[Daniel Knutson]

You can record room in mono and it will work just fine.
I use a little handheld Zoom H4n for recording room tone and foley sfx with it’s built in stereo microphones. It sounds just a little more real, in my opinion.

I hear everything 😉

[Daniel Knutson]

I almost hate to chime in because your getting pretty good advice overall, but I have to mention that mixing a movie in 5.1 is so much better in Audition or Pro Tools HD because you can pan any type of file (mono, stereo or surround) into any speaker in your 5.1 mix. I don’t know if Premiere allows that easily or not. Which means a stereo music file can be panned into the rear and sub channels as well which you definitely want to do.

Also, whenever possible, capture a minute or more of the room tone in stereo where your scenes are being shot. That means you will record it when there is quiet – no acting or any other activity happening (like an empty room). Recording room ambience in stereo gives your mix depth and you should also pan the room tone into the center dialog channel to blend with the dialog. Then you fly in the room tone underneath dialog in post to smooth out the dialog edit. Don’t add dialog to any other speaker except the center.

Here’s a general rule of thumb channel routing for your elements:
1. Dialog Mono center only
2. Foley and Ambience (room tone) Stereo left and right and center at 50-75% of that
3. SFX Stereo left and right, also add to sub channel to taste (like, explosions need some sub but not every sfx does)
4. Music Stereo left and right and rear left and rear right at 25-50% of that, also add to sub channel to taste

Good luck!

I hear everything 😉

[Daniel Knutson]

Don’t know about a software solution but I would opt for a splitter for the output to the booth monitor and another monitor displaying the same feed at mix position.
Interesting Adobe Audition question ????
Good luck!

I hear everything 😉