Mixing in surround?

[Christian Marcussen]

PC user, currently using Cubase.

a) What hardware/software do I need to deleiver a music mix in surround sound?

b) What is the principle behind music in surround. Do you mix certain instruments into certain channels, or is it a more frequency based approach?

[Peter Roos]

Multi-forum polygamy [;)]

But I do envy you Christian for this assignment!

Cheers

[Dietz]

Short questions, asking for long answers (and more questions, of course).

ad a) with "deliver" you mean "listen to", "mixdown to", or "encode to"? To listen to multichannel audio coming from a surround-capable DAW like SX, you need multichannel-capable audio-hardware and proper monitoring. For starters, it could be enough to use the built-in soundcard of your PC, with the free "ASIO4ALL"-drivers; it is very likely that the built in hardware is already surround-capable and will be available within Cubase using this free drivers.

To mixdown to a discrete surround, you need nothing more than the equipment mentioned before, because you simply export your mix as audiofiles from your DAW (any modern DAW can do this).

For encoding your surround-mix to a typical DVD-format you would have to have a Dolby Digital- or DTS-encoder, plus a basic authoring software. This is nothing you would do just for fun, and I won't go into details here.


ad b) Mixing in surround is as diverse as mixing in stereo, so you shouldn't really expect a meaningfull answer in just a few sentences. A good point to start reading is here, though:

-> http://www.grammy.com/PDFs/Recording_Academy/Producers_And_Engineers/5_1_Rec.pdf


A personal sidenote: Having done quite a lot surround mixes in standard- asn well as non-standard formats (up to 12.2 + Z-axis), I find it easier than mixing stereo, and much more demanding at the same time. While you never will run into problems like "How do I make this little sound perceivable?!?", it is pretty difficult to achieve dense and pumping mixes like we got used to for rock-music; there's almost too much space to fill.

HTH,

[Christian Marcussen]

Thanks Dietz... The Mix Master (That would be your hip hop name) [H]

So I dont need any special hardware units, or super software?

What about cubase - will that suffice or do I need to upgrade to Nuendo?

Regarding the mixing itself, I hope to find some general princimples of what goes where.

I'll check out your link. Thanks.

@ Peter

Yup. Here I can get Dietz [:)]

[Dietz]

My nom-de-guerre actually is XYZ (like in "miXed bY dietZ") - long story, don't ask [;)]

*****

For getting started, SX should do the trick, up to basic 5.1-mixes. For anything beyond this, you will need Nuendo and an arsenal of surround-capable processors (hardware or plugins).

And sorry to say so - I think there's no other area in audio with so little "common principles" like surround mixing. You will have to learn the basic techniques and technical basics [;)], everything else is up to you, your taste and your imagination.

All the best,

[JWL]

@Christian Marcussen said:

So I dont need any special hardware units, or super software?

I won't begin to pose as someone as astute as Dietz, but for hardware:

1. Matched speaker array of 5 matched satellites plus a subwoofer. For some purposes, many swear by mixing surround with two subs. It's an ongoing debate.

2. If the speakers are passive, you will need amp power

3. Your audio card will need to send six or more discrete channels to your audio interface, which will in turn be routed to your speakers.

Mixing in surround is one thing, and is doable on most decent DAWs. Encoding the multi-channel audio to a surround format is another step, but here are some links for various surround encoders in various formats. There's a bit more involved that what meets the eye, but at least this might be some helpful source reading.

DTS Surround Encoding
http://www.laaudiofile.com/dtsencoder.html

MP3 Surround Encoding
http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/amm/download/mp3surround/downloadpage.html

SRS Surround Encoding
http://www.srslabs.com/ss-technologies920.asp

SRS Circle Surround VST
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/CircleSurrVST/

Pan Handler surround encoding
http://www.sharewareorder.com/The-PanHandler-DirectX-download-76.htm

Dolby Surround and Pro Logic II
http://www.dolby.com/professional/pro_audio_engineering/products_surround.html

Other surround plugins and utilities-- mixing and encoding:

http://www.digitalriver.com/dr/v2/ec_MAIN.Entry11?xid=21257&SP=10007&PN=9&CUR=840&DSP=&PGRP=0&ABCODE=&CACHE_ID=0

[Dom]

My guess is that Cubase can potentially last you a long way (if you can bounce in surround or multichannel that is - I don't know).

I have done a few 5.1 (surround) mixes for cinema on straight stereo analogue desks and I never really missed surround panners and surround fx. In fact even now, with Protools and Logic having lots of surround facilities, I hardly ever use the surround panners and prefer to do everyting with discrete bussing and aux sends.

Unless you want to do lots of spinning round the room effects of course, but so far I have not felt the need for that....

Dom

[Christian Marcussen]

Thanks guys. Much appreciated!

Now I need to figure out how to assign sounds to different channels in Cubase.

[Dietz]

@Christian Marcussen said:

Thanks guys. Much appreciated!

Now I need to figure out how to assign sounds to different channels in Cubase.

I don't understand your problem, I'm afraid ...? Are you talking about SX, or the legacy Cubase VST?

[Christian Marcussen]

@Christian Marcussen said:

Thanks guys. Much appreciated!

Now I need to figure out how to assign sounds to different channels in Cubase.

I don't understand your problem, I'm afraid ...? Are you talking about SX, or the legacy Cubase VST?

SX3

I dont know if its a problem. I havent had a look at it yet [:)]

[Dietz]

Oh I see [:)] .... just take a look into the manual, the whole setup pretty straight-forward.

All the best,