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USE IT! Surround sound is a natural replacement for DSP which always sounds phony after about three repetitions. I can't think of a better or more natural way to record ambience.
With all of the new SACD and DVD-Audio surround-enabled hardware finally coming out, we have to wonder what you'll really want to do with all of those extra channels. What piece of music do you think is especially suited to five or six channels?
Have you ever been to a live performance and sat right in the middle of the performers? I've never seen seats like those for sale. I think these companies aren't doing their research/market analysis. They are getting greedy, thinking the mass public will upgrade their systems every two years to add more channels and accommodate new formats. Get real.
If the glorious overuse of surround information in many new movies is an indication, I think few mainstream recording engineers are going to favor restraint in the surround channels. For certain types of classical or jazz music I can see a positive effect of having separation among the 3 fronts but rarely using surrounds. Electronic or pop music will surely take many years to effectively mix into surround formats. Who wants a hi-hat ringing in the rear speaker or back-ups coming from behind?
I would love to see pretty much any Pink Floyd albums remixed by the band for surround. I also would love to see Led Zeppelin's music remixed by Jimmy Page. Surround sound it could really open us some of their more busy songs. Hopefully surround sound will be used in a realistic manner and not as this week's gimmick. Unfortionatly I think that surround sound remixed recordings will initially be very gimmicky, much like early stereo recordings with everything being hard left/right.
Where do the speakers go? Most rooms just can't accomodate 5 of them with speaker cord running all over the place and up the walls, a sub on the floor and a stack of equipment. And good speakers are expensive. I just can't see it.