Step by Step-surround mixing in Pro Tools LE.

[nukmusic]

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Step by Step: You’re just steps away from surround mixing in Pro Tools LE.

http://www.eqmag.com/story.asp?secti...storycode=4599


1. Connect your interface to your surround speakers. Route outs 1/2 to front left/right,
out 3 to center, out 4 to sub, and outs 5/6 to rear left/right.


2. In Pro Tools, go Setups > I/O Setup. Create four paths. Label one “Front,” make it
stereo, assign to out 1 and 2. Label one “Center,” make it mono, assign to out 3. Label one “Sub,”
make it mono, assign to out 4. Label the last one “Rear,” make it stereo, assign to outs 5 and 6.


3. Create four master faders, two stereo and two mono. Label the stereo ones “Front” and “Rear,”
label the mono ones “Center” and “Sub.”

4. Assign the master faders to the paths that match their names. Now any tracks that you route
to the various master faders will feed the respective speaker(s) in your surround rig.

5. Group the four master faders.

6. Assign your tracks to the masters. I assign the main track outs to Front, then create three
sends on each channel: one each for Center, Sub, and Rear. Make sure the sends are pre-fader.

7. If you raise a track’s fader, it will come up in front, and can be panned as normal. Raise
a send, and the track will come up in the corresponding speaker or sub. By balancing the fader
and the sends, you can pan anywhere in the surround field.

Tips You can change the output or send assignment for all tracks at once by holding Option while
you change the assignment for any track. Moving pans can be done using automation to simultaneously
increase and decrease complementary levels and pans. Level changes for tracks sent to more than one
speaker may require automation to adjust multiple sends simultaneously.

[wallace]

That's really cool... But how do you bounce to disk when you're done?? Don't you only have a choice of one stereo output at that point?

[nukmusic]

i was looking for that too.

[the1Hub]

all i do is make subs of every thing first. then i have the subs feed outs to master. then i also have it feed outs to channels that have there output assigned to the adat out. so now i have mirror image of the main outs in the adat outs. plug that into another adat connection or back into the adat in on the 001/002 make six new channels with their inputs adat 1-6 and arm them for record. play back the song and you get a mix. it still has to be encoded. if you plug the adat out into the adat in make sure you use an external clock source from a spdif device it works a lot better. also works going analog but then you go through an extra ad/da conversion. the draw back to the adat trick is that you can only use sample rates up too 48k.

[surfncity]

Here is a new way to mix surround in Pro Tools LE / M-Powered:

www.neyrinck.com

Mix51 is a set of powerful 5.1 surround panning and mixing RTAS plug-ins that allow you to take advantage of any Pro Tools system with six or more outputs such as Mbox 2 Pro, Digi 002/003, or M-Audio interfaces such as the Delta 1010 or FireWire 410