This may be simply a case of my slipping into my dotage, but I am sure as I can be that I recall seeing a way to expand a stereo mix into 5.1 with SpectraLayers Pro - either via the ARA extension in Nuendo or else with the full application itself, but search as I may I cannot seem to find the required module, so either it’s called something different or else it was never really there in the first place.
Can someone please, I beg, put me out of my misery here & let me know if I recall correctly or am just losing the plot?
Much appreciated in advance
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In the standalone application you can go to Project > Reformat and change it to a 5.1 project.
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I did not know this…looking forward to seeing how that shakes out
Thanks Robin - I will go test this right away.
I knew it could be done as I had managed it by accident somehow a few months back, but for the life of me I just could not recall how.
So to clarify:
- Set up a regular Stereo project, and import my audio.
- Do as you advide, Project/Reformat - job jobbed?
What’s the best way to get the files out?
So much appreciated
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You don’t even need to set up a project, just click File > Open and open your stereo file.
Then Project > Reformat and set it to whatever format you need.
That being said that’s just standard remixing from one format to another. If you want some special remixing you’ll have to use unmix modules and/or selection tools, and rebalance content as you like your upmixing to be.
Then File > Export.
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Sorry - I must be missing something here, as I don’t see the difference (after trying this) between starting a new 5.1 project & simply importing split stereo as 2 mono files into L/R.
I was absolutely certain that there was a way to use Spectral Layers in Nuendo to actually upmix a stereo into 5.1, but cannot recall how to do this.
The advice is still appreciated though - it really is
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It isn’t clear to me what you’re trying to achieve : just convert stereo audio to 5.1 “as is”, or have some special upmixing effect, such as some sound effects or instruments going to rear channels but not others ? In the latter case, it requires more than format conversion, you also have to do some form of unmixing and artistic choices.
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OK, thanks for this conversation =-D
That’s what I figured…5.1 mix requires mixing 6 channels as I anticipated
Hi Robin.
It’s just an experiment to see what can be done - especially for tracks where the original multitracks no longer exist at the record label.
It would seem that my best approach would be to generate stems (using the ‘extreme’ setting) from the original stereo mix, and see what comes of that in the first instance.
I was sure I could remember a simpler approach to turn a stereo into a 5.1 in much the same way that the Penteo system does but I must be mistaken.
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After more playing with the whole ‘Unmix Song’ setting, I thought I would give an Atmos mix a try to see what we get out of it in stems.
I confess I should have paid more attention to the results from Stereo > Unmix Song, because that output each & every layer as a stereo file but what I was not expecting was the Atmos one also ‘unmixed’ every stem to 7.1.4 assignments!
So the next question has to be this:
Is there any way to use the ‘Unmix’ or some sort of extract function that can give me mono files at all? I guess I can always just split the multichannel file into it’s components, but running unmix on a surround file should to my mind output either stereo or mono - not the full surround version!
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But it shouldn’t it unmix into components based on what they are though, not where they are? You could hypothetically place a sound dead center which would put it in in all five channels, how could that be output to stereo or mono?
Or maybe I’m missing something.
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I don’t understand what you mean. Modules don’t change the number of channels, and are not expected to change the number of channels in any way.
Unmix modules unmix the content of audio into multiple layers. It has nothing to do with the number of channels. What you do with channels, or how you want to balance them is really up to you, and not unmix modules’ business ?
If Unmix Song was taking a surround music mix and only output mono layers for each instruments, that would destroy the spatialization of each of these instruments. If you want to destroy the spatial information fine, but that should be your own decision, doing a Project > Reformat > Configuration: Mono operation after the unmixing operation is done. Beware that you will lose information at that point though (which the Unmix Song initially preserved by keeping all channels).
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Thanks Robin - I had not considered it from that point of view.
Much appreciated
It could be argued that unmixing a song by definition removes spatial information though - if I wanted to extract a part, then that would be a different kettle of ball games and spatial information should be preserv4ed on an extracted instrument or part, but unmixing is different…
I have much to think about
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there is A LOT to consider for multi channel audio
sources and what a mix is intended to do
music verses a film in surround, yadda yadda
for example, my Denon AVR does some interesting things with stereo music source to play that music back at 5.1
it must be algorithms that treat the audio differently and send various parts of the mix to different speakers…and there are different presets which present the sources differently.
I suppose one could record the output of each speaker separately and reverse engineer that way to get some clues as to what is going on
consider my 90min film I’m working on…currently we made a stereo mix…it doesn’t sound great in surround…but we will finish that
so once we finish the stereo mix, we are going to approach a 5.1 mix
other than the music, my sources are mono…BUT, what do I do with the music? I don’t know…maybe I have to take my own advice and test some references that send what part of the audio to whatever speaker? I dunno, I’ll have to cross that bridge when I get there
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other than the music, my sources are mono…BUT, what do I do with the music? I don’t know…maybe I have to take my own advice and test some references that send what part of the audio to whatever speaker? I dunno, I’ll have to cross that bridge when I get there
Put dialog into Center, some mono SFX too.
Musik gets into L/R + spread into Ls/Rs and maybe a little bit into LFE
Stereo SFX into L/R/C + some low end into LFE
Atmo SFX can make use of all channels, but keep it low on C
I have tested several upmixer for spreading out into surround.
Waves UM226 does work ok but depending on which algorithm you choose can make things sound crazy. I have used that for our last feature film.
Pento is great and works flawlessly, I have used that for our feature film trailers.
Another approach is using AudioBrewers ambisonic plugins - I have used that to go from a Mono SFX to stereo and then into surround. Those work really great for upmixing too.
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It’s also worth keeping firmlay in mind that the rules (such as they are) are completely different for music compared to film - for starters in film the centre channel belongs to the dialogue!
One warning for music in films - please keep the level at a reasonable volume. Far too often I havre to turn off feature films these days because the dialogue is effectively inaudible behind the constant score (in every scene it seems) being far, FAR TOO LOUD
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Not true! That is not true at all. In-fact each film mixing depends entirely on the scene (for example a haunting scene where ghosts are whispering would be more likely to be panned left/right or surround sound). I’ve also noticed a trend lately (especially in the digital era where film studios are using Red Cameras for filming) that dialog in films has a broader much more wider stereo field for dialog (as compared to films from 15 years ago). It seems like hollywood studios want dialog to take up much more space (than just the center) and so it seems like they are purposefully widening (with some type of stereo enhancer or maybe manually panning or maybe their doubling the dialog and doing some type of fancy compression) the dialog to take up as much space in the left and right and even the surround channels as possible.
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What are some examples of this? I can’t recall a single major “Hollywood” production where this was the norm.
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That will cause issues for someone seated on the extreme right or lefy. Ghost whispers are part of sfx. If dialogues are panned they will fail QC check.
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That would be considered a SFX. Or like someone shouting off-screen from somewhere. But any major dialog sits always in the center to not confuse the audience.
I have not encountered any Hollywood studios film using that practice yet.
Do you mean they have more coloration through room reverb in the dialogs?
Where have you heard this? In the cinemas or at home? When at home is it possible that your player or TV or AV is doing some kind of upmixing?
There are a lot of things which could go wrong here, but certainly not in a cinema.
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