I have a project in, say, 5.1. In Control Room, I have a downmix preset for Stereo. When I click on the arrow beside the Stereo downmix preset, I can open MixConvert and adjust how I want the stereo downmix to work, and change between the full 5.1 mix and the Stereo downmix preset at will. All good so far.
But where/when are these settings applied? On the downmix “preview” only? Or on project level for every downmix from 5.1 to Stereo? I see that I can also use MixConvert as a regular insert on a channel - but do I need to?
Let’s say I have a 5.1 Out channel, and a Stereo Out channel. 5.1 Out is the main mix, but I also have a send fram 5.1 Out, sending a copy to Stereo Out. But to my ears, this stereo mixdown does not seem to use the MixConvert settings I set in Control Room.
So how do I go about creating a parallel Stereo downmix in the project, co-existing with the 5.1 mix, that I can export as a stereo file with the fold-down settings of my own choosing? Would I need to send my 5.1 mix to an aux channel and insert MixConvert on it? Inserting MixConvert on the Stereo Out track surely does nothing, as it has already been downmixed - but I suspect, not with my settings..?
I’m sure this is super easy, I’m just missing something…
When you use a downmix preset in CR, that is monitoring purposes only, it doesn’t affect your final export.
When you route the 5.1 mix to a stereo bus, mixconvert downmixes the signal by default. You can go into that bus’s panner and select a different option or adjust the mixconvert settings.
Like Semarus said anything you do in Control Room is for monitoring and doesn’t change the mix itself at all.
Based on the delivery requirements I’ve had over the years in the US my template is 5.1 wide throughout and does downmixing at the stem-level. So rather than taking my 5.1 mix and downmixing that to stereo I have the 5.1 music group (stem) also output to a stereo music group, and on that “level” all the stems split out into two final paths, one for 5.1 and one for stereo. Those downmixes are just default downmixes by routing the 5.1 signal to a stereo path. Nothing fancy.
I then control the various food groups and submixes using VCAs. So my music VCA controls the 5.1 and stereo music groups. Same with M&E groups or Mix Minus groups.
Doing it this way I’ll have more control over the signal chain and can export any deliverables and adjust things wherever it’s needed.
Thank you for the clarification @Semarus, but I’m still scratching my head.
When routing to Stereo Out, my Stereo Out channel (naturally) gives me a stereo panner. In the mixer, double clicking on the panner on the Stereo Out channel, only opens a huge stereo panner, not MixConvert. I can open MixConvert on the 5.1 Out channel by double clicking on its “panner” (the two diagonally placed square boxes saying “5.1”), but that changes the channel volumes of 5.1 Out itself - not only the downmix. So, do I have to create another output bus which is actually 5.1 configuration, insert MixConvert on that, and then route that to Stereo Out..?
@MattiasNYC Thanks for providing another way to do it. Seems more proper to do an actual separate stereo mix that way – unfortunately for my current project, that is already too late. But you gave me something to think about for future projects… (as long as my brain can handle that level of routing )
That’s what I’ve been doing previously, but that way I can’t find a way to choose my own MixConvert settings, so it does a “flat” downmix without any user options.
The only way I’ve managed to do this so far, is temporarily insert MixConvert on the 5.1 Out channel, to make a stereo downmix on the actual 5.1 Out channel, then send it to Stereo Out, then export Stereo Out to a mixed stereo file, and then deactivate the MixConvert insert on the 5.1 Out channel again. But surely that is not the best way to do it.
What do you mean by “flat”? Are the standard downmix parameters no good?
Either way, just route everything that goes to the full 5.1 mix to a group track as well and do the downmix with MixConvert on it instead, and then it goes to the stereo out.
You’re right, had a total brain fart myself, and just like MattiasNYC said, send it to a group (I’d suggest pre-fader), set the configuration to the incoming channel configuration (5.1), set the output to the Stereo bus. Then you can do whatever downmixing you’d like.
Yeah, I want to be able to manually adjust the standard parameters, to control how much of the Surround speakers and the Center speaker go into the stereo downmix. The standard parameters are not always what I want, no. One case can be vocals in the center channel, which might not do well with the standard -3 dB reduction when distributing them to L+R, for example.
@Semarus Ah, so that’s how I get the pan area to say 4.0 / 2.0, or 5.1 / 2.0… Makes total sense now. Thanks a ton to the both of you!
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