Upconverting Stereo sound to Surround 5.1 or higher?

Question

Does something of the sort exist for linux? I'm just having a hard time living without the "CMSS-3D" feature of the windows soundblaster drivers. They also have an alternative called DTS:Connect which includes DTS:Neo PC (which i could use) and DTS:Interactive, is there any way to utilize those functions of my card?
Creative's Crystalizer and Sound Volume Management i can live without in fact i can live without everything except equalizer and Stereo to Surround conversion, it's the latter i'm having a hard time finding on linux, do you know any solution to this problem?
Last edited by rabcor (2013-11-03 17:18:41)

Answer 1

That's one useful sig you've got there , Thanks!
Right now i'm just focusing on converting stereo sound into 5.1, i'll need to play a bit with the config file (since i have very rarely configured it) to test that function though so i don't know yet if i need any additional effects or distortion, but it would be nice to know about which ones are available, i quite like tweaking my sound to perfection, thats why i even have a soundblaster card to begin with.
Quoting Wikipedia on an effect that i do like to use (Crystalizer, but as i said before i don't think it's something really important to me)
Creative Labs states that the primary function of the Crystalizer is to "restore portions of the sound which were lost during compression". The "compression" that is meant here is not the digital file-size reduction achieved by digital audio data compression technologies like for example mp3. Rather, the idea is to reverse the effects of dynamic range compression, an analog technique that was and is used during the production of most 1990s and newer Audio CDs (with the exception of some classical music recordings) to make them sound louder at the same volume level setting, as it was found that subjectively louder CDs get more airplay and sell better. To achieve this loudness without introducing strong distortion, points in the signal where the volume reaches a maximum are compressed (which means in this case: reduced in volume), then the whole signal is multiplied by a factor so that the maximum volume is reached again. After this, the music as a whole is louder than it was before, but the maximum volume points (mostly transients) are not as pronounced as they were before. Since this whole process is done before the final Audio CD is recorded, its effect is equally present in uncompressed audio files created from such a CD, in lossless compressed audio made from the CD, as well as in lossy compressed audio from that same CD. Transients are typically found in percussive sounds, in plosive consonants of voice recordings, and during the first few milliseconds (the so called attack phase) of non-percussive instrument sounds. All these tend to be somewhat muffled by dynamic range compression.
To undo this effect, the Crystalizer uses a multiband compander (compressor/expander) with dynamically adjusted compression/expansion. Its main function is to detect transients and to increase their relative volume level. As a consequence of enabling the Crystalizer, the signal is altered, and whether the result improves upon the input audio is purely a matter of perception and can depend on the type of audio being played.
Last edited by rabcor (2013-10-29 21:37:47)