# Help me design and/or setup a surround system for mixing.



## Studio E (Feb 22, 2018)

What it says. I have a decent but small, treated studio. It is too small for serious dubbing stage work, but I want to have a system to experiment with anyway. 

Yes, budget is a concern, but not a game-ender. 

What I have now, is a PC based DAW with Cubase, an Orion 32(x32), a 2.1 monitor controller, and Focal Twins 6be's as well as the matching subwoofer, the Red6. So as far as equipment, I am short 3 speakers and a 5.1 or 7.1 monitor controller.

Assuming I close that gap and own all the speakers and the controller, what else do I have to have. I have a basic understanding of what bass management is, but I don't know how it integrates. I have briefly looked it up as plugins and I se there are a few.

I guess I would assume that as a plug-in, it probably exists on the 5.1 buss? 

Yes, many questions. I talked to a few people on GS about this, and I did receive some helpful advice, but I also got a good dose of the bad attitudes and "can't do it" attitude over there. I'm not a big fan of that. I want to start learning this stuff as I have plans to do some real 5.1 or 7.1 mix work in the future. We all know that the best way to learn is to do.

Any help or advice you could give me on how to create and setup my system would be greatly appreciated.


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## tav.one (May 12, 2018)

I'd also like to know answers to this


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## dgburns (May 12, 2018)

I’ll throw some thoughts out there, take with a grain of salt.

I use the focals as well, and went with the singles in the rear, in 5.1. As far as monitor controller, I use the SPL surround one, it’s good, it works. As far as subwoofer, I actually don’t use a sub anymore for anything other than LFE. No bass management at all, and it’s working out ok. Trouble with the focal sub is it does not allow for the center channel, so bass management has to be done with a plugin. The waves surround bundle is useful, and in your case you can slap it up on your monitoring control room, so you don’t need to put it up on your master (and ruin your outputs when bouncing). Brilliant job by Steinberg there, I’m in Logic, so I can’t really do that.

Surround is fun, you start to use the space for mixing and creative effects like you don’t in stereo, where things tend to need more compression and eq carving to create space. But surround also means a rethink on reverb, at the heart of it , especially for orch stuff, is some kind of ‘room’ as the basis for working in. Not saying you can’t deal with your longs/shorts as you did in stereo, nor saying you shouldn’t setup different verbs for the instrument classes (strg/brass etc), it’s just that you should create a ‘room’ in the 5.1 space that works. The added dimension is the new element that creates a more 3d effct, and that’s all I’m saying. Actually, I find it too easy to over verb things, you want to keep the tails to the shortest you can stomach, otherwise it all gets washy real fast.
For synths, I’ve started thinking less about front/back and started to also think about left/right, where I add elements that cover the whole left side and others that cover the whole right side. I got the idea from Alan Myerson who puts up his stereo verbs in a similar way. The front/back thing is tricky because 5.1 does front/back well, but the sounds panned in between don’t play back in certain rooms as well as you’d expect. As a result, I start by going all the way panned first, then if for some reason I need to pull the pans in to the center, it’s because the sound pulls too much ‘off the screen’ and divorces from the images.
Anyway, surround is fun, you should go for it. Also, use the foldown button to listen back in stereo every once in a while, if for nothing else, to set your levels. I try and make my surround stuff playback at decent levels when folded down without lowering the volume if possible.

my two cents


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