Audio Equipment and Home Theater Audio : how is something recorded in 5.1 audio?

how is something recorded in 5.1 audio?

I know this might sound dumb, but when something is recorded in mutiple sound channels, is their mutiple speakers used?

Just something I had to know...

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Re: how is something recorded in 5.1 audio?

I think you might mean multiple microphones.
It can be but most everything is picked up on individual microphones and mixed on a board. Multi track mixing boards are used to arrange the sounds.
Somethings do not use microphones and are sent straight to the mixing board or program. Especially sound effects.
They could plug a keyboard or guitar straight into the board instead of out to an amp/speaker for the mike to pick up. You couldn't do that with a drum of course unless it was an electronic drum.

Sound waves can also be sent to LFE or subwoofer channel just based on the low frequency, or just "cut" or stopped from going to the other channels.

They would use multiple speakers only for playback.




Re: how is something recorded in 5.1 audio?

Nothing is recorded in 5.1. 5.1 is a sound mix. Sounds for movies are recorded from several different sources at several different times. Then they mix them together, and assign different sounds to different channels during a process called Sound Mixing, which is the last stage of Post-Production.

So, no, they don't record with multiple microphones to achieve 5.1. 5.1 is achieved in Sound Mixing, not during recording. They do use multiple microphones occasionally, but it has nothing to do with direction of sound... just capturing sound as well as possible, and sometimes that involves placing multiple microphones in different places to capture the sound of multiple people or someone moving somewhere where a boom operator can't follow without being seen by the camera.


And FYI: Generally, dialogue is the only thing you hear during a movie that was actually captured on set. Everything else is added in Post.

Re: how is something recorded in 5.1 audio?

and a 5 channel mix of a classical concert is, indeed, recorded with multiple mic's.

as a rule, most live recordings that are 5.1 are indeed recorded wtih multiple mikes. studio records, for example an SACD, is (usually) just mixed differently then a regular (stereo) cd.

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Re: how is something recorded in 5.1 audio?

Neil young's concert DVD Friends and Relatives: Red Rocks Live from 2000 was I believe the first concert actually recorded in 5.1.

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Re: how is something recorded in 5.1 audio?

Thanks, I was just wondering about this.

It also occurred to me that the only proper use of surround may be live concerts. All other uses (film, studio recordings) would essentially be post-production gimmickry.

Re: how is something recorded in 5.1 audio?


All other uses (film, studio recordings) would essentially be post-production gimmickry.
Everything is post-production gimmickry, by your logic, even 2 channel cds.

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