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Gear / Technical Help => Playback Forum => Topic started by: formengr on February 18, 2005, 09:38:55 AM

Title: Creating a 5.1 mix in Vegas 5.0 from 3 seperate recordings
Post by: formengr on February 18, 2005, 09:38:55 AM

I've searched and see nothing relevant to what I'm trying to do and this seems the bext forum to post in, so here goes.

This is my 1st foray into a surround mix which will end up as an alternate audio source on a DVD (Vegas makes a matrix pretty easy and it will be the the mian audio source).  I've got 3 seperate recordings I want to createa 5.1 mix from using Vegas 5.0.  The following makes sense to me and is what I've done so far. 

For two of the recordings I chose the individual l/r channels and placed them as individual trax on the time line making them front l/r and rear l/r (letting Vegas perform the seperation to individual l/r - not prerendered l/r wav's stuck into Vegas), mono'd another to be the center channel & mono'd one of the others that has the best bass as the sub channel.  I then panned each of those completely into the apprpriate surround channel.  Like i said, this all makes sense to me and i know i could "pull back" an individual track and pan it more (make it come through the other channels, not just the one).  Anyone have any tips/tricks as to how better to do this?  Thanks in advance for anyone's advice.

Title: Re: Creating a 5.1 mix in Vegas 5.0 from 3 seperate recordings
Post by: MattD on February 18, 2005, 01:18:39 PM

For starters, I wouldn't make your center track substantially different than the FL and FR. If they're from two different sources, a pan across the front would likely change timbre in the middle.

Title: Re: Creating a 5.1 mix in Vegas 5.0 from 3 seperate recordings
Post by: formengr on February 18, 2005, 02:19:07 PM

So you're suggesting to "pull the center back" and let it into the front left and right?

Title: Re: Creating a 5.1 mix in Vegas 5.0 from 3 seperate recordings
Post by: MattD on February 18, 2005, 04:10:39 PM

I've never done this, so this is a "use your ears" warning ... but without a true center source, I'd just sum FL+FR to mono and keep the levels consistent.

Title: Re: Creating a 5.1 mix in Vegas 5.0 from 3 seperate recordings
Post by: dmonterisi on February 19, 2005, 08:38:23 AM

i haven't done it either, but based on discs i've heard, why not eliminate the center channel altogether and make it a 4.1 mix?  I personally don't like the center channel in audio recordings; I think it muddies up the soundstage quite a bit.  also, shouldn't you run a low pass filter over the sub channel so that it only contains LF information?

Title: Re: Creating a 5.1 mix in Vegas 5.0 from 3 seperate recordings
Post by: formengr on February 19, 2005, 09:39:58 AM

The sub channel is set up like that.

I like the idea of all the discrete channels myself, I just wonder if it's the optimal way to approach it.  I know it's all in the ears, but other's experience is usually pretty valuable so...