# Upgrading to 5.1



## RyanMcQuinn (Feb 7, 2019)

Can any of you help me figure what I need to upgrade from stereo? 

I have a chance to do my first short film (music and sound design). It is animated and should be very high quality. I'd like to put our best foot forward by delivering 5.1. I see it as an opportunity to start mixing everything in 5.1, so I'm trying to price out what it would take to get the best quality for an entry level budget. I'm just a freelance game audio guy slowly upgrading one thing at a time.

I have a Focusrite 2i4 and a pair of https://www.musictribe.com/Categories/Behringer/Loudspeaker-Systems/Studio-Monitoring/B2031/p/P0078 (Behringer Truth B2031) monitors. I use Reaper and have Izotope Insight for visual monitoring, so hopefully I won't need to purchase additional software, but I'm not sure.

I'm considering purchasing 2 more of the same monitors for LS and RS and replacing my Focusrite 2i4 with a Behringer U-Phoria UMC404HD.  This would put me at about $350-$450 so far, depending on the current ebay offers for the monitors. It would build from my existing monitors, which I am happy with and would help with cost.

I'm not sure what i would do about center channel and sub. Frankly, I don't know where I would even put a center channel lol. Here is a pic of my current setup (It's messy. I need to work on that). Does it need to be the same as the other four monitors? I've never used a sub before and I don't know anything about what to consider.

Is it realistic to budget about $100 in new cables?

Please tell me what is wrong with my plan and what gear recommendations you have  Thank you!!!


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## gsilbers (Feb 7, 2019)

That interface doesn’t have enough outputs. It has 4 outs and you need 6 for 5.1. 
Get the 8 channel version of the u phoria used for the same price.

You can push back your desk so u can fit the center speaker.


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## gsilbers (Feb 7, 2019)

Also if u want to get more into sound for media I suggest using pro tools.


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## RyanMcQuinn (Feb 7, 2019)

Wow, I would've bought the wrong interface. Thanks for catching that, @gsilbers .


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## burp182 (Feb 7, 2019)

To really do 5.1 properly will be a real investment in both time and money. Before diving in, I'd suggest talking to the creative team for the project you've mentioned. Ask if they're prepared to deliver in the 5.1 format and, if so, how they'd prefer your material delivered. Often, you'll find they're quite happy with music delivered as stems, allowing them to pan, place and duck material in the surround field as they see fit during the final dub. Your decisions might not match theirs. So ask first. You may save yourself a lot of effort and investment. 

Having said all that, if you make the decision to proceed and believe you'll be doing a lot of 5.1 mixing, I'd suggest considering Nuendo and Pro Tools. They're set up to do all the planning and convergence decisions pretty easily. 

Good luck!


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Feb 7, 2019)

I'd suggest taking this opportunity to upgrade your speakers and interface if you can afford it rather than a side grade which you'll then want to upgrade again soon. To really be doing 5.1 properly I'd suggest taking a significant step up. If you're just composing and someone else will be mixing then you don't need 5.1 or you could have an inexpensive setup but if you're doing the final mixing there, which it sounds like you are, then I wouldn't recommend it.


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## benmrx (Feb 7, 2019)

Honest question..., are you sure the mixer wants your music and sound design elements delivered in 5.1? FWIW, I do more film mixing (and sound design) than composing and I would _almost_ _always_ prefer the composer to send their cues as stereo stems. That way I have full flexibility in the mix, and can generally keep the music as loud as possible without interfering with the dialog, foley, ambiences, etc. What if your rears are competing with the ambiences, or you've stuck a piano in the center channel during a dialog heavy scene, or your LFE elements are clashing with the sound designs LFE, etc. Or maybe the mixer wants to throw some reverb/delay on the pads to create transitions from scene to scene, etc.


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## RyanMcQuinn (Feb 8, 2019)

Wow, thank you all for your thoughts on this. The team is a combination of the people who run the Nerdy Show Podcast Network and students from Dave's School who will be doing the animation. I would like to mix in 5.1 for a few reasons:

1) I want the finished product to be better in a theater than a stereo mix that could play before or after it. 
2) I want to start mixing everything in 5.1, then probably downmix to stereo most of the time, but have the 5.1 mix available whenever someone might want it with minimal effort. As a freelancer, the only way I can get experience doing this is to just do it. Then by advertising that I mix in 5.1, I will be more impressive to indie devs and get more work, so there's a business plan aspect to it that way. 
3) I have the feeling that as I get experience mixing this way, I will naturally create even better depth in my stereo mixes than I do now, which I have been happy with lately. It's that a realistic expectation? 
4) The director at Nerdy Show is excited about the prospect of 5.1. Hopefully the project will be good enough to interest an investor. I plan to put all the audio together myself. I feel I'm hearing things well enough in stereo at this point that I can put together 3 minutes of quality 5.1 with enough effort and research and there's only one way to find out. 

On a separate point, I try not to buy gear at a mid level price point. I'd rather buy at an entry level price point and then spend 10-20k in a couple years when my income supports it. Right now, I'm in favor of gear that was mid level 10 yrs ago that I can get for entry level modern prices. For example, my current monitors are 8", sound good to my ears, and reproduce pretty low frequencies. I got them for $170 total. That's not possible to find with modern gear. It seems like anything close to my price point is 5" and more limited on the low end. I'm ok with spending up to $1,000 for this 5.1 expansion. 

As a freelancer, I'm always doing my best with a less than desirable setup. However, by growing my portfolio and capabilities, I bit by bit keep charging more. My choices right now are basically to keep mixing in stereo and not expand my business model, or to get entry level 5.1 gear to grow my business and gain experience. I intend to do the latter. 

For a little background, I actually have family in the industry with an expensive studio. The only advice I ever really get from them is that I can't do it without their expensive gear and perfect listening environment and that I basically shouldn't try. Nonetheless, my business has continued to grow as I have persevered, worked very hard, studied independently, and built relationships. While I do genuinely appreciate every single person here who takes the time to lend their thoughts and insight, I will say that any advice that says "just don't do it" is advice I will not take. I do mean that with the utmost respect and gratitude.

Question for those recommending protools over Reaper for multimedia: What can Protools do here that Reaper cannot? Can you provide specific functionality examples, please?

Gear-wise, is anyone aware of an LFE that was mid grade a decade ago that I should keep an eye out for? 

Thanks for all your thoughts. I hope was not too abrasive a moment ago. I'm just trying to keep it real with you all


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## dgburns (Feb 8, 2019)

First short film = STEREO

You’ll thank us all later.


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## Dietz (Feb 8, 2019)

RyanMcQuinn said:


> I will naturally create even better depth in my stereo mixes than I do now, which I have been happy with lately. It's that a realistic expectation?


Actually not. When mixing in surround I always find it much easier to get depth and space, but much harder to "fill the gaps", and to create the sensation of power and density. It's the other way 'round in stereo, if you ask me.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Feb 8, 2019)

RyanMcQuinn said:


> Question for those recommending protools over Reaper for multimedia: What can Protools do here that Reaper cannot? Can you provide specific functionality examples, please?


Nothing except the ability to deliver PT sessions if someone requests it. You'd need HD for surround. Please don't waste your money on that. 



RyanMcQuinn said:


> Gear-wise, is anyone aware of an LFE that was mid grade a decade ago that I should keep an eye out for?


If you're OK with a DIY kit, I can recommend a great sub. You just need to glue the MDF cabinet together and paint it (or leave it unpainted).


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## Scoremixer (Feb 8, 2019)

I completely understand and respect the desire to just go for it, piece together a setup and learn as you go... A couple of things to bear in mind though 

A) music mixed in 5.1 then down mixed to stereo (almost) never sounds better than music mixed stereo from the start - so if you have a reasonable expectation that the finished product will be in stereo then stick with that

B) You'll make better mixes full stop by upgrading your Behringers to a decent pair of mid priced speakers and expanding from there in the future... Better to have great stereos than second guessing 5.1 on a compromised set of speakers


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## RyanMcQuinn (Feb 9, 2019)

Thank you all for your thoughts and advice. I love this community


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## colony nofi (Feb 13, 2019)

I started - well - maybe 15 years ago doing my first surround mix on a loungeroom floor. 3 X Emes Pink monitors and a pair of I don't know what for rears, and some KRK Rokit sub.
It was upmixing a bunch of content for some hour long documentaries that were already mixed... just had stems and needed to get it sounding decent in surround for a DVD release. 
Woah was i in for a RUDE awakening.

I love your attitude... really. Its awesome to just say "do it" - but its also important to figure out what it is you are doing.

Where am I going with this?

Mixing in surround is damn hard. Not because its technically all that much more challenging than stereo... most people will figure that one out through trial and error. But hard as in there is a tonne of craft involved. And some technical "watch outs" that come to bite you right when you least expect it.

Reaper continues to amaze me as a software system - but there is a definite ceiling for the projects you can work on with it. So - I'd just be prepared to go either Nuendo (my personal preference) or Protools HD in the future. They're the only two that can handle the post production workflows required for multi-channel sound post production. AAF support, reconforming tools, ADR tools, re-recording tools...

You *will* get clients that require the delivery in protools format one day. There are pathways from nuendo to PT. Reaper - that's one thing I've never explored.

To speakers.

You absolutely must have exactly the same center as the L and R speakers.

Why?

When mixing you are constantly making decisions about the placement of sound in a XY (and dolby atmos, XYZ) space. If one speaker presents the audio differently, the decisions YOU make about where the sound should go will be different once the audio is played back in a cinema system. Or someone elses 5.1 system. C not the same volume at different frequencies (even once you have aligned the speakers) will mean your overall balance decisions will be out. And in a cinema, 1dB can be a hell of a difference. And then trying to Pan L-R - you will hear tearing (hell, you'll hear tearing on any system) but it will be more noticable / unavoidable with a different speaker. 

You C is where 80% of dialog will live. You will be making TONNES of intelligibility decisions using your C.

So - setup wise. Put your C in first. Figure out where it NEEDS to go and fit in your monitors around that. Tiny rooms with surround are always difficult - just for knowing where to put all the equipment. In a room where you have mid-field speakers, you are able to fit more stuff in.... 

Place the monitor with your vision above the C speaker. Why? Panning becomes EXTREMELY important in a cinema. Its already hard enough mixing on a TV monitor where the speakers for L & R are outside the L & R of the screen... you are estimating then already. It may not be a "huge" error, but getting things like that wrong make the difference between a good experience for a listener and a not-so good one on an EMOTIONAL level - and you need to constantly be thinking of the emotion of the soundtrack.

Ambient / atmospheric / cutting edge experimental stuff is often EASIER to - er - fake it - in the surround world due to the "listen to me" nature of a lot of it. Clever sound. I know when I started I thought it was - er - easy after doing the first few experimental shorts - as there were no rules I needed to abide by. Then I got a talkie.... Ha! A straight drama. Oh now there's stuff to learn. 

But the good thing is that learning things from those straighter projects make doing the experimental stuff really rewarding - and you can figure out even more outreageous things to try!

Surrounds - my one piece of advice is don't go TOO hard for content in surrounds for cinema / 5.1 Remember, the audience is looking straight ahead. Sounds that demand attention in the rears are taking your attention away from the screen. It can easily collapse the suspension of belief.... Immerse rather than demand attention. Contribute to emotion. Serve the story. Serve the story. Serve the story.

Use whatever you can get your hands on for the surrounds. Really, for early work, just getting used to 3.1 with a little surround goodness is not a bad way to go. Anything below 70htz really shouldn't be needed in surrounds unless you are in some sort of crazy sci-fi world... even 100... or...

Learn what it means to align your room to a listening level. Why? Because in cinema, you need to be listening at a level that relates to the final volume people will be hearing it in a cinema. So, when a re-recording mixer says "I listen at 79dB in a nearfield room and 82 or 83 in a mid/large room, you'll know why. And you'll know how to do it. (Set it up!) . This is very important if you are going to get dialog sitting at the right level.

And it also gives you confidence that what you are listening to will translate to cinema. (And then other surround formats as well!)

A good trick that might get you a LONG way... look into software like Waves NX. With the head tracker. A great pair of headphones with waves NX will most likely give you a much better idea of a surround environment than a piece-meal hodge podge of speakers in an untreated room. (There are WAY more first reflections to think of in a small 5.1 listening room than stereo... it means that most are very dry compared to the same size stereo mix room.)

The small size of the room will completely change your reverb decisions compared to a large room. Its one of the reasons why all films (and even decent ADS / Trailers) are mixed (even if from final mix stems from a nearfield room) in a mid/large room. (Balance decisions also tend to change...)

Oh - there are not many true surround reverbs out there. You can do some trickery to make stereo reverbs into 5.1, but its nothing like the real thing. Altiverb Surround, IrcamVerb V3, Phoenix Surround etc... there really isn't that many others. 

MONO is your friend in surround. Its much easier to pan a mono sound in surround than try to make it work realistically from a stereo source. Note : Atmospheres are often a different story... as are anything that is trying NOT to be real.

Learning how to use EQ to help with distance from the screen is huge. Filters are your friend. 

Oh and then there's the sub.

There is a BIG difference between the .1 and using a sub for stereo / bass management.
The .1 in surround is a completely separate track. It only has lfe content in it. It is not there to provide bass management for the other 5 speakers - its an effect speaker. Loads of composers won't touch it. (I don't for music myself...) . In a cinema, most front speakers have nice double 18's to go down into sub region themselves. The sub is extra. You'll need to get to grips with how to set it up. (Especially if the rest of your system requires bass management with your monitoring sub as well - it can get VERY complex.)

Have fun. Expect to make mistakes. Be cool with going back and trying again. 

Good luck .

(I am *not* a day to day re-recording mixer. I have spent a LOT of time with them learning when they've been dubbing my sound design and music for film and tv. I've had to mix a lot of TV and cinema ads - my first decent job out of uni was as the re-recording engineer for a large music and sound design house with 10 studios. I might have also spent a stupidly long time studying / at uni 20 years ago learning this stuff, and realising I was more of a maker than a mixer. I LOVE working with great re-recording mixers. But it is a very different job to creating the actual sound design and music. I've mixed music for a decent number of film scores orchestral and otherwise - even mixed my own more recently (though I wish I had the budget to pay for another set of ears!!).

I happen to have moved in the last 10 years to also be a different type of mix engineer - but for projects involving massively multichannel environments. Think 8 to 160+ speakers. Immersive environments and the like. Museums, experiential environments, public artworks... In the world between the extremely creative and the extremely technical. Where you end up being on the creative team AND doing the commissioning audio engineering. And designing the systems... its a whole other world.

So basically take what I say with a grain of salt, knowing I've had salt rubbed in many wounds along the way...
)


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## Dietz (Feb 13, 2019)

That's a really, really great posting, Colony Nofi! *two thumbs up* ... Ever thought about writing a book ...? 



colony nofi said:


> Oh - there are not many true surround reverbs out there. You can do some trickery to make stereo reverbs into 5.1, but its nothing like the real thing. Altiverb Surround, IrcamVerb V3, Phoenix Surround etc... there really isn't that many others.



Not _that_ many, that's true, but there's also Avid's ReVibe II, Waves' IR-360, R-360 and H-Reverb (which is "kind of" true surround), VSL's MIR Pro (hint, hint  ...), MIRacle and Hybrid Reverb Pro, and of course the "big boys" in the hardware arena are still there, too, namely t.c.electronic's System 6000, Lexicon's 960L, and the multi-channel versions of Quantec's Yardstick 2496.


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## Dietz (Feb 13, 2019)

colony nofi said:


> I happen to have moved in the last 10 years to also be a different type of mix engineer - but for projects involving massively multichannel environments. Think 8 to 160+ speakers. Immersive environments and the like.



.... would you mind to share some examples and to shed some light on the kind of monitoring you're using for these productions?


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## colony nofi (Feb 13, 2019)

Dietz said:


> .... would you mind to share some examples and to shed some light on the kind of monitoring you're using for these productions?


Oh don't get me started on monitoring for these.

I'm involved in two different projects right now looking at this issue - as there really isn't any way to "mock it all up" before getting into a space. Well, there is but...

One is modeling entire spaces within Unity and then placing sounds into Unity that you can then virtually walk around. There are some limitations to this, but its good to show a client the spirit of what you are trying to do. I'm looking into creating a bit of a template system / workflow to make this easy for me even on lower budget gigs. (You'd be amazed at the budgets that are set aside for infrastructure compared to the meager amounts set aside for the content to play on the system....eek!)

The other I can't really talk about, as I've just been interrogating the technology a local company have created that will allow you to walk around a space that has virtual speakers setup in it. Again, it won't show all the interaction / needs static sounds pre-loaded into the tech, but its good for showing clients. 

I've sometimes premixed in a virtual audio environment - essentially 24 identical speakers in a 3D grid. I borrowed ideas from an audio lab at ARUP (the engineering/architecture multinational) who run all their acoustic simulations in such a room in order to show clients how new concert halls will sound etc. It was a pain in the butt - but an interesting project. I might come back to it one day.

Most of the time I cut the space down to smaller systems, and then approximate. I often use SPAT in MAX as my spacial panning - which allows me to change the speaker setup and still mix the same content very very easily. But in most cases, say for the massive multichannel systems, I'm pre-mixing on 16 speakers, and then just going hard in the space once I'm there. Thank goodness for large multi-channel systems over DANTE and MADI!

I did the sound design for a new opera in UAE where we had 7 different audio systems running at once thanks to the amazing minds of the guys at AUDITORIA. There I literally had my laptop in the middle of a 4000 seat purpose built amphitheater, a brand new (I think it might not even have been officially released at the time) USB/MADI interface by RME, and the most horrendous nuendo session you have ever seen. Building 16 channel panners by putting a 8 channel panner into 2 separate 8 channel panners etc. Single MADI chord back to the desk at the back... and ethernet for time code. The control! Who gave me timecode master status???! The Power! . Anyway - in that case, I just used (misused) nuendo in a creative way. The largest system was a 16 channel circular surround "special FX" system... all the others were just standard derivatives of things nuendo handles normally.

Recently finished a museum install where the main soundscape was created using 16 smaller speakers around 3m high facing directly down into the space, and then another 4.2 system for a central sculptural cube. To mix this, I just made a section in my nuendo session for each speaker. Simple moves were just cutting and fading with tonnes of pre-programmed macros. Most content just lived in one speaker at a time. For the bigger moves and more ambient content, I just ran stems out which I mixed using some custom patches I've created in max which are slightly slow to use but give great results. Again - big up to SPAT. I'm VERY much looking into SPAT REVOLUTION to move outside of MAX, but have yet to have the project that gives me the R&D time to figure out the workflow.

Some other projects use algorithmically created (dynamic) audio. There I soley use SPAT inside MAX, and make sure I build the control software so that I have the tools I need to balance things very fast on the fly in the space. Again - DANTE here is my friend. (As is using screen share over wireless networks to move around the room!)

Note : I don't do all the programming of these projects myself. I've been lucky to collaborate with various audio researchers, engineers and systems designers along the way.

One final note. There is not much that can be said to be more useful for the mix process than starting a session in stereo, and just balancing sounds well. All the immersive audio trickery, movement, etc etc really means little if the raw sounds themselves are not balanced well to start. And Approximating things in stereo (or quad, or on a simple 8 channel system... or moving up to the 16 in a larger room) save days on the ground during commissioning.


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## colony nofi (Feb 13, 2019)

Dietz said:


> That's a really, really great posting, Colony Nofi! *two thumbs up* ... Ever thought about writing a book ...?
> 
> 
> 
> Not _that_ many, that's true, but there's also Avid's ReVibe II, Waves' IR-360, R-360 and H-Reverb (which is "kind of" true surround), VSL's MIR Pro (hint, hint  ...), MIRacle and Hybrid Reverb Pro, and of course the "big boys" in the hardware arena are still there, too, namely t.c.electronic's System 6000, Lexicon's 960L, and the multi-channel versions of Quantec's Yardstick 2496.


Oh yes to all these. I really should have put my thinking hat on a little more for that statement. I've got to try Quantec's Yardstick one day.... . Thanks for the added info. 
I guess not that many compared to stereo. 
And a big take away is that there is a huge difference between a stereo reverb on LR, another on LsRs and another on C (and maybe even another on LFE). And what a pain that is anyway.


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## Dietz (Feb 13, 2019)

colony nofi said:


> there is a huge difference between a stereo reverb on LR, another on LsRs and another on C (and maybe even another on LFE).



Strangely enough many colleagues seem to adhere to this "dual-stereo" approach. 8-/ One might argue that there is little need for a phantom imaging between front and rear, but I miss much of the enveloping that comes from true surround reverbs nonetheless.


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## colony nofi (Feb 13, 2019)

Dietz said:


> Strangely enough many colleagues seem to adhere to this "dual-stereo" approach. 8-/ One might argue that there is little need for a phantom imaging between front and rear, but I miss much of the enveloping that comes from true surround reverbs nonetheless.


Its why I use SPAT in MAX... its all about the immersive field...


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## dgburns (Feb 13, 2019)

As @colony nofi says, it’s a whole other level of craft to go from stereo to surround. Not least of which is a successful fold down from 5.0 to stereo and mono.

I recently scored a mini series entirely in 5.0 and what I took away from it was that it became a two step process. 1- write the music and get it approved. 2-Produce it and then make it surround/mixdown and stems output.

I can honestly say it felt like a huge make work project. Problem is, it was the head video editor who proclaimed ‘we’ll have surround score!’. And then a few weeks later, as my stems got delivered for pre locks, he proclaimed ‘Wow horsie! we be going back to stereo, we can’t deal with all these surround stems’. Again, the problem was I was down that road and was not about to change back to stereo. So I made the decision to feed the video ppl stereo stems, but kept working in 5.0 and delivered that to mix.

My take away is that surround is glorious and inspiring. It’s also way more taxing on your system. And there aren’t many true surround plugins (there are a few gems out there). And if you aren’t recording a real orchestra, it’s hard to get that approximated in the box as no one records a center channel as far as I know. So it’s all quad samples. And relying on reverbs to create your rears is not always a good way to go. And there are tons of considerations for synths and guitars and drums, not just panning, but real spatialization techniques.


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