Isolating dialogue/vocals to only center channel?

[lemansfanatic]

Hello, I am trying to make the dialogue come out of only the center channel, as it is setup now the dialogue comes out of all 3 front speakers and really bothers me. I have a Sony STR-DG600 7.1 Channel Home Theater Receiver and use toslink from my cable box input. I've checked my cable box and it is set to output Dolby, and my AVR is set to Prologic movies, but the voices still come out of the left, right and center channels. I like the vocals coming out of only the center because not only is that what its designed to do and sounds natural to me, but this way when I watch racing I can lower the center channel volume and cut out all the talking and just hear the cars engines. Don't know what I am missing here or if there is a separate DAC that would help make life easier, please help. Thanks

 

[McR]

The only way i know of doing that is to get more speakers & put them out of phase ,anything paned to the center will be canceled ,speech,vocals,guitar solo's ect. Thats how karaoke machines remove the vocals. Just get another center & wire it out of phase.

 

[lemansfanatic]

No, I can control the levels of each channel independently so as long as the vocals are directed through the center channel, all I have to do is go into the menu and turn the center channel level down below 0. Its isolating the dialogue to only the center channel that is my problem.

 

[markw]

No, I can control the levels of each channel independently so as long as the vocals are directed through the center channel, all I have to do is go into the menu and turn the center channel level down below 0.

This is as it should be.

Its isolating the dialogue to only the center channel that is my problem.

Unfortunatly for you, this also is as it should be. We have no conrol over wat comes from what channel no matter what system we have. The mix engineer who made the DVD, broadcaast, whatever, is the one that controls what sounds come from what channels, not us.

You are expecting too much from your system.

 

[Pyrrho]

Your receiver should be set to "A.F.D. AUTO" if you are getting a Dolby Digital input (see page 55 of your manual). That way, it will output the channels as they are sent. Setting your receiver to "PRO LOGIC II MOVIE" does processing to the input signal.

Now, if they put dialog in the right or left channels, doing this switch will not put all of the dialog in the center. But it will not be redirecting anything from one channel to another with the "A.F.D. AUTO" setting.


If you really want to get rid of dialog anyway, there is a way to do it (to some degree or other), but it will be expensive and bothersome. There is pro gear that is sold to remove vocals from music, and you could put such a device in the signal chain. If you wanted to buy the minimum amount of gear for this, you would probably use the analog outputs of your cable box (if it has them), send that to the device for removing vocals, and then send its output to (probably analog) inputs on your receiver, to which you then apply Dolby Pro Logic or whatever processing you want, if you want some degree of surround sound.

 

[mtrycrafts]

Hello, I am trying to make the dialogue come out of only the center channel, as it is setup now the dialogue comes out of all 3 front speakers and really bothers me. I have a Sony STR-DG600 7.1 Channel Home Theater Receiver and use toslink from my cable box input. I've checked my cable box and it is set to output Dolby, and my AVR is set to Prologic movies, but the voices still come out of the left, right and center channels. I like the vocals coming out of only the center because not only is that what its designed to do and sounds natural to me, but this way when I watch racing I can lower the center channel volume and cut out all the talking and just hear the cars engines. Don't know what I am missing here or if there is a separate DAC that would help make life easier, please help. Thanks

A question: when you say it dialogue comes out of the three front channels, does this happen simultaneously or perhaps follows the TV action being played.
The front three channels and any surround channel should be all level matched.
If you want to eliminate the dialogue from the center channel at time, you will need to shut that speaker off or lower the volume as you are doing.

Now, as others have mentioned, the way the program was recorded matters and dialogue may bleed into all three channels.

 

[lemansfanatic]

Thanks for all the replies. markw, I believe you are right. In the past I was able to accomplish this because the races were all broadcast on SpeedChannel in 5.1 surround, now that F1 is on NBC Sports Network, they only broadcast in stereo (which is lame considering their budget compared to Speeds...) I guess I was expecting too much from my system to be able to overcome this with internal processing alone. And thank you Pyrrho for suggesting the AFD auto, I had indeed tried that one also to no avail, but appreciate your efforts everyone to help.