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I was thimking for my next studio upgrade to go for surround(5.1 or more).
how would you guys go about it?

my set up now ofcourse include all CW surround mixers, but I still have 01v48, should i go for the 01v96? or something else?
maybe i don't need an other mixer.

what kind of amp. or go for active speaker system.

and than ofcourse software, i don't think I'll need a surround sequencer as I do all my audio reccording with VDAT.

please give me your opinion about surround sound in general, an about the gear i'll need.

thanks.

I think this is a per user question. What music are you doing? I only record my own songs with a very limited number of tracks at the moment. For my purpose, with my music, surround would be kind of weird. Also, I do not have the room for 5 speakers (and I couldn't afford them anyway - saving up for new speakers - hope to get them this year). And one more. I rarely am in a room with surround sound. Is there any real benefit of the big system, if people are listening to the music "out of the sweet spot"? What is your audience? Maybe it would be cool.

I've found that the Surround Mixers had a few crucial bugs in them. So I would be very careful how much $$$ you plunge into it without seeing whether you can live with the necessary adjustments. Hopefully, SFP 4 when it is released will have addressed these issues (the major ones being STM16S and STM48S only play the left channel when there are insert FX and BUS FX(so all FX have to be routed manually, outside of the mixers. Also, the STM48S seems to not pan very clearly, volumes move up and down as opposed to moving smoothly. The 16S does not seem to have this problem.

The other issue is that there are no Surround Sound FX to take advantage of 5.1, so you'll have to do a lot of manual labor and probably a lot of math to get your FX to work seamlessly in space.

Other than that, I have found it fun. But if they can get the 48S sorted out, I won't ever use another mixer again ('cept for a micro mixer or something to do submixes on drums or strings or something like that, or unless they make a BETTER surround mixer!).

Food for thunk,
Sam

imho surround is inevitable, so my answer to your initial question is a full YES.
Since you're running a professional studio there are business chances à la 'the early bird picks the worm'

But I wouldn't stress it too far - the prediction above is well known and prices are accordingly high.
Imho for getting familiar with multi-channel signals one doesn't need a THX-certified-Hollywood-in-a-box scenario.

From personal experience I can only tell that the cheapest 6 channel consumer amp provided with some JBL Control Ones is rather impressive (even without a sub and at very moderate listening levels).
Seems to be the different spatial transmission which makes it 'sound better', regardless of listening position. It can even be in the neighbour room and it's still more transparent.

I've recently been tempted to buy the 1980 version (Boulez) of the Wagner Ring on DVD.
The CD release of the same event sounds excellent for an early digital 'live' recording. It would be a very interesting comparison, but a rather expensive one, too

my 2 cents, Tom

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: astroman on 2004-04-01 19:52 ]</font>

I don't do surround, but if I wanted to have a "Surround Reverb" I'd have to load three of them, wouldn't I? Doesn't that get rather complicated??