Surround sound help

Hi everyone,

I'm totally new to this surround thing so I've really been putting in some time learning about it. I'm thinking that something may be wrong with Sonar though or I'm missing an important step as I seem to be getting the same issue all the time. Do any of you know much about surround? Any Baker's experienced in this? Ok, here's the situation. Please have a little patience here and forgive me for any ignorance. I'm trying to learn as much and as fast as I can here, but would really like someone that is experienced to help me out. Especially if what I'm seeing here is due to something broken in Sonar because I get these same results in X1 and 8.5 So here goes.

I have no problems using Surround 5.1 and have excellent results. Sonar works as expected in both importing, exporting, effecting, bussing, recording and mastering. It's all good across the board. So that part we're ok with. My mixes are sounding pretty killer like this.

Now, the biggest issue when doing Surround is to make it sound good on a regular stereo system. This is where I'm failing miserably and can't seem to crack this no matter how hard I try. I could be reading this all wrong and am totally confused, but in our Sonar help file, it talks about "downmixing" which is what we'd need to do to make a Surround mix sound like a normal mix on regular speakers. I *think* I'm correct in saying this or the help file is totally confusing me. It reads:

Downmixing is a way of previewing your surround project in stereo only. There are various cases where surround is not available and it may be that someone plays your project in stereo only. A radio broadcast is a good example. Downmixing is a valuable tool for determining if your project will sound good in stereo. However, you can export your project in stereo, and SONAR uses your downmix settings to create your exported file.

To downmix a project
1. If you do not have a stereo bus in your project, create one by right-clicking in the Bus pane in the Track view or Console view and selecting Insert Stereo Bus from the menu that appears.

2. Go to Edit > Preferences > Project - Surround, select a center downmix level and a surround downmix level, and click OK.

3. In each of the surround buses, assign the output to a stereo bus.

4. Listen to your project through the stereo bus, and make any final adjustments to the stereo mix by changing the values in Edit > Preferences > Project - Surround.

5. If you want to export your stereo mix, use the File > Export > Audio command. This command obeys your downmix settings.


I don't want to export my stereo mix. Is that where I'm missing the boat? Is this only for surround mixes that need to be turned into stereo, or does this downmix thing literally help a surround mix to be heard correctly on a regular stereo rig? I'm a bit confused here, so I just went with it and experimented. If what I'm saying here is totally off, is it possible to make a surround mix sound good in stereo? Surely these DVD's that have surround are compensating for those that don't have it, right? Anyway, here's what I tried.
 
I tried this downmix thing hoping that having both the main surround mix and the stereo bus would maybe help, but it didn't. If I'm reading the help file right, this tells me if I set up a stereo bus and run everything into it, I will hear how my mix would be in 2-track stereo. This of course sounds weird so I go to preferences/surround and adjust the downmix settings until my mix in stereo, sounds like it should.

So I get this really good stereo mix that has no artifacts in it. I disable the stereo bus since it was only used for preview, re-route the busses back to "main surround" bus, check the surround mix, it sounds sick, and then I export my mix using "entire mix". When I play back the wave file, it is playing back in surround on my surround system just as I mixed it. When I play it back on a regular system, it's mono. I have tried every setting in Surround options as well as all downmix options and nothing I try sounds like the stereo preview mix inside the project.

If I'm reading all this correctly, if it sounds good when I send to the stereo bus, it should sound good when I play the file on a regular system, right? It's always mono. I've even tried setting all downmix settings to INF hoping it would kill surround, center and LFE channels...but it only seems to control what I hear when I preview my tune in stereo while in Sonar only. It just gives me a mono mix every time I export and listen on a non-surround sytem. Am I doing something wrong?

How would someone go about making a surround mix sound good on a regular stereo rig if it's not in this downmix option....and, is this downmix option even working in Sonar? I get the same results in 8.5. I'm just wondering if because it's not a highly used function, if maybe it isn't broken and has been broken for some time? That's probably not the case and it's me that's broken...lol...but there has to be an easy way to do this. I gotta be so close to getting this right.
 
So let's see if I have this right.
 
Channels 1 and 2: I have 2 channels...left and right for stereo.
 
Channels 3 and 4: Left surround and Right surround.
 
Channels 5 and 6: I have Center and I have LFE.
 
Files I'm working with: I know this is not the right way to do this, but for messing around purposes, I basically ripped apart one of my old tunes for this and split the files all up. Each file I bring in to the channels above is the same. I'll explain.
 
For tracks 1&2, I had a version of my song in Sonar in stereo with no surround. Just a 2 track wave file. I exported it out in split mono so that it gave me 2 tracks...left and right. I imported these tracks into channels 1 and 2 in my surround mix I had started.
 
For tracks 3&4 I did the exact same thing and brought in those same files.
 
For tracks 5&6, when I was creating the split mono tracks for 1&2, I also exported a completely mono track of the material. I figured "center" and "LFE" should have completely summed to mono mixes on them, so the two files here are mono...not single separated like the split mono files I created.
 
All channels are routed to the correct outs in my card and in my surround preferences. While using the surround panner, I can throw everything exactly the way I want it, so this is a good sign. No phasing, nothing weird, it all goes where it should be and all surround pans are physically doing what they read they are doing as far as how things sound. All my channels above are being routed to the "main surround" bus. Any additional busses I've added also get routed to that bus. When I export, it plays fine as long as I listen in surround and it's quite eargasmic I must say. :)
 
Now, when previewing to check for stereo, I was just inserting a stereo bus and then routing the main bus to it to hear how it would sound in stereo. If I leave the options in preferences/surround/downmix to default, the mix sounds horrible in stereo. So I tried messing with each of the settings individually and then different combinations of the 3. The only way it sounds good in stereo in my preview is if center, surround and LFE are set to INF in my downmix options. So if I'm doing this right, when I export and listen on regular speakers, what I hear HERE should be what I get on a system without surround, no? Am I missing something that needs to be implemented here?
 
Thanks in advance if anyone can shed any light on the subject for me. :) Sorry for the long message...but I didn't know how else to explain it. :)
 
-Danny

No spacealf, the surround bus is just sent to a stereo bus just as it is for preview purposes. It sounds perfect through the stereo bus and the entire mix is spot on. Everything inside of Sonar is spot on...it's only when I export out that I have the issue. At least the Surround mix itself is transfering out of Sonar beautifully....it just doesn't sound right on a regular system.

So I guess to simply without all my typing mumbo jumbo...lol.....when mixing in surround, how do we make that mix transfer in stereo for those that don't have surround?

As for the command obeying my downmix settings, I don't think it is because it's not giving me the same thing once the file is exported. In case I may have lost you....the downmix settings (at least from what I can understand) allow me to listen in stereo and fix any artifacts that would make the mix sound bad. I send my main bus to the stereo bus and listen. It sounded weird, so I went and adjusted the downmix settings until it sounded like a 2-track stereo mix. I assume this means this is what it should sound like on a regular system, but I could be mistaken. So, I kill the stereo bus and send everything back to the main surround bus, export, it sounds great in surround, but mono on regular stereo rigs. That's the best way I can explain it which is why I tried to provide all my steps above. :)

-Danny

No problem James...thanks so much. I'll wait for your reply whenever you can get to it. I know you're using "the other" software for some projects, but if possible could you try to explain it to me using Sonar please? X1 or 8.5 would be fine. Treat me like a guy that's nearly clueless if you don't mind and it's not too much to ask? :) Thanks man, I really appreciate it. That Skype thing does sound interesting though....and I do have it. Would be great to talk with you anyway just because. :) But I'll take a written response for now if it's not too much trouble for you. Thanks again! :)

-Danny

Thanks James...much appreciated. Such great info here you actually talked me right out of the whole thing. LOL! Just kidding. :)

Nah, the downmix thing is something I misunderstood that Noel set me straight on. The downmix in Sonar is when you have a mix that is in surround already and you want it exported as a regular stereo file. I have no problems doing that nor do I have problems with the surround mix itself sounding as it should.

Yep I'm aware of the metadata and the other stuff and had that encoder as well. So just to be clear once more in case I confused you...

My channel setup is exactly like the one you listed. My order is just different because I was experimenting a bit.

Surround mixes work perfectly for me.

Downmixes work perfect for me too. The whole problem was I didn't know this downmix thing was a "bounce a surround mix to stereo" function. If I bounce out with a stereo bus, stereo is what I get. See, I had assumed this downmix thing was what would put the file in "just stereo" on a regular stereo system while it was exported in surround, understand? But it's not made to do what I thought it would do. What I thought/hoped it would do was...I export the surround mix, it plays fine on surround systems, for systems that aren't surround, it would just play in stereo. Not the case at all and that's where I was missing it.

So when I'd play the surround file in a normal system, it would sound mono. It had nothing to do with the downmix settings at all. For the downmix to work, I needed to literally export the audio with that stereo bus I was using to preview....which would take a surround mix and bounce it to stereo. If I keep that stereo bus there, the mix does export out in stereo and work in a normal system. I was exporting without the stereo bus because I thought it was for preview purposes of what your mix would sound like in stereo eventhough the mix was in surround, understand now? 

See, this confused me: Downmixing is a way of previewing your surround project in stereo only. There are various cases where surround is not available and it may be that someone plays your project in stereo only. A radio broadcast is a good example. Downmixing is a valuable tool for determining if your project will sound good in stereo.

I took that as meaning "ok, you can check out how your mix will sound in stereo even though it's in surround. If it sounds weird, mess with these settings in downmix until the mix sounds right for stereo...this way, when someone plays your surround mix on a regular system, the stereo mix will be what they get without phasing or artifacts. When someone plays this same surround mix on a surround system, they get the surround."

Make sense now? LOL! I know...I was so confused, my post was probably confusing. Sorry about that. Thanks for all your help James, I really appreciate it. :)

-Danny

No way bro, none of it was irrelevant! You put a few things into perspective for me and I truly appreciate it. :) Just curious, what are you using to listen to an AC-3 file? I don't seem to have anything that can play that back other than Quiktime.

-Danny

Oh, and I can't remember if it plays 5.1 out of the box - you may have to download a plugin pack separately.

Yeah if you're authoring to DVD-V it has to be ac-3 or dts or another supported format-only DVD-Audio discs can play back PCM wavs...

foobar2000 handles surround playback with aplomb. There are plugins for ac3 that can either decode it or output the raw bitstream through a spdif port to an external decoder like your receiver. And it can use surround VSTs as well, if you want to play around with those. It also has lots of downmixing and upmixing options. If anything it suffers from too many options.