Apple Soundtrack Pro 2 - Manual (Page 306)

306 Chapter 9 Mixing Surround Sound
Surround Mixing Strategies
This section includes guidelines and tips for mixing surround projects.
Mixing Surround Files
The basic steps in mixing are almost the same for stereo and surround projects:
 Balancing relative volume levels between tracks
 Panning tracks to create a balanced stereo spread
 Adding EQ, compression, and other final processing effects
 Setting the project’s final volume and eliminating clipping
 Creating a sense of perspective by placing sounds in space
While the creating a sense of perspective step is also a part of stereo mixing, it is what
really sets surround apart from stereo. When mixing, you can enhance the video action
by dynamically moving the sounds within the surround field. To give your listeners a
“surrounding” audio experience, your sound must be created with that goal in mind.
For example, if you want the sound of an explosion coming from behind the listener,
you need to put the sound in the rear channels during mixing. Surround mixing adds
not only two rear channels, but also includes the subwoofer or LFE channel, which
would probably play a part in any onscreen explosion. You’ll have to spend some time
planning what elements go where and how much boom you want in your soundtrack.
The following are some common approaches to multichannel sound:
 Use the surround channels for effects only. Create a stereo mix, then add
“sweetening” sound effects in the surround channels. Sound effects and Foley
recordings can be placed in stereo space or specifically located where they occur
onscreen or offscreen.
 Create special sounds for the rear and low-frequency channels (the rumble of an
earthquake, the pounding of drums, an airplane buzzing overhead, and so on) and
add them to a standard stereo mix. (To create sound for the LFE channel, you can
extract low frequencies from the rest of your sound using band-pass filters.)
 Position instruments, effects, and voices anywhere in the sound field.