I wish to route two separate paths, one for LCR+LFE, one for stereo. This will allow me to do dialog editing in center speaker only, as well as switch in bass management if I feel like it, yet have the mix be in stereo.
If I set the first output of a group to stereo, the option to send to an LFE doesn’t show up because the output is stereo. So the width of that destination limits the group. But wouldn’t it make more sense to allow for the widest path in all of the Direct Routing paths? Just because my 4 channel path is further down, should that make a difference?
Problem number two is swapping the two, so that my first output is the 4 channel LCR+LFE, followed by a later stereo output. Now if I send to the LFE from the panner, it appears that signal then gets downmixed again into the stereo signal. In other words there doesn’t seem to be a way to separate the two. It’s a bit odd because sending to the LFE doesn’t detract from the main channels anyway, so why not leave the LFE dedicated to the target path?
You always have to have the widest channel config as the first/main routing. But there are a few issues here. With direct routing you can’t access the downmix parameters, they are fixed see the manual.
But if this is just for monitoring, just setup several monitor output choices in the CR. A better and more flexible way to accomplish what you want unless I misunderstand it’s purpose.
And yet again, set your need for the widest channel path as main out.
The widest path as the first routing was LCR+LFE. Then followed stereo. The purpose of this was to be able to have one output on which I set up bass management, and another stereo output on which I did not, and then set both up as monitor sources in CR. That way I could choose between the following three scenarios;
output/monitor center only when doing dialog editing
output/monitor stereo for mixing
output/monitor bass managed as an alternative
But the problem is that I’m actively deciding what goes into the LFE, and it is the sum of left/right (I assume) that’s being sent there in the panner section. Then that LFE signal gets downmixed for the output to stereo. So the stereo gets the original (no more than stereo) sources plus them a second time but merged and then downmixed via the LFE.
Am I understanding that correctly?
Perhaps it’s better to disregard what I’m trying to do and instead consider the following question:
Under what scenarios does Nuendo automatically downmix, and what is the purpose of those scenarios?
Direct routing; automatic down mixing with set parameters.
Main routing (or a send) from a narrow channel type to a wide channel type (ex stereo ->5.1); done through the v5 panner.
Main routing (or a send) from a wide channel type to a narrow channel type (ex 5.1 ->stereo); done using mix convert, all parameters controllable.
Direct routing was created for sound for picture mixing purposes to be able to automate routing. And to be able to route channels of differing widths to busses that may or may not have the same channel width Steinberg decided to have fixed down mix parameters. Just like Euphonix (now Avid) did on the System 5 console.