Topic: Surround Bass Management

This is an area that RME could really lead the market here.

Surround monitor controllers are very expensive (thousands of dollars). However, the total mix software could totally handle this. It's just a set of crossover filters on each channel that redirects the low end to the LFE channel, pretty basic stuff. And yet the ONLY interface that I'm aware of that does this is the TC Electronic StudioKonnekt 48. I have one of these at my work studio and the bass management is awesome... but unfortunately the interface itself is not as good as the RME ones. I have an RME at my home studio, but to switch to RME at work would require spending big money on a bass management controller.

Is there any chance that RME could investigate adding this functionality to the Total Mix FX software? I would instantly switch to RME at work if that were the case.

You can find more information on the bass management in the TC Electronic here: http://www.tcelectronic.com/studio-konn … class-dsp/
and here is an image of the setting screen:
http://cdn-assets.tcelectronic.com/Imag … ;width=600

As you can see, it's pretty configurable... and yet the tech underneath is obviously simple... i'm surprised more companies aren't adding these features.

Anyway, thought I would put this out there, hopefully someone's listening smile

Thanks!

2

Re: Surround Bass Management

Except for the speaker delay it seems you can do all other stuff already now via the multiroute, summing and EQ features in TM FX.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: Surround Bass Management

That's good to know. Now a FF UFX is on my wish-list, as my FF400 has no DSP. big_smile

But still, a sensible default surround setup would be nice to have. I don't know how much work this is, but I still hope for it to be included one day...

I do all of this in Reaper, but having it in Totalmix would enable more applications, I think.

BTW. Youtube just enabled ambisonic audio a couple of days ago...

MB Pro - 2 X FireFace 400, FF800 & DigiFace USB
ADAT gear: Korg, Behri, Fostex, Alesis...

Re: Surround Bass Management

Is there a tutorial on how to et this up in conjunction with Windows audio ?  I get the idea of the 6 channels hooked up to each input of the 5.1 matrix processor external box   And i guess i can try and route things to each but how does that work on the windows side to map to the right channels in Totalmix?

Re: Surround Bass Management

MC wrote:

Except for the speaker delay it seems you can do all other stuff already now via the multiroute, summing and EQ features in TM FX.

Apologies for the delay, the website wouldn't let me log in (from multiple computers, seems fixed now).

If I'm doing surround bass management there is no way I'm going to want to craft that together with EQ's that aren't optimised for that purpose, e.g. I want the crossovers to be aligned so there's no 'whole in the middle' or frequency asymmetry. This would effect everything you hear, it should be custom designed for this purpose as well as making it 'idiot proof'.

Totalmix does have the capacity to do all this, I really hope you guys reconsider doing a proper implementation. RME makes professional equipment; this is a feature professionals need.

Just wanted to state that before letting this thread disappear.

Thanks and enjoy your weekend.

6

Re: Surround Bass Management

Bass management is about separating the area of 120 Hz or 80 Hz from all the rest. That is 'idiot proof' in itself and will never cause a 'hole in the middle'. And from the very nature of acoustics and physical limitations of hearing low frequencies in a room through speakers, you will have all kinds of problems that are magnitudes higher than a slightly misaligned LF crossover could be. In fact you will be happy to be able to compensate those effects by intentionally adding such a mismatch...

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: Surround Bass Management

Your suggestion requires redirecting sound from the mains to the sub channel, this then requires filtering of the low end from the satellite channels and filtering the high end from the sub channel that is being received from the satellite channels. As a result, this filtering must be correctly aligned, if the high and low filter frequencies are asymetrical in slope/shape or cutoff frequency (and I dont know if they are) then you'll indeed get a hole in the middle or frequency bump around the crossover point.

I imagine that the above probably would NOT cause an issue in Total Mix as it seems to be built for transparency rather than 'color', but again, as I stated before, without a task-specific bass management crossover system, I wouldn't feel comfortable sending all my signals through a user assembled system. It's a bit like asking people to crossfade two signals together but not guaranteeing them an equal-power crossfade curve.

If this process wasn't important then bass management systems wouldn't cost THOUSANDS of dollars. This process can be easily achieved by total mix, but I doubt many professionals are going to trust it if it's not built for purpose.

8

Re: Surround Bass Management

> if the high and low filter frequencies are asymetrical in slope/shape or cutoff frequency

TM FX' EQ is 100% accurate. All you have to do is set the values correctly (identical).

> If this process wasn't important then bass management systems wouldn't cost THOUSANDS of dollars. This process can be easily achieved by total mix, but I doubt many professionals are going to trust it if it's not built for purpose.

Did you read your own statement? You gave us several reasons not to waste our time with this:

- we would give away technology for free that is worth thousands of dollars

- serious users wouldn't trust it or buy an external controller anyway

What can I say...

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

Re: Surround Bass Management

My point was that it's an important part of the signal chain and therefore people aren't going to want to cobble together something themselves... not that it can't be done or that people wouldn't trust a system built into TotalMix at all. Urgh, you obviously just dont have any interest in this and that's fine, I was just trying to have a dialog about it, no need to be curt.

And the reason it should be relevant to RME is because other companies WILL do this and you'll use customers to them. But whatever, I think we're done here.

Re: Surround Bass Management

A question about EQ on Totalmix, specifically hi and low pass filters: i see they have a -3dB cutt-off point, but are they mathematically assimilable (or identical) to Butterwoth filters?

The reason of the question: I need Linkwitz-Riley 24dB/oct typology (hi and low pass) for bass management.
Now these LR are not directly supported on TM... but, if avaiable filters are essentially BW, i can place (by routing) two of them in series and create a LR (with his amplitude and phase desired specs).

Example: two BW 80hz 12dB/oct (cutt-off -3dB) = one LR 80hz  24db/oct (cutt-off -6db)

Re: Surround Bass Management

MC wrote:

- we would give away technology for free that is worth thousands of dollars

And the answer is: no, a selectable hi-low pass filter typology (BW or LR or...) don't worth thousands of dollars. It's a relatively paleolithic (but good) tecnology...and a no computational issue for DSP on TM, IMHO.

You are good and generous people.
So I think you would give away it, maybe not for free, but for a cup of tea...:-)))))))