mixing to 5.1 surround

xian · Post by **xian** » Tue Jan 11, 2005 9:46 pm

Hi - can anyone advise me what would be the easiest route to obtain a 5.1 surround mix from live - Thanks much.

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Tue Jan 11, 2005 9:55 pm

sound card with 6 outputs, rewire the project into a program which can handle 5.1 mixdowns ala cubase sx

you will have to route each channel appropriately. if you wanna do funky stuff like a full surround pan, you may be in for a bit of an uphill battle unless somsone knows of a plugin to handle this... otherwise prepare all your elements then take them to a 3rd party program and do your mixdown there...

subbasshead · Post by **subbasshead** » Tue Jan 11, 2005 10:05 pm

there is no easy route
but you could try searching this forum, eg

http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6149

i'd suggest rendering/premixing your LIVE tracks out seperately
then mixing in ProTools or some other app that actually supports 5.1

xian · Post by **xian** » Tue Jan 11, 2005 10:10 pm

appreciate the help - I do have pro tools so I guess i'll export the stereo mix from live. do you know if it's fairly straight forward to do it in pro tools? thanks again.

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Tue Jan 11, 2005 10:54 pm

I will double check for you but I think it may be a feature that Pro Tools LE does not allow, I'll compare my LE and HD systems and get back to you.

xian · Post by **xian** » Tue Jan 11, 2005 11:37 pm

jesus you are sweet. thanks much - it's for a job that I have to do this, something to be broadcast in hdtv & I have no experience w/ this whatsoever. cheers - x

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 1:09 am

hi xian,

i havent gone to the studio yet, but i did some research for you...

LE doesnt have surround support, but i found this article which is also applicable to LIVE.

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/ ... 1115187639

If you have a budget, i'd strongly recommend purchasing cubase sx just as a tool for getting surround mixes happening, although I havent used it myself.

If you're on a mac, I remember Logic (in old PC days) used to have a nifty surround pan which was a circle that you could move your sound around with.

Hope this helps man.

sweetjesus · Post by **sweetjesus** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 1:11 am

As a note, if you do end up having to do a dodgy surround mix, put all your main stuff on front speakers and just have some effects and simple atmos in the rear speakers. MOST surround stuff is done like this anyway because half the people out there do not have the creative braincells to get some wicked surround pans etc happening and if it's a simple project, you can get away with just that.

P.S. What pro tools interface do you have?

xian · Post by **xian** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 2:01 am

thank you jesus. i'm using an mbox for protools interface - i'll definitely look into the cubase option as simulating the real thing might not be sufficient. appreciate your help with this - x