User manual

649
Export Audio Mixdown
The available file formats
• Bit Rate/Quality pop-up menu
This menu allows you to set the desired bit rate. The available bit rate settings vary
depending on the selected mode and/or output channels (see above). If the Variable
Bitrate mode is used, the menu allows you to select from various levels of quality, with
10 being the lowest and 100 the highest. Generally, the higher the bitrate or quality
you select, the larger the final file will be. The menu also shows the channel format
(5.1 or stereo).
Advanced tab
• Dynamic Range Control
These controls allow you to define the dynamic range of the encoded file. The dynamic
range is the difference in dB between the average loudness and the peak audio level
(the loudest sounds) of the audio. These settings affect how the audio is reproduced if
the file is played on a Windows computer with a player from the Windows Media series,
and the “Quiet Mode” feature of the player is activated to control the dynamic range.
The dynamic range is automatically calculated during the encoding process, but you
can specify it manually as well.
To manually specify the dynamic range, first put a checkmark in the box to the left by
clicking in it, and then enter the desired dB values in the Peak and Average fields. You
can enter any value between 0 and -90
dB. Note, however, that it is usually not
recommended to change the Average value, since this affects the overall volume level
of the audio and therefore can have a negative effect on the audio quality.
The Quiet Mode in a Windows Media player can be set to one of three settings.
Below, these settings are listed together with an explanation of how the Dynamic
Range settings affect them:
- Off: If Quiet Mode is off, the dynamic range settings that were automatically
calculated during the encoding will be used.
- Little Difference: If this is selected and you have not manually changed the dynamic
range settings, the peak level will be limited to 6
dB above the average level during
playback. If you have manually specified the dynamic range, the peak level will be
limited to the mean value between the peak and average values you specified.
- Medium Difference: If this is selected and you have not manually changed the
dynamic range settings, the peak level will be limited to 12
dB above the average
level. If you have changed the dynamic range, the peak level will be limited to the
peak value you specified.
• Surround Reduction Coefficients
Here you can specify which amount of volume reduction, if any, is applied to the
different channels in a surround encoding. These settings affect how the audio is
reproduced on a system incapable of playing back the file in surround, in which case
the surround channels of the file will be combined into two channels and played back
in stereo instead.
The default values should produce satisfactory results, but you can change the values
manually if you wish. You can enter any value between 0 and -144
dB for the surround
channels, the center channel, the left and right channels and the LFE channel,
respectively.
Media tab
In these fields you can enter a number of text strings with information about the file –
title, author, copyright information and a description of its contents. This information
will then be embedded in the file header and can be displayed by some Windows
Media Audio playback applications.
Ö For more information about surround sound and encoding, see the chapter “Surround
sound (Cubase only)” on page 266.