Music in Surround Sound
Dolby Podcast Episode 6 – January 18, 2007
Jack and Craig discuss the best ways to enjoy music in surround sound. They tell us some of their favorite music titles, how surround sound works for music and how to play music using a home theater system. Plus, listener, Nick from the U.K.’s, ask a few questions about Dolby TrueHD.
Jack Buser: Hello, and welcome to Dolbycast, the insider's guide to entertainment technology from the experts at Dolby Laboratories. I'm Jack Buser.
Craig Eggers: And I'm Craig Eggers.
Jack: And we're here to give you the straight talk on everything you need to please your ears.
Welcome back, everyone, to Dolbycast. Today's topic is music. Isn't that great?
Craig: Music, my favorite subject.
Jack: You've got it, one of mine as well. I've got to say, this whole audio gig that I got myself into really started with my love for music, and I think that's true for a lot of folks.
Craig: I began my career in commercial audio, you're exactly right, and playing on the stage.
Jack: That's right. And I think a lot of folks, when they go out and buy a sound system, they're really thinking, "Hey, how do I make my music sound as good as it possibly can?"
Craig: And with new technologies like DVD, you're listening to music in a whole new manner. You're hearing it in surround sound, you're hearing it in higher quality.
Jack: Yeah, there was a great article, actually, from Beck in Wired Magazine a few months back, where he was talking about all the different ways that he releases his music. It's not just a CD anymore, but he puts things up on YouTube, he releases DVDs, he has stuff up on the Internet.
I mean, there's just all these different ways to release music in this day and age, and I thought it would be neat just to talk about, you know, since people are getting music from so many different sources, how do you get that all into your home theater so you can hear it in the best way possible?
Craig: Cool. So, Jack, I understand we have another listener question.
Jack: That we do. As always, we'll be answering a listener question here on-air. Just email us here at dolbycast@dolby.com.
Craig: What's that email address?
Jack: That is dolbycast@dolby.com. And today's question comes all the way from the United Kingdom, from our good friend Nick -- actually, we don't know Nick, but since you wrote us, you've now become our good friend...
Craig: Anybody that's a friend of this podcast is a friend of ours.
[laughter]
Jack: That's right, that's right! So he says, "Hey guys, loving the podcast, and FYI, have found episode two has much better sound quality at 192 kilobits per second." So, Nick, it sounds like you've got some golden ears. Fabulous, we love to have guys like you listening to this podcast, that's for sure. He has... actually, Craig, Nick has two questions related to the new Dolby TrueHD format.
And if you've been listening to this podcast, you know this is the new lossless audio technology for HD DVD and Blu-ray, meaning you get a soundtrack that's exactly the same as the original studio master. And so, basically Nick asks, "Are you planning to have master audio / music artist discs in the format, such as a U2 release?" He basically wants to know, are there going to be music-related releases coming up in Dolby TrueHD?
Craig: Definitely, Nick. And we're going to speak about a couple of those a little bit later in our podcast. So, what I expect is you're going to see music videos, as well as 5.1, and possibly in the future 7.1 surround content, out there in Dolby TrueHD.
Jack: That's right.
Craig: You know, remember Dolby TrueHD gives you what John, our engineer, hears in the mixing studio, that same performance in your living room.
Jack: That's right, and I think it's worth also mentioning that there's a format called DVD-Audio, which actually uses sort of the sister technology to Dolby TrueHD. It doesn't support video, but these are music-only discs, which have pure lossless sound. So if you're interested in that, you might check out that format as well.
Craig: 100%.
Jack: So let's go to, actually, Nick has a second question. This is great, two questions. Second question, he asks, "When do you expect the format -- being Dolby TrueHD -- to be deliverable via HDMI 1.3 in the UK marketplace?"
Craig: Nick, many AV receivers are equipped with HDMI 1.1 or 1.2...
Jack: Today.
Craig: Remember... today. And remember that all the Blu-ray players and HD DVD players that you're going to purchase right now do decoding inside the player itself.
Jack: That's right. Well, you've got to look for it. Now, not all of them, if you're interested in TrueHD...
Craig: That's a good point.
Jack: Dolby TrueHD, you've got to make sure you've got multi-channel decoding in your player.
Craig: So, you have a number of different ways you could connect and get the full bandwidth audio.
Jack: Right.
Craig: One is through the analog audio ports, into your external audio input. Or, the other way is through the HDMI 1.1 or 1.2 solution.
Jack: That's right. And you can get the full experience that way. Now, Nick, you're asking specifically about HDMI 1.3 -- which is the new version of HDMI, which will actually allow you to pass the bitstream undecoded to the receiver -- and you're asking specifically when is that going to be available in the UK marketplace. Stay tuned, there's no specific announcement that we can say today, but rest assured it is coming.
Craig: And we'll do a future podcast on HDMI 1.3.
Jack: Really cover all these issues.
Craig: So many different...
Jack: That's exactly right. So moving on, we're going to go to a break. When we come back, we're going to be talking about music and home theater, all the different ways that you're buying music today, and how you get the best possible home theater experience out of all those great tunes. Talk to you soon.
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Voiceover: This is Dolbycast. For answers to your audio questions, email dolbycast@dolby.com. For more information and links pertaining to today's topic, be sure to log on to dolby.com/dolbycast.
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Craig: Back at Dolbycast, I'm Craig Eggers.
Jack: I'm Jack Buser.
Craig: And today's subject is music, music videos and all the cool things music brings to home entertainment, and particularly the surround sound system.
Jack: Can we just start with this? I love music. This is really a true love of mine. I listen to music in so many different ways, whether it's on DVD or my iPod or my computer, even on a vinyl record, I love music.
Craig: And music videos are big, Jack. I remember when VHS came out, people never purchased music videos on VHS. But if you go to the store today and look in the DVD music section, it's full of DVD music.
Jack: Oh, and it's great. If you've got a 5.1 system, there's so many concert DVDs out now, you really feel like you're sitting there at the concert.
Craig: That's the cool thing, and that's what I like about surround sound in music, especially live music.
Jack: Oh, yeah. It works so well.
Craig: Because in the past with stereo -- and forgive me for criticizing stereo -- but in the past with a stereo live album, you've got the music and the sound of the audience coming from your front speakers.
Jack: Yeah. And that's just not the way you experience it.
Craig: No, that's not the way...
Jack: The crowd is all around you.
Craig: Exactly. So what I really, really like about next generation DVD is, as well as current copy DVD, with 5.1, is the ability for the producers to put the band on your front sound stage.
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: And surround you with the ambience of the crowd.
Jack: That's right.
Craig: And you really, I mean you are there.
Jack: I absolutely love it. And I've got to say, there's such a breadth of music available on DVD today. I'm actually really looking forward to next generation formats, specifically Dolby TrueHD lossless sound, and what's going on HD DVD and Blu-ray. I mean, I can't wait for concert footage on these new formats.
Craig: You're already starting to see some releases now in both formats. For example, in the Blu-ray format, there's " Legends of Jazz".
Jack: Yes!
Craig: Are you a jazz fan?
Jack: I'm a jazz fan!
[laughter]
Craig: I have to tell you, I spent a lot of time with this album, and when you're listening to it in Dolby TrueHD -- in fact there's the classic jazz tune called " My Funny Valentine"...
Jack: Yeah.
Craig: It's not the type of music that you're going to get up and dance to, and it's not the type of music that's going to draw your attention at a trade show. It's the type of music that you sit down and immerse yourself in. And there's a trumpet solo there and literally, Jack, with Dolby TrueHD, you hear the brassiness of that trumpet.
Jack: Oh, that's too cool. Now, this recording is actually Ramsey Lewis, and pardon me for being too much of a techno, house-music head, but... [laughs] Who is Ramsey Lewis?
Craig: Ramsey Lewis is a premier jazz performer. He is the man in jazz.
Jack: Yeah? I'm watching video and he's insane! Oh, my gosh.
Craig: It's a great disk and for people who have a Blu-ray player and particular people who have a Sony PlayStation three or a Panasonic Blu-ray player, both of those models are equipped, or will be equipped with Dolby TrueHD capability. And you're going to be able to hear the entire experience.
Jack: I actually want to borrow that disk from you and take it home. But I've got to tell you, the one that I'm really stoked about is actually a new one coming out from one of my favorites, Nine Inch Nails. They're actually going to be releasing some concert footage that's called Beside You in Time, and it's coming out on DVD as well as HD DVD and Blu-ray. Oh, boy, I cannot wait for that one.
Craig: For me, I really grew up with Nine Inch Nails. They really kind of defined the sound of the music that I even still listen to today. And the fact that they're coming back with this just incredibly high-production value DVD, especially on the formats that I love - Blu-ray and HD DVD - it's just going to be fabulous.
Jack: Well, I'm looking for two of my favorites that are already out on DVD video. You know, I grew up with Pink Floyd.
Craig: [laughs] got to love Floyd!
Jack: And those guys are doing Quad concerts, and if you remember quadraphonic Dark Side of the Moon.
Craig: Yeah, they were pioneers in that format, weren't they?
Jack: They were, truly. And we talked about this in a previous podcast, but the new Pink Floyd, Pulse DVD disk, with Dark Side of the Moon. If you've got a Surround Sound System, this is your next demo disk. It's absolutely phenomenal.
Craig: Well, I would imagine a lot of those older albums, actually, were intended for Quad. And now that everyone has a Surround Sound system, you can actually hear these things the way that they were meant to be heard. Is that the case?
Jack: Yeah. The other thing is that you're seeing a lot... The cool thing about Surround music especially, is musicians are starting to bring more electronics into their live performances.
Craig: You know I love that.
Jack:Peter Gabriel was a big pioneer of this, and Secret World Live, again, one of my favorite DVD videos in Surround Sound. I can't wait for that to come out in high-definition and next generation.
Craig: I've got to tell you, what I did, actually. I was out the other day. We have a huge record store here in San Francisco called Amoeba Records. And it's actually the largest independent record store in the world, believe it or not. And they have got a great section.
I listen to a lot of electronica, which is sort of an outdated term. But, I listen to a lot of electronica, for lack of a better term, I'll use it.
Jack: I've heard some of your electronica, it's kind of like doo-doo-doo-doo [drum sound] stuff.
Craig: Yeah. But they have a whole section, a whole section of DVDs specifically for that little niche of music.
Jack: Is that right?
Craig: Yeah, it's amazing how much stuff is out there, and almost any form of music you're into.
Jack: That's fantastic.
Craig: It's just absolutely fabulous. Well listen, let's go to a break and when we come back, we're going to be talking not only about DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray, we're also going to be talking about downloading music. Perhaps off iTunes, or maybe hooking up your iPod to a home theater system and how to get the best possible sound out of those devices.
Jack: And creating Surround Sound from a stereo source.
Craig: You've got it. So much to talk about when we get back.
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Voiceover: You're listening to DolbyCast with Craig Eggers and Jack Buser. For answers to your audio questions, email dolbycast@dolby.com.
Craig: So, how'd you like that high-tech musical break?
Jack: [laughs] I love it, man.
Craig: Right down your genre, Jack.
Jack: [laughs] We've got to get some Floyd interstitials going here, man. That would be too cool.
Craig: We've got to get permission to do that.
Jack: That is very true.
Craig: So, we're back. I'm Craig Eggers with Jack Buser and we've got John the engineer and Scott, our producer hanging in and checking us out.
So, Jack, we talked about Surround Sound and DVD video, next generation formats, but quite frankly, a lot of people enjoy their music in just stereo.
Jack: Well, that's true. I mean, especially with the advent of the iPod. So many folks are actually buying music online now through outlets like iTunes. There are just a lot of music out there in stereo, not to mention CDs.
Craig: And I think the cool thing about that is it gives the consumer a chance to be exposed to a wide genre and more content, actually.
Jack: Oh, it's just great. The whole advent of downloadable music, I feel like, has really opened up a lot of people's minds to new forms of music because they're actually able to hear music before they buy it. It's just very, very, very cool.
Craig: New forms of music and new acts. I know a lot of musical acts will actually put their content up on the web prior to going out on a concert tour.
Jack: That's right, absolutely. And I think a lot of folks would agree that this is kind of the direction that the industry is going. There's this whole sort of Internet delivery mechanism of music.
But what do you do when you have all this music that you've bought off the Internet off of things like iTunes or perhaps you even haves some CDs lying around in stereo. What do you do when you want to play these back on your home theater system?
Craig: Or, for that matter, maybe you've got a home server system.
Jack: That's right.
Craig: You've downloaded the content onto your server, ripping your CDs to your server to create all of that on one convenient space.
Jack: That's right. In fact, what I do is, I have a bunch of music on a PC in another room and I bought this thing called the Airport Express. It's a little Apple product and it's basically a WiFi connection to your PC. No wires. And your PC can actually play music over to this little device, which you just connect to your home theater receiver.
Craig: So your PC essentially becomes a media server.
Jack: You got it. With this little device called the Airport Express. And what's cool - a lot of people don't know this - is you can hook it up with one of those eighth-inch mini jacks to two RCA analog wires that we've talked about in previous podcasts.
But also, you can actually connect a digital optical wire to your home theater system. So you can get a pure digital connection. So that means that your receiver is doing all the digital-to-analog conversion. It sounds fabulous!
Craig: So, let's get back to iPod for a moment. Because people are going to work, they're sitting on the train, they're home sitting in their car listening to iPod. They bring their iPod home, they want to listen to it possibly in surround sound through their system.
Jack: What do you do?
Craig: What do you do?
Jack: Well, number one thing you've got to know when you're listening to your iPod, if you buy one of those little docks and you just connect it using one of those little eighth-inch mini jack to two RCA cables, plug that into the back of your home theater.
Now, one thing that you've got to remember once you've got it hooked up is a little technology called Dolby Pro Logic II.
Craig: So we're going in the analog input on the back of our AV receiver, we select maybe auxiliary one, auxiliary two, whatever it is. Then what do we do?
Jack: Well, you've got to make sure you engage Dolby Pro Logic II and there are actually a few different modes. We talked about this, actually, in our episode about games.
Craig: What is Dolby Pro Logic II, Jack?
Jack: Well, Dolby Pro Logic II allows you to take any source material that happens to be stereo, and in this case, specifically your iPod and music, and it expands that stereo material out into 5.1 or even 7.1 channel Surround Sound and it does a great job of it. It uses all kinds of little cues inside the sound.
Craig: It recognizes the cues.
Jack: It recognizes these cues, and actually renders it on your surround sound system in a way that is very, very, very pleasing, and incredible. It's a lot like how you actually listen to stereo anyway.
Craig: I have to tell the listeners, I listen to virtually all of my CDs now in Dolby Pro Logic II.
Jack: Oh absolutely, me too. It doesn't matter what it is, and you know, I listen to a lot of house music and techno, and a lot of that stuff is just mono. But Pro Logic II even does a great job with stuff like house music, hip hop, stuff like that, as well as...oh my gosh, when you play some classical music or jazz through it, I mean, man it really sings.
Craig: I tend to find that music with a lot of ambiance in it is best reproduced through Pro Logic II, cause it's more able to decode those cues.
Jack: Absolutely. I find also with my stuff, when I...I listen to a heck of a lot of electronic music, what happens is you've got these really heavy mono beats, which Pro Logic will steer right in front of you, so you'll have all this stuff coming in front, and then all of a sudden this big synthesizer will come on, this big stereo synthesizer, and all of a sudden Pro Logic will just spread it all throughout your room. It's this great juxtaposition of these heavy, front-firing beats and this really atmospheric synthesizer comes in. I find that it does that a lot. It's very, very cool.
Craig: So basically if you have an iPod or an MP3 player, you now have the ability to migrate that into your home theater. And, by the way, there's a lot of AVR manufacturers now that are making their A/V receivers iPod-compatible.
Jack: iPod-compatible. You just plug it right in. And I've got to tell you, there's a few different modes in Pro Logic II; make sure you engage it in "music" mode.
Craig: Why's that, Jack?
Jack: Well, because there's a few different modes inside Pro Logic II...always you'll find "movie" and "music" mode, and in some of the newer receivers you'll also find a "game" mode. The reason why you want to use "music" mode is because "music" mode is custom-tailored to expanding music. And because so much music is actually produced in stereo, it's actually sort of a mode of Pro Logic II which really knows what to do with stereo, specifically stereo content.
Craig: This is really a good feature to have, if you're listening to your music and your main vocals are too imaged, too centered.
Jack: Too centered. Yea, it's important for me too. I listen to a lot of, again, sort of beat-oriented electronic music, and what happens is all those beats come directly out of the center channel. So I actually got in there and tweaked the center width control to kind of spread that out, because I have large left and right speakers, it actually allows them to drive more of the beats, and stuff like that...actually, it just gives me more, I don't know, energy, if you will, coming from the front, so that's a very important control.
Craig: The other control is called "panorama," which actually spreads the signal out between your front speakers...between your front speakers and your surround speakers, basically...
Jack: Yea, it makes it more "surroundy," if you will, yeah.
Craig: It gives you more ambiance in the front, a wider, if you will, a wider sound stage.
Jack: Yeah, I like to tweak that when I have folks over and I'm trying to show them how cool the surround sound system is. You can tweak panorama to really make it fill the room.
Craig: I really like the center width control because it really gives us control over our music, and really allows us to get a better experience from our music.
Jack: Absolutely. Well listen, on that note, hopefully everyone now knows how to hook up your iPod, or your computer, or your CD player, or even your vinyl turntable.
Craig: I do that!
Jack: I do that too, and it sounds great, actually, through Pro Logic II. So, hopefully, now if you're listening to any stereo content over your surround sound system, you know what to do to get that stuff in glorious 5.1 channel surround sound.
Craig: G-L-O-R-I-O-U-S. [laughter]
Jack: And when we come back from the break, we're going to be returning to high-resolution surround sound, talking a little bit about other formats that are available to you. We'll be right back.
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Voiceover: Jack and Craig would love to answer your questions. Email them at dolbycast@dolby.com. That's dolbycast@dolby.com.
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Jack: And we're back! We're going to be talking about other high-resolution surround sound formats available to music lovers, and we're going to be talking about a little sleeper format called DVD-Audio, or DVD-A. And Craig, I know you love DVD-Audio, so tell us about it.
Craig: Jack, I'm a big fan of DVD-A. The first thing I would say is, you know, we talk often about Dolby TrueHD; the genesis, the codec, the technology behind Dolby TrueHD is actually what's in DVD-Audio, processing that system from Dolby Code MLP [a.k.a. MLP Lossless – Ed.]. DVD-Audio is 5.1 channels of discrete, high-resolution, you are there, 100%, from the studio to your living room, lossless audio.
Jack: Now this format is a music-only format, right?
Craig: It's a music-only format, and again, it's multi-channel. You know, one of the first DVD-Audio discs to ever come out was "Rumours" by Fleetwood Mac, which was a classic album on vinyl when it first came out also. But you know, the fact is...
Jack: [laughter] I don't remember that by the way, for the record...
Craig: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The fact is, though, when you go into a recording studio and your band, and you're mixing things...you just don't have four instruments. You might have an instrumental track on an album that might have a guitar, it might have a mandolin, it might have an electric guitar, it might have a 12-string guitar...it could have all kinds of other...
Jack:...a synthesizer, a drum machine. [laughs]
Craig:...a synthesizer, multiple synthesizers...The point is, is all of these different instrumental tracks get mixed into basically what comes out as a stereo experience. The neat thing about multi-channel high-resolution audio is, it really frees up and unlocks a lot of the musicianship that was there, that was just missed; a lot of the instrumentation that got obscured in the stereo mix is now revealed in the multi-channel.
Jack: So yea, actually, there are a surprising number of discs out there on DVD-Audio. I was really surprised...you kind of got me into it, started looking at these disks. I actually bought an OPPO upscaling DVD player which supported DVD-Audio, and hearing you rave about the format for so long, I said I'll go check it out.
Craig: Excellent.
Jack: And I ran across some Beck albums that I love: " Guero, Sea Changes." You know, there's just a surprising amount of music out there on DVD-A.
Craig:Donald Fagen's new release is out on DVD-A, and for you old-timers out there, there's always the Doors, their new fifteenth anniversary collection...
Jack: That's just very cool, who's the Doors by the way?
Craig: The Doors? Jim Morrison, the Lizard King?
Jack: [laughter] Just teasing, just teasing! Listeners, you should have seen the look on Craig's face. I thought he completely was...he's like "There's no help for you, Jack!" [laughter]
Craig: Excuse me, I'm picking myself up off the ground.
[laughter]
Jack: Well listen, tell you what, from here...it really got me thinking though, DVD-Audio has always been kind of a sleeper hit out there among audiophiles. But I'm just really excited about the fact that new we have the same kind of lossless audio now available, married to high-definition picture through Dolby TrueHD on HD DVD and Blu-ray.
Craig: The first time I heard DVD-A, I think you knew my response was, "I've got to get this with a high-definition picture."
Jack: And it's here, today. It's amazing, I can't wait for Blu-ray and HD DVD music releases to start using Dolby TrueHD.
Craig: So we have a convert!
Jack: That's right, I'm a total convert! Listen everyone, hopefully you've learned a little bit about playing music through your home theater receiver. As always, if you have questions, email us at...
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Craig:dolbycast@dolby.com.
Jack: That's right, and if you're interested in finding out more about Craig or I, or about Dolbycast in general, the URL is dolby.com/dolbycast. And thanks for listening, please send us your questions or comments, and we'll be glad to answer your questions on-air. See you next time.
Craig: Take care.
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