Setting up 5.1 surround to monitor in FCP

[Arnie Schlissel]

FCP does not currently support 5.1 monitoring. You might be able to fake it if your capture card has 6 or more output channels, and you can route them through a mixer that has 6 or more output channels.

If that’s the case, you would patch the tracks in your FCP timeline to the appropriate outputs on your capture card, through the appropriate D to A into the mixer, and then assign those channels to the appropriate speakers.

If it sounds messy, well, it is… You will not be able to pan audio from one output channel to another without jumping through some serious, multi-track cross-fading hoops.

Arnie
Post production is not an afterthought!
https://www.arniepix.com/

[Ivan Gonzalez]

Thank you for answering,

I was reading the FCP manuel and it says that you can’t mix or edit 5.1, but you CAN monitor. That’s what i want to do, just monitor.

I have version 6.0.4. If you go to fcp help page..go to page 835, it explains that you can do it but doesn’t tell you how and what to buy.

[Ivan Gonzalez]

I called apple care and they told me the same thing but they don’t know what the pros are using. They told me to come here and ask. lol

[Rob Brambila]

Ok, first off, are you monitoring discrete channels that were already mixed in surround? if you are then you need a sound card that supports at least 6 outputs. Then you need a speaker set-up for monitoring 5.1. Not a consumer set up. A consumer set-up expects to see an AC3 encoded stream. You need direct outs sent directly to each speaker. If you want you can contact me directly and we can go over you workflow, but I need to know what exactly it is that you are monitoring.

phone:949-861-2727

Thanks,

Rob Brambila

System Engineer
Promax Systems
rob.brambila@promax.com
http://www.promax.com

[Kenyon Blower]

I am in the same situation. I need to monitor Surround 5.1, preferably through headphones. Here are 2 items that will do it

The Graham-Patten Sonarae
https://www.gpsys.com/products/Sonarae.htm

Is exactly what I need but is $4100 each & I need a minimum of 2.

Or there is a Wohler rack-mount speaker that will monitor 8 channels of audio for $3700
https://www.wohler.com/Details.aspx?ItemNumber=AMP2-S8DA

The other option is to convert the AES/EBU audio to analog & send the audio to the spare 1604 & 1642 I have laying around

What ever way I do it, it cost money that is not budgeted. Of course Surround 5.1 is brought up after the deal is done.

Kenyon

Kenyon Blower
Vide-Post / San Diego
Dual 2.5 G5
3 Gig Ram
Medea 2TB Fibre Raid
Medea 640 gig SCSI
FCP 5.1
KONA LH

[Ivan Gonzalez]

Rob answer my question guys, he took to the time to explain what i needed.

Basically you need an interface that has 6 outputs that go directly to your 5.1 speakers….PreSonus makes one and its called “Firebox”..its a firewire box that goes directly to your computer.

You have to assign the channels from final cut and match them in the firebox. This is the only way you can monitor 5.1 in FCP..FCP does not read AC3 files therefore you can only monitor through discrete channels.

If you got any questions let me know, ill be glad to help you like Rob helped me.

[Ivan Gonzalez]

Also, the box is no more than $300 dollars.

[Ben Avechuco]

I’m using a M- Audio firewire 410 box for my monitoring interface.

You’ll need to choose 6 output channels in the sequence settings,
and assign the output channels in the Audio MIDI setup utility,
and the interface goes for about $250 according to google right now.

It has worked wonderfully for me.

[Klay Watson]

What about the IMAC and it’s optical out running to a 5.1 amp. I can’t get that to work for just monitoring either.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

KDW4Him