Mosc's Ambio VST

[mosc]

[durwood]

[durwood]

[terry j]

hi mosc

joined because of the dedicated ambiophonics section!

have played a little bit with a barrier, didn't particularly get too encouraging a result but nonetheless realise that such a perfunctory attempt is nothing to base conclusions on.

Firstly, to those who have tried it and liked it, how would you sum up the results? and in what specific ways are they different/better than standard 2 ch.

I have a pretty good setup atm, but what floats my boat with my system (and have never heard on any other system to date) is the amount of envelopment/ambience that it gives. So any comments in those particular areas regarding ambio will be closely scrutinized

Indeed, it would be of interest to hear from people who have tried it and NOT liked it. Of course, it would need to be confirmed that it was done correctly, no point in passing judgement on ambiophonics if what was tried was, in fact, not ambiophonics (as in my case mentioned above)

In any case, the barrier method would be a big turn off, so your little VST is of high interest.

Being a computer idiot, well actually I think I hate the bloody things!, I had a bit of trouble working out how to get your plugin into winamp, but am rather proud that I made it in the end. Hmm, unzipping it first seemed to be a great help heh heh.

Anyway, I got it into winamp and it even came up! which was my first goal. Worked and all, but at this stage I was just listening from the computer and could hear that it was working, system still set up as standard.

I'm pretty sure that at some stage I must have turned the computer off, and now for neither love nor money can I get it back into the dsp list (in preferences). I know it is in winamp, cause I can find it and see that it is there in the dsp section, but it no longer comes up so I can configure it (or whatever the term is).

Prior to that as an experiment I had loaded some eq type vst from the winamp page, and it still gets listed all the time whereas yours doesn't anymore. And in the plugins I can see them next to each other so right now I'm a bit stumped.

I have tried re-downloading and ( I think) followed the same procedure, but this time around I cannot get it into the list to be enabled.

Is this a known 'bug' and if so do you have any suggestions on how to get around it? TIA

I'm not sure what the background of you guys is, judging from the site there would be a few professionals amongst you, but me I'm just a dumb audio enthusiast. Which leads me to a question re winamp..is it used simply because it allows plugins and that (at least to some) they are reasonably 'easy' to write? On a purely audio quality basis, just where would winamp as a medium rate? Out of curiosity, would there be preferable programs to use?

Anyway, like all things, it's a question of where you are at the end of the day. If you have a more enjoyable listening experience using winamp and ambio than without (assuming for example it is not really a 'top quality' player) then that is a fair enough equation

Anyway, thanks for this plugin and I look forward to giving it a go. No doubt you would be interested in my conclusions!

[mosc]

[terry j]

hi howard and thanks for the welcome!

my terminology may be incorrect-sorry-but I did read the link you gave. It was what enabled me to successfully do it once. Tho admittedly it was pretty easy once I had unzipped it

well, maybe not that easy but you get the idea.

as I said, I did manage to get it up and running once, but unfortunately did not take the opportunity then to try it (ie left the system as is), guess I didn't foresee it not working all the time.

Anyway, as a VST I did get it into the dsp folder and got it running. It no longer appears in the dsp listing in preferences, even tho if I get to the plugin folder I can see it in there.

I have tried deleting it and winamp, and re-downloading both and doing it all again. It is always to be found in the plugins folder but now refuses to play the game and appear in the dsp listing within preferences for me

I meant to try this before but forgot, maybe I should try the other program you mentioned (chameleon I think, whatever I'll check after this reply) and I may have more luck with that one (unless it's for mac or something, will find out soon enough) Edit..quintessential.

I have heard from others who have tried the 'mulch' way that it can be good on large scale orchestral works etc, but not so good on electronic type stuff, something to do with 'phasey' bass ( or similar description). This being an electronic music type forum however seems to make that hard to understand.....(unless the mosc ambiophonic is the bees knees heh heh)

Hopefully (soon) I will be able to find out for myself(crossing fingers as I type), but what would be that take of you guys on questions like that? Do you find it's good for some styles of music but not others for example?? Or maybe the description given has something to do with a different implementation??

Anyway, will try it all again, if no luck then I may start a thread in another forum (unless someone here has some tips??) and hope for some 'computer whiz' to be able to spot what I'm doing wrong. The weird bit is that it DID work once???????

EDIT I spent a few minutes looking for the 'I'm a complete blinkin idiot' smiley, but couldn't find it.

Anyway, re-read your link (but had to re-download the bridge...prob because when I re-downloaded winamp I forgot it) and this time used the bridge to load the map

Of course it was always there, but after the initial time I forgot the intermediate step.

Oh well, I've introduced myself to you all, and you now know what you're dealing with... an idiot hah hah.

Have just rearranged my room so will be a while till I get the time to move the speakers once again, but thanks howard I'll get back to you. Still look forward to your thoughts on styles of music etc.

thanks for the reply, I promise to be a good boy from now on!

[Blue Hell]

[bachus]

Howard stoped by for a visit and we setup my speakers and his laptop with the MAP-vst plugin and I have to say that it provided the best "stereo" listening experience I've every had. The image is pristine, the speakers absolutely disappear providing a completely solid soundstage over a very wide arc, and the center component attenuation problem of some other algorithms was not apparent. I've been a long time user of the Carver Sonic-holography device and this beats it hands down and it hasn't the apparent timbre/attenuation problems of the RACE algorithm.

[mosc]

Thanks, Mr. Bachus. Bachus, BTW, has some nifty Martin Logan speakers. These are quite fantastic.

Anyway, the Mulch program is the older RACE algorithm with I personally don't like too much. It attenuates the center and has some reverby ringing that causes timbre distortion. RACE is very bad for pop music because a lot of that mixes the vocals directly in the center. The center attenuation isn't as noticeable in orchestral music. The MAP algorithm, IMHO, solves these problems.

Now, about the styles. Most music is mixed with the center having the most important information. The MAP algorithm is designed to reproduce this with as little processing as possible and thus has the least timbre changes there. In most classical, pop, world music, etc, this is great.

In some electronic music, there is ping ponging where sounds are hard panned left and right. This takes advantage of the conventional wide-spaced stereo where sounds seem to bounce from one speaker to another. Ambiophonic will not do as well in these situations.

I'm not sure this is a terrible disadvantage. I find it easier to listen to electronic music for long periods with ambiophonic than with wide-spaced stereo. Electronic sounds come from the soundstage and take on a very nice spaciality that is not possible with wide-spaced speakers.

Dance music is generally composed for a club environment where spacialization, other than ping ponging, is not one of the objectives. Maybe dance music isn't well suited for ambio.

At electro-music 2008 we set up the PA with four speakers using the MAP processor. The results were very well received by people with lots of experience and knowledge. "Beautiful" and "best PA sound I've ever heard" were some of the comments I remember.

[terry j]

thanks for the fuller answers to my questions. I do remember my first impressions on martin logans..very clear and transparent, possibly as expected form panels!

This time (tho I'm sure I can get it running again after learning my lesson..what do they say?? RTFM isn't it?? heh heh) I made sure that I did, in fact, take a few minutes to move the speakers close to each other and try it.

As I'm still settling the speakers into their new orientation in the room I haven't spent the (usually) large amount of time required to get them 'just right' so I was not averse to a coupla minutes moving them around, once they are just right my comment to anyone is 'move them on pain of death'!

Look, very very cursory try with it, but first impressions were not great. I mean it was not bad, don't get me wrong, but I did lose the huge soundstage.

I know that it was in no way set up properly (as can be seen above, it takes time to set up the positions properly even with two channel-gee how often do you see idjit audiophiles with huge amounts of dough tied up in their systems just plonk their speakers down any old where???-so please bear that in mind when viewing my initial reservations would you?

The last thing I'd want to do is dissuade anyone reading this from giving it a go based on most likely incorrect implementation!

So I guess a few pointers on order of importances would be handy. The algorithm itself is fixed (except for it's internal parameters of course) so that really only leaves us with speaker positioning right??

Initially I had them pretty well touching, then maybe two or three iterations of gradually widening them.

A good starting point/guide would be about twenty degrees no? I'll have to get the calculator our and work out what that actually is, and start from there. I vaguely recall earlier in this thread some mention of 'headwidth' when mentioning speaker positions...does that somehow mean that is the 'arc' the speakers occupy when viewed from the listening distance?

Another approach is to set the speakers kinda the right width apart and vary the angle by moving the chair along the centre line. From reading in the past I gather that it is the centre line along which it all happens (ie for two people side by side won't really work, but front to back will)?

The centre image was very real and solid, and I could easily discern sounds coming from outside the speakers (which when the speakers are so close if they didn't it would be a complete failure!!)

'Trouble' is that my system has the widest soundstage I've ever heard. Not boasting or harping or whatever on it, but it maaaaay mean that on almost every other system this may increase the soundstage etc etc but perhaps just not on mine. It may be the very rare exception???

So I am serious about giving it a fair and thorough trial, not sure if I can give you any extra needed data or that there may be other variable I need to keep in mind.

The other side of that coin is of course like a lot of things it needs to be lived with for a while! Unfortunately right now and for the next few weeks I don't have that luxury...in a few weeks time we are having our annual gtg and there are a bunch of blokes coming from interstate and all staying the weekend. Haha, last year I cleaned up the listening room (I'm a pig so made a special effort to tidy up for everyone) but in the process of cleaning up (which involved shortening speaker leads draped all over the floor-a lot of them as my system is tri-amped) I managed to hook up the mids out of phase and as I didn't sit in the sweetspot all weekend I didn't notince!! grrrr.

I'm sure you're not really interested in all that but it does mean that this year I will not be changing a thing until the weekend is done and dusted!! So even tho I can afford a few days for a bit more fiddling, in truth the serious evaluation cannot happen till after the gtg.

Hope I don't come across as a typical pompous pious snobbish audiophile with a superior than thou attitude, I really do want to give it a try seriously so I'm just trying to put my first reservations into context for you.

[mosc]

Sorry it isn't working well for you. The algorithm is indeed fixed on this VST. I'm going to make another one with more adjustments, but this one works very well.

Yes, the sweet spot is really a sweet line so people can sit/stand behind each other.

The only time I've seen this not work is when the speakers have drivers that aren't on a vertical line. I have some beautiful old Rectilinear III speakers that sound great but the drivers are not in a vertical line and this crosstalk canceler doesn't work very well. It works best with small near field type monitors.

The angle isn't very critical. If possible set up the speakers and move back and forth. As long as you are on the center line it should work.

[terry j]

[mosc]

Well, smarter people than me have said that freqs below 500 Hz shouldn't matter in the vertical alignment, but I don't know. The VST works great with small satellite and sub systems.

[durwood]

has anyone else run across a bug with this plugin where if you leave the VST host running for extended periods >1day/24 hours the plugin stops responding or is no longer recognized? It's hard to explain but I'm using it in Console and after a while it ends up with a "?" above it and I have to close Console, clear it from task manager and then reopen again. It's as if the memory buffer goes haywire. Maybe it's a Console problem, but the other plugins I'm using don't do this. I did have Farina's X-Volver do it was well. Very odd problem.

On another note, I think this Dave Moulton article fits nicely with your rendition of ambiophonics Mosc. It's not an exact fit, but still fits nicely with it.

Stereo Reconsidered: A+B/A-B: Another Way of Mixing http://www.moultonlabs.com/more/stereo_reconsidered/

[mosc]

[janderclander14]

[mosc]

janderclander14, great to have you here.

Glad you like the plugin. The new version is being beta tested now. It will have user presets so it will be easier for you to keep setting and to experiment by quickly comparing.