Before I ramble, I have Sony Vegas 5 (which has surround sound mixing options) and adobe audition 1.5.

Just to get something out of the way, tracks are different from channels right? Because for video editing i've been taking stereo material and throwing it on one track and it works just fine yet at the sametime I hear people refer to 5.1 as 6 tracks of audio instead of 6 channels and all that hooha.

I want to start practicing mixing in 5.1 .ac3 but I really have no Idea what im doing. I mean I can wing levels and what not but if anyone knows of some standards, tips, guides as far as how to go about making a 5.1 mix that'd be great.

As far as channels, does the .1 count as a channel or what because I know recievers/pre-amps tell the speakers when to cut off bass and let the sub handle it.

Any Adobe Audition specific panning and fading guides would help to. I'm havin a hard time doing manually panning, I can only use their presets so far. For instance I can use their Left to Right speaker thing, but if an object moves slower or faster or comes from wider to closer then I have to take it into my own hands which I havent figure dout how to do yet.

Does adding audio tracks that have no audio material in them create a bigger file size? What's the most audio tracks you guys have ever used?

What program do you use for editing/mixing?

Before worrying about mixing 5.1, I'd concentrate on gettiing good stereo mixes!

This article may help give you some tips: Mixing 101
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Bruce Valeriani - Mix Engineer

Hey Bruce!

Just noticed your message, great to have you "on board".
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Tom Volpicelli
The Mastering House Inc.
http://www.masteringhouse.com
CD Mastering and Media Production Services

Thanks Tom - yeah - I check-in here periodically -- it's a nice site (far less of the "wild west" than other sites!)
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Bruce Valeriani - Mix Engineer

I'll try to answer some of these questions the best I can.

The terms channels and tracks can sometimes be interchangeable, but really they probably shouldn't be. Tracks are played through channels. You play a 24-track tape through a 24-channel board. So like when mixing on a 48-channel board, you can only have a maximum of 48 tracks playing at once. However, you then mix down to a 2-channel or a 6-channel (5.1 surround) mix. But then those mixes are made in two 2 tracks or 6 tracks respectively. --I hope that makes as much sense in writing as it does in my own head

I still have not had the opportunity to mix in 5.1 surround, so I don't have any tips for you there, but to answer what the .1 is in 5.1 -- the 5 means you have 5 main speakers and the 1 means one subwoofer. For example you may have heard of 10.2 surroud. that has 10 speakers plus 2 subs. So the number of channels is determined by adding the two numbers together. 5.1 has 6 channesl, and the 10.2 would have 12 channels.


That any help?