A Practical Approach to the Use of Center Channel in Immersive Music Production

King R, Theriault M, Massenburg G. A Practical Approach to the Use of Center Channel in Immersive Music Production. In: AES Convention 155. Audio Engineering Society; 2023.pp. 168:1-7. Available from: https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=22322

@inproceedings{King2023_22322,
  author = {King, Richard and Theriault, Marc and Massenburg, George},
  title = {{A Practical Approach to the Use of Center Channel in Immersive Music Production}},
  booktitle = {AES Convention 155},
  pages = {168:1-7},
  url = {https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=22322},
  year = {2023},
  month = oct,
  publisher = {Audio Engineering Society}
}

TY  - CPAPER
TI  - A Practical Approach to the Use of Center Channel in Immersive Music Production
AU  - King, Richard
AU  - Theriault, Marc
AU  - Massenburg, George
T2  - AES Convention 155
SP  - 1
EP  - 7
M1  - Paper 168
PY  - 2023
DA  - 2023/10/06
UR  - https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=22322
PB  - Audio Engineering Society
LA  - en
AB  - The center channel has been around since the mono playback systems employed in early film sound. At the advent of stereo reproduction, the film world adopted a three-channel setup, where the center channel was used for anchoring dialog to the action on screen, while ambiences and music soundtracks took advantage of the width and spread of the left and right channels. Since the beginning of 5.1 surround sound, center channel has received mixed reviews by music production practitioners. Immersive mixers using binaural rendering may not be considering center channel information as a component of a “headphone-only” mix. Engineers working on loudspeakers may also overlook the benefits of the center channel. This paper provides an overview of best practices for center channel use in immersive audio mixing. Various measurements are shown to exemplify the differences between the use of center channel versus phantom center.
ER  -