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Is this possible?

no

you could mix in surround but it would be infront and behind, not up and down. if u do that keep in mind most ppl wont be listening to it on a surround system :/

Err, moving something up and down in the mix would be done with frequencies... Bass is low and treble is high.

hudson wrote:Err, moving something up and down in the mix would be done with frequencies... Bass is low and treble is high.

I hope you're kidding.

thats basically true, more or less.
i believe you would achieve this effect with a combination of subtle panning, volume, reverb and filter automation

The reason it is possible to pan left or right is because generally there are two speakers present in a system, one to the left and one to the right. panning up and down would be pointless even if it were possible because nobody is going to listen to it on a setup where they have a speaker on the ceiling and another underneath them. The closest you could get is by as mentioned by Hudson splitting it into frequencies as generally there is one tweeter that handles high frequencies at the top of a speaker and a woofer that handles mids/lows at the bottom although in the grand scheme of things when you're sat 4 feet back from your speakers you aren't going to notice that a certain sound is coming from 5cm higher than another... so basically no.

On a similar note, has anyone got tips for making sounds sound like they are coming from behind?

Games like skyrim tend to have L/R panning as you move around, but if you turn your back on the person speaking the sound changes too.

Is it more of a psychological thing because you can see the screen or are there effects in play that make it more realistic?

For panning up and down, I think that has to do with phasing or some shit. I've heard it done.

For panning back and forth, I think that has to do with reverb, like have it dry 80% and wet 30% or some shit and just mess with it.

The sound from behind is possible. I'm not an expert in psychoacoustics but we detect the direction of sounds by the difference in volume (panning) and difference in timing (phase). You'll have to research about it or maybe there's some plugin around.

Mind that changing phase can have an adverse effect playing live, especially because the positioning of the listeners varies pretty much.

Sound from Up/Down I'm not sure if it's possible.

EDIT: Found it, google Binaural Spatializer, it's the name of the "tech".

its as simple as a filter sweep
yes its true tweeters are on top of a typical speaker system but it has more to do with the brains perception
higher frequencies are "upper" and bottom frequencies are "lower" as we perceive them.

Combine the filter automation with subtle movement from one side to the other, and distance coming from reverb and volume automation
Maybe even automate the amount of compression, as that has to do with how "forward" something is in the mix

if you experiment with enough variables, you could definitely achieve an up and down effect
i guarantee Kaiori Breathe knows how

you can pan it left and right, and then tell everyone who listens to it to stack their speakers

skimpi wrote:you can pan it left and right, and then tell everyone who listens to it to stack their speakers

This.

DubMikey wrote:

hudson wrote:Err, moving something up and down in the mix would be done with frequencies... Bass is low and treble is high.

I hope you're kidding.

Well obviously you'd have to match it with volume and stuff, but that's really the only way I can think of. Panning is left and right, verb is front and back, volume + frequency is up and down. Makes sense to me.

reverb is correct but volume is the most important for distance

frequency is correct for vertical movement.. think about it... why do you think a riser's called a riser??
it just helps translate that motion to the listener by reinforcing the perception of movement -- including distance and horizontal movement as well..
there's a short answer to the question "which variable best affects height perception" ("frequency range") and then there's a long answer to the longer question -- "what can i do to make the listener hear this moving upward or downward"

i think with frequency, its more of a metaphorical up and down. like if you have a high frequency sound, you imagine in sitting on top of a low freq sound. also with reverb it can be confusing if you say front to back, cos someone mentioned about getting a sound from behind, reverb wont do this. it will only help with making sounds seem further away.

well yeah of course its not going to actually move the sound's center upward or downward
but record producers and mix engineers for movies and shit (not surround mixes -- dunno anything about that) do stuff like this all the time .. like hmm, i need the listener to be underwater when this character jumps in the pool.. because we're seeing/hearing from his POV
so they low pass and drown in reverb

its not like they tossed a bucket of water on the mix desk, but they essentially put you underwater for that bit.
U gotta use ur imagination n shit

Today wrote:well yeah of course its not going to actually move the sound's center upward or downward
but record producers and mix engineers for movies and shit (not surround mixes -- dunno anything about that) do stuff like this all the time .. like hmm, i need the listener to be underwater when this character jumps in the pool.. because we're seeing/hearing from his POV
so they low pass and drown in reverb

its not like they tossed a bucket of water on the mix desk, but they essentially put you underwater for that bit.
U gotta use ur imagination n shit

well thats not because he is low, and below see level or summat, its cos when you are underwater you cant hear high frequencies cos your ears are full of water.

as far as I know you can use Binaural panning to make the brain percieve that a sound if coming from above/below ?

skimpi wrote:

Today wrote:well yeah of course its not going to actually move the sound's center upward or downward
but record producers and mix engineers for movies and shit (not surround mixes -- dunno anything about that) do stuff like this all the time .. like hmm, i need the listener to be underwater when this character jumps in the pool.. because we're seeing/hearing from his POV
so they low pass and drown in reverb

its not like they tossed a bucket of water on the mix desk, but they essentially put you underwater for that bit.
U gotta use ur imagination n shit

well thats not because he is low, and below see level or summat, its cos when you are underwater you cant hear high frequencies cos your ears are full of water.

hahahaha o yeah.