Turtlerock Forum

Over the weekend I was listening to some older albums mixed with Qsound. They still sound stunning.
Was wondering if there are many/any systems here in Oz.
I imagine the Qsound systems were crazy expensive back in the day, does anyone know what they would be worth now?

what are qsounds systems?

QSound systems were briefly popular in the 90's. It was a computer/hardware which performed 3D sound processing.
Probably the best example of its use was Roger Waters "Amused to death", with lots of sounds and effects coming from way outside the speakers. Very 3D sounding.


http://www.innovel.net/?cat=21

I remember Qsound was in the legendary Rhinoceros studios in Sydney, I think it was the only/first one in Aus.
There was Madonna tracks mixed with it at the time, and I got to listen to it on Qsound in the control room.
I never got a chance to really use it - as there were only certain things I would widen in a mix.
It was a massive in size, (a box 1.5m high) costs hundreds of K's, and sounded so wide that it seemed like magic.
Those were the days when a big studio hire was more like $2.5k per day.
IMO, those albums you hear sound amazing, is much more likely the great mixing talent,killer studio's and big mixing budgets that play a bigger role in the overall sound than Qsound.
Hardly anyone wanted to use the one at Rhino - so it sat fairly unused.
These days there are plugins that would probably do similar.

Great info, thanks for that!
Yes I think you're right, those recordings sound so good because of the amount of time and money spent on them. Along with some skilled people pressing the buttons.

Ideally I would love to have some plugins that do the same thing. QSound released a few plugins years ago, some were Direct-X and some for Pro Tools. But nothing I can use on PC today.
There seems to be several 3D type plugins around now, but they look more like wideners and spatializers. I'm really after that "outside the speaker" effect.

There's also the older Roland RSS system which are reasonably priced and can do a similar thing, but you need an old computer to operate them.

Stefan has one in seven hills
He loves it no doubt he will chime in
I tried it for months the boss wouldnt let me by it

Mike.W. wrote:There's also the older Roland RSS system which are reasonably priced and can do a similar thing, but you need an old computer to operate them.

The RSS-10 definitely needs a computer, but what about the RSS-303?

Sammas wrote:

Mike.W. wrote:There's also the older Roland RSS system which are reasonably priced and can do a similar thing, but you need an old computer to operate them.

The RSS-10 definitely needs a computer, but what about the RSS-303?

I've heard of the Roland 303, but not this model.
Looks pretty interesting, a reverb unit that does spatial stuff too?

Mine is the Desper Spatializer 24 channel unit with Joysticks. I also have the 2 channel 'retro' unit.

They're both great however I do find M/S software does a great job these days also. Horses for courses.

I've never used Q-Sound.

There was a patent fight between the 2 in court but I think it was inconclusive in the end.

Stef.

Thanks Stefan!
I've never heard of the Desper, looks quite cool with the joystick.
I imagine it is similar to QSound if there was legal action.
Curious about what plugins you use these days for this type of thing?