This is game stuff in Unreal Engine. Audio consists of sound fx and music. Specific SFX (e.g. gunfire) are stereo and the game engine spatializes. General environmental ambients (wind, thunder, distant sounds …) are (ideally) ambisonics as that provides ‘baked spatialization’. The player moves in world space but the ambix is fixed world space surround spatialized. SFX could as well be mono, but we do field recording in stereo with the three mic setup, the stereo mics are mixed very low to provide a natural kind of reverb. This provides ‘glue’ that helps mix the fx together.
Anyhow … music is composed in stereo and mixed in 7.1 for reasons I won’t go into. That is done right now is all in Nuendo b/c WL didn’t have it. And otherwise we’re in early production so all the work is SFX anyhow, the music is being composed (by me , I spend most of my time here over on the Dorico forum). The previous plan was to do final mastering (by my engineer) in Nuendo, but now with the latest WL we’re going to do it there. And as I said, I’m encouraging him to use WL for SFX, if that works for him better.
Working towards your question here … so all the composition is in Dorico with temps rendered in stereo from there. Rumor has it the team is working on Cubase/Nuendo integration. I’m hoping they get to that - maybe with Dorico 4 later this year, before I need to export MIDI from Dorico. Anyhow, I have a surround template ready in Nuendo to receive it, however the data comes across. My engineer will massage that and do final mix.
So to answer your question I don’t have an answer. We haven’t yet gotten to music track production. Unreal accepts Ambisonics tracks as four channel wav and automatically detects via file name extension. Surround, let’s see IIRC are single channel wav files I think with an extension. I’ll have to look that up again.
So IIRC ambisonics are interleaved 4 ch. (1st order), and 7.1 are individual channels, but I’ll need to check my notes. But now with WL, I think what we’ll probably do is, all the MIDI massage and initial mix is Nuendo, and filenames are pipeline determined (e.g. will conform to final in-game format). So WL then will need to accept those and spit out the same. No reason to have different formats between Nuendo and WL (e.g. interleaved in one and not the other), as that just complicates the already complicated pipeline. Otherwise I haven’t gotten deep enough to know about the panner issue you’re mentioning, could you summarize that for me given what I said here?
Nothing was removed, this never existed before.
And I don’t see what you mean with “intact”, because when you insert a multichannel file into a WaveLab 11 montage, this audio file is not modified in any way. Multiple tracks (eg. L/R, C, LFE, Ls/Rs) are created, but the underlying audio file is kept untouched.
Not sure what you mean here. You can record multichannel files from the WaveLab 11 record dialog.
This is my expectation, I’m not anticipating any issues with multichannel and WL here. In initial testing in WL11 I imported a ambix and it laid out into 4 channels, but I expected it didn’t touch my original as usual, and that I’d be able to export out ambix interleaved on the output.
I’m literally going by what the manual for WL11 says, compared to WL10 - i.e. I can’t find the Surround Panner anywhere or reference to the sort of track where I would apply it.?
I think it is clear where the problem is. It is not the “underlying audio file” being touched, but the access to it in the Montage. It seems a lot of WL user, like myself, would like to see the multi channel files treated in the Montage like stereo files. If the only reason is, as you stated (“The idea was not to duplicate what Cubase or Nuendo already do”), then it is a shame to cripple the Montage. We are all trying to avoid a technically not necessary click and setup frenzy.
Apart from surround panning, which WaveLab 11 does not include (to not step on solutions like Nuendo), there is little you can’t do.
If you do a lot of cut/split/copy/paste on the surround file, then yes it would have been more practical to have an interleaved file on a single track. Yet, you can achieve the same operations in WaveLab 11 by selecting clips/parts of clips over multiple tracks.
I recall, that with the multi-track system of WaveLab 11, you have the big advantage to use plugins on discrete clusters (eg. L/R, LFE, C, Ls/Rs) without any busing stage.
Ok well, thanks anyway Dan - and no worries; lots of good info you gave there nonetheless.! I have to admit my knowlege is very limited, wrt game audio and all the handling of associated file naming/labelling, etc…; same with ambisonic formats.
I’ll wait and see how things are in WL11, when the Trial is released. Handling/support for interleaved files in WL has been a big topic of debate over the years. Lots of folks expectations for future development were all about truly taking things to the next level. The Surround Panner in WL10 allowed convenient, ease of use audio positioning, in the Montage, via a fun/direct visual interface.
And that’s now gone - because WL is hurting Cubase/Nuendo sales.? The other way round (shock.!).? Has the purchasing decision for a new user, (suddenly, after all these years) become too confusing across SB products.? Don’t know; my thoughts are, this was high-end audio software being sold to (not only, but primarily) high-end audio professionals.
I recall keeping the multi-channel interleaved file on one track (Montage/Editor) was a favourite request, in forum debates.
Really, I’ve gone on far too long with all this - all I’ve been fishing for is some insight about how/if others are missing it (surround panner) in WL11 and whether the alternate on offer is ok or any better/worse, etc… We’ll see.
Yes.! And as I recall, exactly what has been requested previously.
But it is known this is dangerous and prone to mistakes; for example, inadvertant shift of one track destroying phase coherence, is too easily done. If the whole interleaved file is kept together in one ‘container’, you always know you are safe.
I`m truly sorry but have you work with WaveLab at all?
I mean the Montage is just that ,you can move everything around
lock it the wav/wav’s, clip/clips horizontal/vertical as you need
Wait and see what you can do in WL 11 demo before judging…
For me personal WaveLab 11 is the best version yet!
This is a great feature indeed. But the discussion now seems to go a bit into semantics here. What users want is a straight forward, simple to handle multi channel Montage. Of course there are ways to achieve similar results with Montage as it behaves now. But this is in reality for many of us just work arounds and clearly more time consuming. We learned why there is no elegant multi-channel interleaved file editing. Maybe the fear to canibalise Nuendo and Cubase sales can be discussed further at Steinberg. Where are more lost sales to expect? But also a software company that large as Steinberg has some responsibility for the loyal users community to behave rationally, not only for the sake of share holder value.
It took so many years to even implement multi-channel editing and now Montage is again only usable with a constant step on the brakes?
I agree. I got by for 5.1, but it’s difficult at best trying to manipulate that many separate tracks.
And if all the other programs do it? including the other mastering programs? (i’m not sure how Pyramix, Sequoia, and Sadie do it, but I assume they take multi channel files on a track? Im not certain.)
But I also think good arguments for this specific function were made back in 2011:
Don’t forget the new Sibling option (improved in upcoming 11.0.10). It’s just a bit more difficult to copy/paste multiple tracks. But in exchange, with the WaveLab approach, you get plugins and automation on clips of each channel cluster, something you don’t get in other softwares.
, I spend most of my time here over on the Dorico forum). The previous plan was to do final mastering (by my engineer) in Nuendo, but now with the latest WL we’re going to do it there. And as I said, I’m encouraging him to use WL for SFX, if that works for him better.