even had a kinda paint-made interface, no manual and still had surround, wow. It mustn't be very hard to implement.

vanceg wrote:

YILA wrote:because live is such a great tool for artists working in surround (electro acoustic compasition and installations) and for working to video...

can we have

customisable surround panners, so you select the number of outputs for example 8 mono or stereo pair...then you can place the speakers anywhere in space, place them the same in the sortware graphic version then pan around with a graphical interface! (a bit like the cubase surround panner but customisable)

Here here! I'd like to try to get Ableton do allow for X,Y,Z panning, as well (surround with elevation!). If we can describe where each of our speakers is, why not include a 'height' feature, too!

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that the height of an element in a mix is determined by the frequency range that it occupies? Although, I'm fairly new to surround mixing, so I could be completely off track.

surround parameters should be in every host sequencer, nowadays...

vanceg wrote:

YILA wrote:I'd like to try to get Ableton do allow for X,Y,Z panning, as well (surround with elevation!). If we can describe where each of our speakers is, why not include a 'height' feature, too!

Do you work on professional productions requiring elevation panning? Just interested.

I'd also like to see multichannel support in Live.

[/quote]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that the height of an element in a mix is determined by the frequency range that it occupies? Although, I'm fairly new to surround mixing, so I could be completely off track.[/quote]

That is, actually, incorrect in a multichannel environment. The frequency range that a sound occupies can have an influance on where you perceive the sound to come from, and this includes the vertical axis, but this is not the primary/only cue that your brain uses to determine location of a sound in the vertical axis.

You may be thinking of HRTF and binaural systems in which frequency does play a more important role.

leinad wrote:

vanceg wrote:

YILA wrote:I'd like to try to get Ableton do allow for X,Y,Z panning, as well (surround with elevation!). If we can describe where each of our speakers is, why not include a 'height' feature, too!

Do you work on professional productions requiring elevation panning? Just interested.

I'd also like to see multichannel support in Live.

YES! Theater shows, audio installations, and experimental music. Yes.

I second this motion. Would be a great addition, like some sort of joystick control feature for panning along the x and y (and z!) axis.