I have a problem with the Export audio mixdown function.
I select ‘Multiple’ in the channel selection and I select ‘+ Master/Groups/Sends’ as effects. Than when I export a 6 channel print master + the 6 channel DME, it exports the print master as 6 channels and the DME as 2 channels…
The only thing I can think of is that the 6 channel DME group tracks are also send to 2 channel group tracks, but why won’t it export the 6 channels?
If I select ‘Inserts and Strip’ as effects it exports the 6 channel DME just fine.
OK, I found some time to look further. What happens is:
I have a 6 track (5.1) Dialog stem, I use a send to a 2 track (stereo) Dialog stem for stereo downmix. If I select ‘Multiple’ in the channel selection and I select ‘+ Master/Groups/Sends’ as effects it exports the 6 track Dialog stem only in 2 tracks. If I delete the 2 track send, the export goes correct. So it looks like it renders the 2 track send over the 6 track output. What am I doing wrong here?
I think you expect the wrong things… to happen…
If you select the entire signal path till the end it will be 2 channels since you convert your 5.1 bus to a stereo bus via the send… at least for this signal path…
As far as I understand STEM mixing, you should sum your signals with buses that “collect” all FX for there sources too.
And you can define the outputs as monitoring sources…
No I think KSD is right. If you have a signal in an output bus and you use one of the sends from that output then as far as I know that shouldn’t convert the channel number of that output, just of the send. The problem that we can see is that exporting that surround bus plus the stereo bus that received from the send forces the surround output to stereo, and to me that doesn’t really make sense.
Having said that I never tap an output bus for anything, I do all my routing to output buses and they are then ‘final’. So I don’t see this problem.
I think that in general that section of the manual should be rewritten. I keep reading it and it’s just really unclear what the difference is and why it is the way it is. I feel like something is missing.
I would expect the same behavior as you expect.
Like I said above though I prefer to have output buses contain only final stems and send nothing from them. Neater that way.
PS: Sends I think follow pan law, whereas direct routing does not. So it’s another thing to consider - which is more appropriate to generate stems…
Thanks for the replies.
I normally do the routing via Direct Routing, but for this project I wanted to control what level I sent to the stereo groups. I understand why it is printing the 6 channel stems in stereo, but it is a bit strange, I think. There should be some ‘intelligence’ that understands the 6 channel export function should stay in 6 channels…
For now I am back to Direct Routing, that works as it should.
