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Surround Sound in FCP6
Hello all,
I’m a little confused at how you get FCP 6 to play a 5.1 surround sound file. The manual has a little paragraph stating that you can play a surround sound file if it’s encoded in the right way. Does anyone know what the right way is. Also how do you get a 5.1 surround file from SoundtrackPro to FCP6?
Greg Jones
D7,Inc.
Orlando,Fl.
http:/www.d7-inc.com -
5 Replies
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Greg,
Ulitizing the new 5.1 audio capabilities of FCP and STP will not be as easy as you might imagine. Besides a 5.1 audio system with 6 speakers for proper monitoring, Dolby Digital 5.1 encoding requires knowledge and understanding far too extensive for a simple post on the Cow. Google Dolby Labs and read up on 5.1 techniques there. Dolby has extensive and wonderfully written white papers on the subject, which offer a great pathway to understanding of this subject.
Meanwhile, if you have profesionally encoded Dolby 5.1 files, these can be fairly simply imported and used in DVDSP for creating DVDs with 5.1 Dolby audio.
David
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Post-production Supervisor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles -
To answer Greg’s orginal question…. You need to set FCP6 to the 5.1 surround setting in the Audio Output tab under User Preferences.
After that, follow waht DRW talked about.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com
https://blogs.creativecow.net/waynecarey -
Hey Wayne,
Probably not gonna help much though without a way to listen…
David
David Roth Weiss
Director/Editor/Post-production Supervisor
David Weiss Productions, Inc.
Los Angeles -
Greg,
You’ll have to read through the FCP manuals to figure out how to configure your output audio channels if you’re going to output something with 5.1 (6 channels).
To set up your system, you’ll probably have to visit Audio MIDI Setup to get your audio HW to “talk with” Soundtrack Pro and FCP.
The DVD that comes with FCS 2 has a few video tutorials on surround sound in Soundtrack Pro.
I know of two ways to deal with surround sound audio (in terms of files). One is to put each channel into its own file, the other is to save the file as a multichannel AIF (or WAV) file. Apple also uses its own “.caf” format (Apple Core Audio Format, encoded with Apple lossless codec) files.
The full installation of FCS 2 comes with several multichannel (5.1, for instance) audio files. For example, here is a 5.1 audio file of an explosion:
/Library/Audio/Apple Loops/Apple/Apple Loops for Soundtrack Pro/Detroit Chop Shop/Explosions/Explosion Blast 04.caf
I imported this file into FCP 6 and dropped it into a sequence and it “loaded” into 6 tracks. It played back just fine (after a quick render) via my stereo setup. You would have to map your audio channels in FCP and set up your multichannel HW to get those channels to go to the appropriate surround speakers.
I also dragged and dropped this sound effect file into the timeline/track area of Soundtrack Pro. All 6 channels show up. I then exported this as an AIF file and imported and played it in FCP 6, without any problems.
This should help you get started…
Best regards,
Dave
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Very true… But I was answering Greg’s original question on how to monitor it in FCP6.
Now, its up to Greg to have the equipment and to acquire the knowledge of 5.1 surround audio.
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Wayne Carey
Schazam Productions
http://www.schazamproductions.com
https://blogs.creativecow.net/waynecarey
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