Quote:

When you mention plugin, you mean to in effect enable you to mix for the individual surround stems?

Yeah, I think so. Something like Sonic Foundry's (Sony's) 5.1 encoder for Acid. But I'd like something that bounces to straight PCM format for DVD-Audio instead of using the AC-3 encoding.

uncle_jerr wrote:

Quote: When you mention plugin, you mean to in effect enable you to mix for the individual surround stems? Yeah, I think so. Something like Sonic Foundry's (Sony's) 5.1 encoder for Acid. But I'd like something that bounces to straight PCM format for DVD-Audio instead of using the AC-3 encoding.

How's that going to work Uncle?
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Recording Studio Suntans

ok, I'll be honest, I don't know. I guess it looks like I need to get a program that has surround mixing capabilities built in. I know I have the required hardware, I just need software. I was hoping there was a patch or plugin or something to let me do this for cakewalk HS04, but now that I've looked around, it doesn't look like that's an option.

any input?

uncle_jerr wrote:

ok, I'll be honest, I don't know. I guess it looks like I need to get a program that has surround mixing capabilities built in. I know I have the required hardware, I just need software. I was hoping there was a patch or plugin or something to let me do this for cakewalk HS04, but now that I've looked around, it doesn't look like that's an option. any input?

Well I'm sure some of the other guys in this thread like Wilkes and AMR will have some input, but you might want to take a close look at:

http://www.steinberg.de/ProductPage_sb190e.html?Product_ID=2444&Langue_ID=2
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Recording Studio Suntans

Hi,
I'm studying music technology and have a project to film and record a live gig for an eventual 5.1 DVD release. It takes place on 6/6 and 7/6 and is a bit of a challenge as I've never done it before. I can keep a log of the process and post it up if anyone is interested...

tonytones wrote:

Hi, I'm studying music technology and have a project to film and record a live gig for an eventual 5.1 DVD release. It takes place on 6/6 and 7/6 and is a bit of a challenge as I've never done it before. I can keep a log of the process and post it up if anyone is interested...

Certainly sounds like fun, go ahead, start a NEW thread for it here:

http://www.studiorecordingengineer.com/forum-109.html
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Recording Studio Suntans

Sure, will do.

Hello,

After a 3 years long break from music i decided to restart.
Al lot has changed as i found out roaming the internet.
The thing that struck me the most were the developments to work in surround. Affordable 8+ in's and outs on high Q soundcards.
Formost the creative possibilities made me weak in the knees.
Focussing my attention on necassery hardware i got stuck on some major decisions. Nothing new for u guys. U all been there.
My main drive is to create a hassle free PC 5.1 setup.
Not to compete with paramount but to do small projects.

So here's my short list :

ADDA

Motu 828MKII
Edirol U1000
EMU 1818m

Or

Tascam FW 1884
Yamagha 01x

SOFT

Cubase SX3
Sonar 4

MONITORING

??

The thing i can't get around yet is the choice between firewire or USB 2.0
And the choice between Cubase and Sonar.

Eventually i'll decide but mayby u got some small coments ?

Another thing what amazed me was that i didn't find a lot of commercial enthousiasm about possibilities with working in surround. Al lot of folks own surrounded PC's or hometheatre's. Windows Media player creates an opening towards presenting 5.1 media via the internet.
I truly can see creative and commercial aplications.

Whell, is still have to make some decisions how to spend my hard earned budget. A little impatient but better think hard now tjan mess around later.

Grtz John

Greetings Sjoen, and welcome back to the industry.
I can't make any comments to you about either cubase or sonar having never used them. However your choice of connection speed between firewire and USB 2 will depend on a couple of things.

Firewire 400 has a more sustained read method whereas USB 2 relies on burst read. This means that Firewire would be more suitable if you have larger files and need continuous transfer, but then again USB 2 would be better for smaller and shorter transfers, hence the burst method. The connection speed of Firewire 400 is 400Mb / sec and USB 2 is rated around 480Mb /sec, so they are pretty close but really dsepend on the type of transfer you need.
Firewire 800 would be better than both with a tranfer speed of 800Mb / sec but this depends on the type of connection of your AD I/O.

Dude, I am by no means an expert on this stuff, but hopefully you find it all some help. Good luck and happy tuning.

Tones.

Thnx Tones,

U're suggestions helped elliminating some questions i head.
Firewire 800 (RME) AD/IO is over budget.
Happy to say i decided to go for a good 2nd hand deal on
the tascam fw1884 in comination with cubase SX.
The tascam proves a little harder to master than i thought but
i'm starting to like the feel and control of it.

Brings me to choice on monitoring.
Any body any thoughts on Roland NS30a's or Edirol nearfields ?

Thnx in advance, John

I say I'm seriously considering it.
I say that because I have the AKAI DPS24 and am currently running V1.6 and am liking it. Supposedly V2.0 (The surround OS upgrade) may be a little buggy.
I'm waiting out to see how it pans out with the V2.0 users.
Once I get my new monitors I may look into a fairly inexpensive surround set up to add to the monitors and upgrade to V2.0.
I've always been interested in surround.

O.T.
I don't think I already asked this seing as I can't find it so...
Between ADAM Audio Artists and EVENT ASP8s, which do you guys recomend for overall acuracy and transferablilty?
Any others in the $1400 range that would be more accurate?

Regarding surround mixing with LE, I found that you can map 6 mono master faders to individual output channels (soundcard with at least 6 outs). Label each as C, L, R, LFE, Ls, Rs. Route the master faders to the soundcard outputs. Use sends to assign signals to the master faders. Mix away. Yes, this is a hideously difficult way to do it, but you can start to get a feel for the surround field.

Bounce as mulitlple mono. Then use an encoder (I use Apack or compressor from the Final Cut Suite) to make an AC3 file. This a fairly dodgy way to do it, but hey, 6.4 and an MBox... what do you expect?! (I have the same setup)

I also want to know if anyone has determined a good dynamic range for film sound!! How long should my quiet talking be compared to my music and gun shots???

Quote:

I also want to know if anyone has determined a good dynamic range for film sound!! How long should my quiet talking be compared to my music and gun shots???

I like that, and would be interested in what you discover.
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Recording Studio Suntans

I made an action movie with all lots of dynamics.
What I did was compress things a lot.
Then made the quiet parts slightly louder thru the monitors than I would have liked and the gun shots loud enough to get your attention but not be distracting.
Compression helps wit all this.