# Upmixing before surround reverb?



## Gerhard Westphalen (Oct 23, 2015)

I saw that Trevor Morris posted on Facebook about this upmixing plugin which he uses before going into his surround reverbs. 
https://www.nugenaudio.com/halo-upmix-stereo-to-5-1-and-7-1-upmix-plugin-aax-au-vst_52

Could someone help explain to me why someone would use it? I was under the impression that if you fed a stereo signal into a surround IR reverb like altiverb it was capable of bringing it into surround and handling the upmixing so I don't understand why this plugin would be used.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Nov 1, 2015)

I believe I've found the answer looking back at Trevor's post about this. He mentions doing the upmixing himself as opposed to the dubbing stage engineers. 

"For Orchestra, a great surround reverb (hardware in my case) will do most of it for you. But we live in a world where your source samples are stereo, so better that YOU upmix them to surround than let the dub stage do it."

I'm thinking that he might do this in case he needs to deliver without reverb so that then the tracks are still in surround instead of relying on the reverb to do so. I could be wrong.

Here's a followup question which perhaps someone can answer. If I'm using EW Spaces with the front and rear patches for the respective channels, would upmixing it beforehand cause unrealistic results? Based on my understanding of Spaces, using the front and rear would place the sound correctly into the room so if you use upmixing beforehand wouldn't you place it into the room twice and thus throw off the realism?


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## ChristopherDoucet (Nov 6, 2015)

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> I'm thinking that he might do this in case he needs to deliver without reverb so that then the tracks are still in surround instead of relying on the reverb to do so. I could be wrong.



I have used an upmix plug-in for this exact reason in the past. 

But I get a little tripped out sometimes because it can sound phasy if I'm not careful.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Nov 6, 2015)

Trevor actually made another comment saying that for things like orchestra, upmixing in the reverb is what he does. This is more for things that he said don't work upmixing through the reverb such as synths.


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## ChristopherDoucet (Feb 19, 2016)

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> I saw that Trevor Morris posted on Facebook about this upmixing plugin which he uses before going into his surround reverbs.
> https://www.nugenaudio.com/halo-upmix-stereo-to-5-1-and-7-1-upmix-plugin-aax-au-vst_52




I'm considering purchasing this product, but I am still on the fence. I tried finding Trevor Morris's original post about this...but I couldn't for the life of me find it. I searched his Personal and composer facebook. Do you by any chance still have the post?

Thanks


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Feb 19, 2016)

It's on his personal from October 22.

"Notes from my SCL Lecture: Last entry : Stereo to Surround.

I've moved from the Waves Um225 (which I never loved) to the Nugen Halo upmixer. For Orchestra, a great surround reverb (hardware in my case) will do most of it for you. But we live in a world where your source samples are stereo, so better that YOU upmix them to surround than let the dub stage do it (as talented as they are, your score is only 1/3 of their focus so its half measures... they're busy).

Penteo is the King of Upmixers, but the Latency is unusable to compose "though". So the Halo is the front runner at the moment for me ($450)

One personal tip, for me, Halo does and they all do something funky to the main L/R signal, so I would suggest, as I use it, to use the upmixer on an Aux send from your stereo source, and mute the L/R from it, and both meet at the final 5.1 record stem. ie: you original sound (strings for instance) go strait L/R to the L/R of the 5.1 stem, and the Halo plug ONLY adds the C, Ls, Rs and LFE.


Its an HD surround world, time to jump on board.

A good 5.0 Reverb (even Revibe-II is decent) and this plug in and you'll be just fine.

you will LOVE writing in Surround, you'll never go back.
If you music airs anywhere in a movie or TV show, someone else is doing this for you, time to take charge and deliver it your way.


Any questions, ping me I'm here to help
T."

"depends on the source, from stereo orchestra samples, a good 2 in / 5.0 out reverb will do the trick. On percussion not as simple, or arp synths, you can't just add reverb to everthing to make it 5.1"


I'm not sure what exactly it is that he doesn't like about the um225. I picked it up on sale during the holidays but haven't really used it very much. It's significantly cheaper than the Halo. I'm also not sure if anymix (which partially comes in Nuendo) overlaps in features as well.


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## NickH_UK (Feb 20, 2016)

The key to any up mixing is to ensure the downmix sounds exactly the same as the original Stereo mix file. This is something that Penteo and Halo (in 'exact' mode) do very well. It's easy to get carried away with a great sounding 5.1 mix and not think about what happens further down the chain.

It's still the case that a lot of viewers will hear a stereo downmix of the 5.1 mix that is either generated in their receiver, or is created at the dub stage.

I find the both the upmix and most importantly the downmix of the UM225 to sound pretty washed out and nothing like the original source material, and as a re-recording mixer I don't use it.

I am going to test the idea of using the original L/R mixed with the upmixed C, Ls and Rs as I would be wary about phase problems on the downmix, but hopefully I will be wrong! It's worth noting, it is possible to adjust many of the plug-ins to preserve the original L/R channels as part of the upmix process.


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## ChristopherDoucet (Feb 22, 2016)

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> It's on his personal from October 22.
> 
> "Notes from my SCL Lecture: Last entry : Stereo to Surround.
> 
> ...



Thanks Gerhard, amazingly helpful as always!!!

***
Does anyone here have HALO?

1. Is it CPU intensive?
2. Can I authorize on 2 computers?

I've been struggling with this very issue a lot lately. I use a number of surround reverbs and they sound great on let's say a stereo Violin patch, but they ruin synths for me. I really think this might solve my problem, depending on how CPU intensive it is. I would need to use 30+ instances of it. I know I can put it on stems, but I usually have my scores mixed by my engineer who gets multi-tracks. So I would need it on a per input level. 

I might need to start a separate thread, but I thought I would try here first. Thanks


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## dgburns (Feb 23, 2016)

tried penteo,didn't do it for me.upmixing from stereo to surround before reverb....meh


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## synthetic (Mar 14, 2016)

Depends on the effect you're going for. If you want the dry signal wrapping around you to the surrounds (conductor's perspective?), then upmix first. If you want the orchestra to be in front of you with the sound of the room behind (audience perspective), then skip the upmix and just use surround reverb. Trevor uses 2x PCM96 Surround and sends to Halo with an aux, so he can adjust the balance as he likes without mucking up the LR signal.


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## gsilbers (Mar 15, 2016)

yep, this might be overkill. stereo samples to the front which is were the audience is looking at. reverb or the surround from the newer sample libraries to the surround is enough. you can also do a little upmix by panning. not too much though. And don't get "creative" with surround. sending pads to the surrounds and percussion to the front might sound cool but most of the world is still listening in stereo and it gets folded down from the 5.1. so making the mix the most compatible for both stereo and 5.1 is the best you can do for your music to be heard the same across the globe.
it is true though, composing/mixing in 5.1 is great and very immersive.


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## ChristopherDoucet (May 30, 2016)

Just bought this to up-mix my Stereo Synths. Really looking forward to trying it out!


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## ChristopherDoucet (Jun 12, 2016)

Wow, I had no idea just how much of a power suck HALO UPMIX is. I was hoping to put it on all my stereo synth returns from VEPRO, (about 45), but only 6 instances boosted my cpu usage from approx 20% to approx 80%!!!! 

Wish I had known. I almost have no use for it except for the occasional upmix I might need to do along the way. 

I don't know how many instances Trevor Morris uses, but my computer is fairly powerful and I'm shocked that I can't get more than 6 instances before im out of power. 

If you were wanting to use this plug in the same way I was hoping, you might want to use another option.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Jun 12, 2016)

ChristopherDoucet said:


> Wow, I had no idea just how much of a power suck HALO UPMIX is. I was hoping to put it on all my stereo synth returns from VEPRO, (about 45), but only 6 instances boosted my cpu usage from approx 20% to approx 80%!!!!
> 
> Wish I had known. I almost have no use for it except for the occasional upmix I might need to do along the way.
> 
> ...



Based on what I've seen of Trevor Morris's rig, he's only running it in Pro Tools for his stems. Cubase is only in stereo. He had 20 stems at one point so I think a dedicated computer running even that many plus a few Altiverbs would be fine. He mentioned using it for certain things like synths (~5 stems?) so I doubt he'd be running all that many.

I'm interested in seeing how it compares to the Um225 which no one seems to like to see if I should eventually get the Halo.


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## dgburns (Jun 12, 2016)

ChristopherDoucet said:


> Wow, I had no idea just how much of a power suck HALO UPMIX is. I was hoping to put it on all my stereo synth returns from VEPRO, (about 45), but only 6 instances boosted my cpu usage from approx 20% to approx 80%!!!!
> 
> Wish I had known. I almost have no use for it except for the occasional upmix I might need to do along the way.
> 
> ...



ya,kinda thought that would happen.SOOOO many creative ways to "up mix" a synth guys.You know,stuff like (if in LPX) the tremolo plugin does do 5.1.so much movement can be created from that,and so little cpu overhead.that's not even getting into delays.I can understand the reason to hesitate with delays due to the sloppiness that can result,but if you tempo match the delay,even short ones can produce interesting motion.
The other thing about synths,what about exploding the synth into a couple of instances,copy the midi part across,and futz with the sound,change octave,change filter,change envelope,change waveform.heck,change the midi.design that surround thang! so much more fun cooking that way then slapping the penteo "i'm a bit lazy" instant gratification ,but "I'll warble your sound whether you like it or not" across your speakers.
Omnisphere is a 5.1 monster.You can create so many interesting sounds just pulling up similar but unique patches and play throwing them up to their own panning.I could play with that for years before coming up for air (and getting real work done).
Penteo is a great idea for the post mixer who has to deliver a 5.1 music stem and has no time and wants something a bit more discreet across the sound sphere then just pulling the sound off the fronts a little as is so common.


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## ChristopherDoucet (Jun 12, 2016)

dgburns said:


> ya,kinda thought that would happen.SOOOO many creative ways to "up mix" a synth guys.You know,stuff like (if in LPX) the tremolo plugin does do 5.1.so much movement can be created from that,and so little cpu overhead.that's not even getting into delays.I can understand the reason to hesitate with delays due to the sloppiness that can result,but if you tempo match the delay,even short ones can produce interesting motion.
> The other thing about synths,what about exploding the synth into a couple of instances,copy the midi part across,and futz with the sound,change octave,change filter,change envelope,change waveform.heck,change the midi.design that surround thang! so much more fun cooking that way then slapping the penteo "i'm a bit lazy" instant gratification ,but "I'll warble your sound whether you like it or not" across your speakers.
> Omnisphere is a 5.1 monster.You can create so many interesting sounds just pulling up similar but unique patches and play throwing them up to their own panning.I could play with that for years before coming up for air (and getting real work done).
> Penteo is a great idea for the post mixer who has to deliver a 5.1 music stem and has no time and wants something a bit more discreet across the sound sphere then just pulling the sound off the fronts a little as is so common.



I fully agree with you! In fact, many times, when I deliver my quad tracks, my mix engineer will rip out the rears and make his own using reverb and delays etc. I love this experimentation and it's not to say that i don't do it on the occasional special instrument. 

But I have 3 weeks in the very near future where I'm re-building a Very large template (2000+ surround tracks), and I'm worried that I might not have enough time to dial in the template before the next feature film I'm contracted to do. I thought HALO was a good solution to get me in the game QUICKLY only instruments that i want upmixed "DRY". And then take it from there. 

I really like your Omnisphere tip. Never would have thought of panning it like that. Of course. Very cool.


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## kunst91 (Jun 25, 2016)

Gerhard Westphalen said:


> Based on what I've seen of Trevor Morris's rig, he's only running it in Pro Tools for his stems. Cubase is only in stereo. He had 20 stems at one point so I think a dedicated computer running even that many plus a few Altiverbs would be fine. He mentioned using it for certain things like synths (~5 stems?) so I doubt he'd be running all that many.
> 
> I'm interested in seeing how it compares to the Um225 which no one seems to like to see if I should eventually get the Halo.



His 20+ stems are stereo and feed into 7-10 auxes that upmix to his surround stems. So he never really needs more than 10 instances of Halo. If he delivers to the stage himself he delivers the surround stems, if he sends to his mixing engineer first he delivers the stereo stems.


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