beautypg.com

Creating a surround project, Setting up soundtrack pro for surround – Apple Soundtrack Pro 3 User Manual

Page 336

background image

Creating a Surround Project

The following steps outline a general workflow used for editing and mixing surround
sound files.

Stage 1:

Acquiring the Sound

As with any audio track, the first step is finding and recording the sound that you want.
Soundtrack Pro is flexible in terms of what kinds of files you can use in the surround mix.
Input files can be mono, stereo, or surround. While Soundtrack Pro also includes numerous
surround clips for music and sound effects, the production audio for most film and video
projects is typically either mono or stereo files.

Stage 2:

Editing and Arranging a Multitrack Project

The workflow for editing audio files and arranging them in the multitrack Timeline is very
similar for stereo and surround projects. For more information, see

Working with Multitrack

Projects

,

Working in the Timeline

, and

Working in the File Editor

.

Stage 3:

Mixing Surround

Soundtrack Pro provides a flexible toolset for creating and adjusting a surround mix. For
more information, see

Surround Mixing Strategies

.

Stage 4:

Exporting and Delivering Surround Projects

Soundtrack Pro supports a variety of workflows and formats for delivering your final
surround mix. These include separate audio files for each channel or single multichannel
sound files for the entire mix.

Setting Up Soundtrack Pro for Surround

In order to hear your surround project through a surround speaker system, you need to
adjust settings in Soundtrack Pro and set up the related hardware.

In Soundtrack Pro, the difference between mixing in stereo and mixing in surround hinges
on three different elements: the panner type, the submix output, and the number of
physical output channels. All three of these items must be configured correctly to achieve
surround playback. If one of these three conditions is not met, playback will be in stereo.
(For more information about stereo mixdown, see

Stereo Mixdown

.) Use the instructions

that follow to start using the surround mixing tools in Soundtrack Pro.

336

Chapter 13

Mixing Surround Sound