Computer Recording: Digital Performer - Converting
a Mix to Surround in DP3
Abstract (summary)
Presents
the first in a series of columns that will focus on how to do a specific task on
one of the Big Five sequencer/recorder applications - Cakewalk Pro Audio/Sonar,
Digidesign Pro Tools, Emagic Logic Audio, Mark of the Unicorn Digital
Performer, and Steinberg Cubase/Nuendo. Discusses surround mixing in the just-released
Digital Performer 3. Instructs on converting an existing mix to surround,
turning a studio mix into a live
concert, creating surround drums and crowd noise, and A/B-ing with the original
mix.
Full text
Jim
Cooper
Converting
a Mix to Surround in DP3
Welcome
to the first installment of a new monthly feature in Keyboard:
Computer Recording. Rather than providing generic tips that can be used with various kinds of software
and hardware (as in our popular Studio Sense department), each month this
column will focus on how to do a specific task on one of the Big Five
sequencer/recorder applications -- Cakewalk Pro Audio/Sonar, Digidesign Pro
Tools, Emagic Logic Audio, Mark of the
fig. 1.for
surround mixing in dp3,
create a 5.1 bundle in the audio bundles window (windows menu). it helps to
make stereo bundles for the front two speakers and rear pair, too. in some
cases, you may also want to direct particular elements of the mix to only the center channel or
lfe (low frequency effects) channel via mono bundles as shown.Unicorn
Digital Performer, and Steinberg Cubase/Nuendo. To provide the most
authoritative, up-to-the-minute information, we'll often be publishing columns
penned by the manufacturers themselves. But rest assured, Computer Recording is
not about hyping these products: It's about helping you make better recordings.
This month, MOTU's Jim Cooper leads off with a discussion of surround mixing in the just-released
Digital Performer 3.
By now,
you've probably already installed your Digital Performer 3.0 (DP3) upgrade (or
you soon will). When you launch DP3, you now have at your fingertips a complete
audio sequencing surround production environment. And since surround is the
Next Big Thing, it's time to dive in. Surround is not just for movie and game
soundtracks; the DVD-A (audio-only DVD disc) format is now gaining speed.
Before long, your clients and listeners are going to be asking you for surround
versions of your music tracks.
DP3 makes
it surprisingly easy to ''go surround.'' In this column, we'll take you through
the process of transforming one of your existing DP projects, a multitrack
music mix, into a surround mix, complete with live input from virtual
instruments. Once your studio is equipped for surround, doing surround mixes is easy and fun. If you're
like me, you'll be truly inspired by the creative possibilities.
The first
step, and the most involved by far, is to set up and calibrate your surround
speakers (as described on page 670 in the DP3 User Guide). With DP3's speaker
calibration plug-in, you have everything you need to accomplish this. You don't
necessarily have to buy a matched set of five speakers, although if you can,
you should. Another option is to purchase a headphone surround monitoring
solution such as the Lake Technologies TheaterPhone HSM6240 (www.theaterphone.com),
which provides 5.1 surround monitoring via your current standard pair of
headphones.
Converting
an existing mix to surround
Open any
existing DP project. For the purposes of this tutorial, choose one with
standard rhythm section/bed/lead instrumentation: drums, bass, rhythm guitar
(or keys), keyboard or string bed, plus vocals or other lead instrument. Or you
can use the demo project on the DP3 installer CD (copy it to your hard drive
first).
Open the
Audio Bundles window (Windows menu). Click the Outputs tab. The output bundles
you currently see in the list will all be mono or stereo, depending on the
project. Now it's time to create a surround output bundle. Click the Add button
and a new output bundle appears at the bottom of the list. Choose ''5.1'' from
its Model menu and rename it if you wish. (You don't need to include ''5.1'' in
the name, as DP3 automatically appends the channel format to the name.) If
necessary, rearrange the chicklets to assign each channel to the appropriate
output on your audio interface.
When
you're done, your Audio Bundles window should look something likeFigure 1. InFigure 1, the audio outputs used for
surround are analog outputs 1-6. In a similar fashion, create new stereo
bundles whose outputs match the L/R (Left/Right) and Ls/Rs (left surround/right
surround) speakers of the 5.1 bundle. Depending on the material you're mixing, you might want to create
one mono bundle each for the center channel and the LFE (Low Frequence Effects)
channel. These mono and stereo bundles let you route tracks to specific outputs
within the surround matrix (such as L/R) without having to fiddle with a
surround panner.
Now
you're ready to convert your mix
to these surround outputs. We'll use them as we go along, but first it's a good
idea to set up master faders. Create a master fader for the 5.1, L/R and Ls/Rs
bundles, and assign each master fader to the corresponding new output bundle.
Turn your
studio mix into a live concert
One
interesting application for surround mixing
is to convert a studio mix
into a ''live concert'' mix, reproducing the ambience of
a performance venue, complete with crowd noise. Ever wonder how your studio mix would sound in an
amphitheater? Now you can easily find out!
When mixing in surround, one approach
is to recreate the placement of instruments as they were (or would be) placed
in an actual space. For example, the listener could be placed in the position
of an orchestra conductor with the instrument sections positioned relative to
the conductor.
For our
basic mix, you can employ
this approach by placing the band ''onstage'' using the three front speakers
(L, C, R), and the room ambience and crowd noise toward the rear (Ls, Rs).
Here's how you can accomplish this convincingly with the stock effects included
with DP3.
Set up
two stereo aux tracks. Put eVerb on one of them and DP3's stereo delay on the
other. Choose a desired reverb preset
p.112
(such as ''Hall with Drapes'') that matches the size venue you'd like to emulate, and choose a delay preset (such as ''Stereo Slap-slap'') that emulates a corresponding amount of acoustic slapback. The reverb and delay coming from the rear surround speakers generate a sense of space. For both aux tracks, assign their output to your Ls/Rs stereo bundle. For their input, you'll use buses.
In the
Audio Bundles window, click the Buses tab, create four mono bus bundles, and
name them eVerb.L, eVerb.R, Delay.L, and Delay.R. (If all your tracks are mono,
you can create just two mono buses.) Also create two corresponding stereo buses
(eVerb and Delay) using the same pairs of buses, as shown inFigure 2. Then choose each stereo bus as
the input of the eVerb and Delay aux tracks, respectively. That's it for setup.
Now comes the creative part.
Surround
drums
If your
project has a stereo drum mix
(instead of individual drum instruments), assign it to the 5.1 surround bundle,
open the Arc Panner plug-in for the track, choose Balance stereo mode, and push
the panner puck somewhat
fig. 2.to
bus mono and stereo tracks to the reverb and delay aux tracks, set up a pair of
mono buses (.l and .r) and a stereo version of those same buses for each aux
track, as shown here.forward toward the center, as shown inFigure 3, so that most of the drums are
spread evenly across the front three speakers. Set the Focus control to
somewhere in the middle to bring in the center channel, if desired.
Use the
expand triangle to view individual channels levels and even mute and solo
individual channels to check the front-to-rear balance. If it's a stereo drum
track, use all four sends to bus the stereo drums to the reverb and delay aux
tracks (using the buses you set up earlier). Use the send level (option-drag
for stereo send pairs) to apply just a little bit of reverb and delay. If
individual elements of the kit are on separate tracks, try applying a little
more delay to the kick, snare, and toms while backing off slightly on other
elements (hat, cymbals, etc.)
Other
elements
Try
assigning bass to the L/R stereo bundle and use the same bus/aux track
technique discussed above to apply Ls/Rs slapback to the bass. You'll probably
get best results on the bass with delay only, but you can certainly try reverb.
For rhythm elements such as rhythm guitar or keys, try delay only, or delay
with just a bit of reverb. For lead and bed elements, try more verb, less delay.
Keep the
effects you're applying subtle. If you apply too much reverb, it will just
sound like reverb instead of spaciousness or ambience. If there's too much
slapback, it won't sound natural.
Crowd
noise
Obtain
mono or stereo crowd noise samples (or go to www.motu.com/freecrowdsamples).
Get ''nearby'' sounds (individual handclaps, etc.), along with more general
crowd ambience. Drop
p.114
these audio samples, looping them with crossfades if necessary, in separate tracks and assign them to the 5.1 bundle. Apply Digital Performer's Auralizer panner to both tracks. Place the pan control straight back from center (the crowd is around the listener, not up onstage). For the nearby sounds, choose a smaller room size and volume; for the larger crowd ambience, choose a larger room and volume. By combining these two ambiences, you'll generate a sense of depth.
Since the
samples probably have inherent reverb, it won't be necessary to bus them to
eVerb the way you did for the instrument tracks. For an even more realistic
experience, add applause tracks for the ends of solos and the like (with volume
automation), as well as the beginning and end of the song.
A/B-ing
with the original mix
For a
reality check of your new surround mix,
try A/B-ing it with the original stereo mix. If you don't already have a stereo bounce of your original
mix, use Bounce to Disk to
make one, then use solo mode to A/B the stereo mix track with the rest of the surround
fig. 3.dp3
provides four different panners. this is the arc panner, and it is panning the
drums forward to the three front speakers. set the focus control to any setting
except fully diffuse; otherwise, you won't get any level on the center speaker.
solo the track and then use the solo/mute buttons above the level meters to
check the balance among the various surround channels.mix tracks. You can do this on
the fly, of course. This should give you a good sense of the atmosphere you've
created. It will also help you get a better sense of how subtle you can be to
achieve a convincing result.
Other
surround mixing techniques
So much
for our live concert
surround mix. But what if
you just want to go surround, without the live concert feel? Where the heck do you place the instruments?
Two general schools of thought have emerged: (1) the ''natural/ambient''
approach, where most of the instrumentation is placed in front, and (2) the
''middle-of-the-band'' approach, where the listener is surrounded on all sides
by instruments. When you add panning automation to move instruments and sounds
around the listener, the possibilities are endless.
As long
as you adhere to the general principles of good mixing, such as clarity and balance, my advice is to
go for it: Experiment like crazy and make up your own rules. Ultimately, what
you do may largely depend on the material you are mixing and your goals for the mix.
Jim
Cooper is the director of marketing at MOTU. Thanks to Matthew Davidson and
Bobby Owsinski for their assistance with this article.
p.116
END
©All material published in Keyboard is copyrighted
2001 by Miller Freeman, Inc.
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Title
Computer
Recording: Digital Performer - Converting a Mix to Surround in DP3
Author
Publication
title
Volume
Issue
Source
details
306
Pages
112, 114,
116
Publication
year
2001
Publication
date
Sep 2001
Year
2001
Publisher
NewBay
Media, LLC
Place of
publication
New York,
N.Y.
Country
of publication
United
States
Journal
subject
ISSN
0730-0158
Source
type
Magazines
Language
of publication
English
Document
type
Instruction/Guidelines
ProQuest
document ID
1364023
Document
URL
http://search.proquest.com/docview/1364023?accountid=144516
Last updated
2012-08-01
Database
International
Index to Music Periodicals Full Text
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