User manual

Table Of Contents
266
Surround sound (Cubase only)
Introduction
Cubase has integrated surround sound features with support for several formats. This
support goes all the way through the audio path: all audio-related channels (i.
e. audio
and instrument tracks as well as group channels) and busses can handle multi-channel
speaker configurations. A channel in the MixConsole can either carry complete surround
mixes, or an individual speaker channel which is part of a surround setup.
Cubase offers the following surround-related features:
- Audio-related tracks can be routed freely to surround channels.
- The SurroundPanner V5 plug-in is automatically applied to audio-related tracks
with a mono or stereo configuration that are routed to output channels with a multi-
channel configuration (other than stereo). It is available in the Inspector and
MixConsole and can be used to graphically position channels in the surround field.
The plug-in is described in detail in the section
“Using the SurroundPanner V5” on
page 269.
- Cubase only: The MixConvert V6 plug-in is used to convert a surround channel
into a different format if the corresponding input/output configuration is not
handled by the SurroundPanner
V5. Cubase places MixConvert V6 automatically
where needed. For more information, see
“Using the MixConvert V6 plug-in
(Cubase only)” on page 277. Furthermore, the plug-in is described in detail in the
separate PDF document “Plug-In Reference”.
- Cubase supports surround-specific plug-ins, that is, plug-ins with multi-channel
support specifically designed for surround sound mixing tasks (the included
“Mix6to2” plug-in is an example of this). Furthermore, any VST3 plug-in features
multi-channel support and can therefore be used in a surround configuration, even if
it was not specifically designed for surround. This is described in detail in the section
“Using effects in multi-channel configurations (Cubase only)” on page 231. All plug-
ins are described in the separate PDF document “Plug-in Reference”.
- You configure Cubase for surround sound by defining input and output busses in
the desired surround format and specifying which audio inputs and outputs are
used for the different channels in the busses, see
“Preparations” on page 267.
Deliverables
The result of a surround mix in Cubase is either the multi-channel audio sent from the
surround output bus to your dubber, or (if you use the Export Audio Mixdown feature)
audio file(s) on your hard disk. Exported surround mixes can either be split (one mono
file per speaker channel) or interleaved (a single file containing all the surround
channels).