Apple Final Cut Pro 7 - Manual (Page 856)

One of the main purposes of downmix level adjustments is to maintain mono channel
levels when downmixing common 5.1-channel surround sound, for which there are
industry-standard settings. After using the Match Audio Outputs command on a recognized
5.1-channel surround sound clip, industry-standard level adjustments are applied to the
audio outputs’ downmix levels. You can verify these settings in the Audio Outputs tab
of the Sequence Settings window.
Downmixing for Stereo Monitoring
Stereo downmixing allows you to listen to your sequence in stereo—even if the sequence
has multiple output channels assigned—without changing your audio output preset.
To listen to a sequence with multiple output channels in stereo
µ
Select the Downmix button in the Audio Mixer.
With Downmix selected, all audio outputs in your sequence are output as stereo whenever
they’re played back, output to tape, or written to a movie file.
All output channels are
downmixed to a single
stereo pair.
Downmix button
selected
856 Chapter 53 Assigning Output Channels and External Audio Monitors