Marketing for 5.1 Surround?

C

cocamycola89

New member
Hey FP,

I am in the process of producing a solo EP for myself and just to make my life hard I have decided that I am going to release It in 5.1 Surround as well as standard stereo. But.......What format should I release my 5.1 material in? I know there is a few different ones out there but which one is the most costumer friendly? I intend on printing some promotional CD/5.1CD´s but for the most part, I will be distributing this on the internet so a consumer friendly format will be needed there as well.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 
Well producerJC is right in that this would be best answered by an engineer over on the mixing & mastering section of this forum, but since I been hangin out over here lately I can tackle this question for you.

Okay, first off there are a ton of surround formats (6.1, 7.1, LCRS, etc) but only two for 5.1 surround. Now there are different surrounds from old school quad (4 channels) to sony's 7.1. which is what you hear in most movie houses. Basically this just tells you the number of channels that are being used. Of course you have your left & right (standard stereo), then if you add a center channel, left surround and right surround (both behind you) then you have 5.1

Like I said once you decide on 5.1 you only have two choices. Dolby Digital or DTS. Some systems allow you to listen to either, but not all so you have to choose. IMO Dolby is the way to go if the project will be on CD. If you plan to release it as video then DTS would be a better option as it is more accurate.

Something you want to keep in mind is mixing in 5.1 is a lot different than doing a standard mix. In a 5.1 surround system or any surround system for that matter speaker placement is paramount. Because speakers are placed in exact degrees to obtain the 5.1 sound you need to be able to duplicate this in the studio. It is more to it than just splitting the track up to cover all your speakers. Dealing with things like room reflections and comb filtering become even more of a challenge when dealing with so many speakers.
 
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