7.1 speaker placement might be wrong

[Sir Terrence]

Originally Posted by guitarist155

not arguing with you, I have always known it to be the way you describe, however i had a teacher tell me they always mixed the 7.1 with the imax setup and since all the 7.1 mics i have seen agree with the imax setup, I am just very confused as all documentation i have found never really mentions 7.1

and the one article on 7.1 mixing i found that does say the ''most common'' way of mixing is the standard we know however it says that as of yet 7.1 really has no standard and has been mixed many ways

Actually there are not commercial music products mixed in 7.1, and only a few films with 7.1 repurposed tracks. The studio I work at, Disney has done 7.1 mixes, but we followed the traditional 7.1 speaker layout. I also think that Mi Casa has done a 7.1 mix, and they also used the traditional 7.1 speaker layout. So the only known sources of 7.1 that I know of come out of the film community, and their layouts have all been identical, but not the IMAX setup. So the idea that 7.1 has been mixed many ways is not the truth at all. It's been only mixed one way, and that is the tradition 7.1 layout.

[LembasBread]

SDDS is another 7.1 mixing standard with the L. Center and R. Center channels that is also a large theatrical only mixing standard. DTS came up with similar standards that can be followed when they introduced DTS HD Master Audio.

But, as far as I know the only 7.1 standard that has been followed is the one that calls for to two back surrounds.

[guitarist155]

here is the article i found, interesting read. it talks about all of the different 7.1 positions but i noticed the last line does talk aboit a smpte standard that was put forth for blu-ray and hd-dvd http://www.studiodaily.com/filmandvi...tech/8400.html

[Sir Terrence]

Originally Posted by guitarist155

here is the article i found, interesting read. it talks about all of the different 7.1 positions but i noticed the last line does talk aboit a smpte standard that was put forth for blu-ray and hd-dvd http://www.studiodaily.com/filmandvi...tech/8400.html

Keep in mind man, this article was sourced back in August of 2007, and a ton of work on 7.1 positioning has come of out both SMPTE and AES on speaker placement since then. There are only two placements I predict will see the light of day on Bluray. The current 3 across the front four across the back setup, or three across the front and rear, and a overhead mono channel. Since we have already done mixes with the latter, the work on its effectiveness in the theater is already proven. I did a special venue mix of the Patriot when I was at Paramount many years ago for a single theater in Arizona. It utilized the three across the front and back, and single channel monoaural overhead channel spread across six ceiling mounted speakers. Very effective sonically and spatially, but really challenging on the dialog so the mix had to be reproduced over a highly accurate theatrical speaker system.