Surround tracks in PT LE

SMuir

SMuir

Well-known member
I stumbled upon another unexpected "feature" in Pro Tools LE:

I was importing some LCR effects, and I decided to import them as an audio track, rather than just bringing them into the region list. To my surprise, they showed up in an LCR track, rather than as three mono tracks (or one mono and one stereo). Although PT LE won't allow us to create new mult-channel tracks, it will create the tracks when importing multichannel files to a new track.

So, I created some dummy files with the appropriate extensions (.L .C .R .RC .LC .LS .RS .LFE) and, sure enough, I was able to create a shiney new 7.1 surround track. The same procedure worked for Quad, 5.0, 5.1, 6.0, 6.1, and 7.0.

Unfortunately, I was unable to assign inputs, outputs or sends to my new surround tracks, so they're not terribly useful. However, this does mean that I'll be able to cut atmos tracks on mono and stereo groups, and move them onto surround tracks before delivering them to the mix.

Maybe someone else will be able to figure out a more useful application for this undocumented feature.
 
A 7-track audio project in ProTools LE is just a seven track mono or stereo project, isn't it? Regardless of what the tracks are named, without surround pots, surround filters, etc., I don't believe it would be considered a surround project at all.
 
kwoff said:
A 7-track audio project in ProTools LE is just a seven track mono or stereo project, isn't it? Regardless of what the tracks are named, without surround pots, surround filters, etc., I don't believe it would be considered a surround project at all.
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Yes, and no.

After further investigation, I've found that although surround tracks can be created in the manner I described, such a session can not be re-loaded in PT LE: doing so prompts an error report, and the offending tracks are discarded. Neither can such multichannel tracks be imported from other sessions in PT LE.

However, to say that a multichannel PT LE session is not a surround session is a bit misleading. Several of LE's hardware interfaces provide 6 or more discreet outputs, meaning that surround mixes and sessions are certainly possible. All it takes is a bit of creative bussing, much as it did before surround pots were introduced to the TDM platforms. Moreover, I've cut a number of Surround shows on my Mbox, using stereo and mono groups in lieu of surround tracks. When the session is loaded onto a Mix-24 or HD system, its a simple matter to move groups of five or six mono tracks en masse to 5.0 or 5.1 surround tracks, and the mixer need only reassign the output busses of the tracks before comencing the premix.

Surround pots, like surround tracks, are really more of a labour saving device.

Still, it seems apparant that PT LE's lack of surround grouping and bussing support is rather a case of crippleware. As much as I'm a died-in-the-wool PT user, they're going to have to start reconsiderring that decision or they'll entirely loose their market share to Nuendo and others.
 
Correct all files in a PT session are single channel. The upside with this "multi channel" track would be that you could work a multi channel region instead of having to group all six tracks together. So it's not a "surround" project (session is the correct term in PT - project is a the STP term) but it will let you edit STEMs easier.
 
SMuir said:
Surround pots, like surround tracks, are really more of a labour saving device.
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Is this really true? For example, suppose you wanted to have a sound effect in one of your PT LE tracks move from the rear R channel to the front R channel and then to the center channel before fading out. With a surround pot and surround outputs, you would move the location of the single sound effect track over time from the rear channel to the center channel. Between the start and end of the move, the sound would be located between the rear R and front R channels, then at the front R channel, then between the front R and Center, and final at the center channel. Without surround outputs and a surround pot for this track, how would it even be possible to do this move? Would you set up three tracks and continually adjust the volume in all three to give the effect of a single sound moving in this way. Even if this could be done accurately, it would take forever, making it at the very least impractical.

In the same way, a single track with the surround panner set at the center is sent at equal volume to all 5 outputs in a 5.1 mix (ignoring the .1 low frequency channel). To approximate this with mono tracks, you would need 5 identical tracks, each sent to a different output at equal volume--and then to move the sound in space would require coordinated volume adjustments to all 5 tracks to create the appropriate effect of the sound moving in the way you want. I think this would be unworkable even with one surround track--for a session with 4 or 5 surround tracks, it would quickly become totally impractical, it seems to me.

The absence of surround support was precisely the reason that I gave up on PT LE and moved to a different interface and program. Depending on how STP 2's surround tools look, I may start doing a lot of my surround mixing there once FCS2 ships. My hat is off to you, however, if you are able to get acceptable surround results using PT LE.

Kevin
 
There are a number of ways to achieve surround panning using mono and stereo busses, and they all tend to get pretty complicated, which is why I hand my surround edits to a fully equipped mixing theatre.

Smooth front-to-back pans can be "faked" a number of ways. For example: create a pair of stereo busses (L-Ls and R-Rs), and use both as sends on a single mono track. Adjusting the relative levels of the sends will give you you're L to R axis, while the sends' pan pots give you the you're front to back axis. Alternately, you could use L-Rs / R-Ls or L-R / Ls-Rs busses, depending on how you want to organize things. Certainly not simple, but it will get the job done.

Of course its still more efficient for me to my tracks, pre-mixed in stereo, to an HD theatre.
 
Until recently very few mix stages had more than one or poss two surround paners and quite a few had none. It was all done with two channel pans. The move you are talking about is not something that is likely in a film. So I guess the more accurate answer is that for films Le is able to do surround about as well as most mix stages ten years ago, and about as well as most films need today. The kind of wild surround moves you are talking about are really games and some of those virtual reality presentations. Very few films want much happening in the surrounds nor do they need/ want much in the way of dramatic panning anywhere. There are exceptions of course but as a rule all the above is very disorienting for an audience. First because it's pretty unnatural and out side of the expected experience, and second because only two or three people get to sit in the sweet spot so the carefully placed dramatic pan doesn't work for most of your audience. Any thing important in the surrounds will be either overwhelming for those in the back or inaudible for those in the front. This is why it is almost never done (and only a very few of those actually work well) in a normal theatrical release. Video games is a different world and you can do anything you want pretty much. IMAX and such put pretty much the whole audience at the sweet spot (or close enough) and can get away with much more dramatic moves. In theory DVD releases could also be more free BUT most people are going to hear the film on Stereo or mono. Of the folks who have a "home theatre" system probably 1/2 or more are set up wrong and your dramatic moves wont work either. Having seen a lot of home "surround" setups almost none have the speakers where they should be and very few are calibrated in any way. This is usually because of cosmetics or room shape, so again anything dramatic is just not going to have the desired effect. This is in part why I try to discourage folks who are not going to mix in a real mix stage for theatrical release to "just say no" to surround. It's a buzz word that adds little if anything to the quality of your track and costs a lot in time and effort.
 
Noiz2 said:
...I try to discourage folks who are not going to mix in a real mix stage for theatrical release to "just say no" to surround. It's a buzz word that adds little if anything to the quality of your track and costs a lot in time and effort.
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Sage advice, that.
 
Noiz2,

Thanks for the informative post. My training is in the visual arts and I do video installations in which I sometimes use surround sound. The environment is a little different than a film audience--the room is smaller, there are generally video monitors or projections at at least two, and sometimes as many as four, different locations in the room, the viewers are generally free to move around the room, and there are usually only a few people present at any given time. In that context, I will often place sounds at the center of the room, and I can see how some of the moves would be weird in the context of a theatrical audience. (I just made up the particular moves in my earlier post, however, to help describe what I was trying to say.) In many ways, an installation may be a less demanding context than a theatrical release, making it easier to play around with such things.

I always assume that what I am doing technically is just a more rudimentary version of what the film folks on this forum are doing, and appreciate all the technical information available here. I find it interesting that in this particular instance it looks like what I am engaged in involves a somewhat different process.

Thanks,
Kevin
 
Kevin,

What your doing is much more like a theatrical sound design. I did theatre for - oh way too many years and placing sound in specific spots was quite common. It's not really "surround" in the film sense it's more multi track. In that situation I would probably do it the way we used to which is by using individual sends and doing fader moves. But your right it can get very complicated and the kind of multi channel out put is not something PT Le is terribly good at. If you only need 5 outs you could try Sound Track Pro. There are not that many things I would recommend it for but it does have a good(if a bit limited) surround implementation. It's catch is that it can only out put to a 5.1 channel out put (or less). This might get fixed in the future. The last theatre I worked at had a 24 in by 16 out mix board with a huge amount of flexibility and two surround joy sticks. That's what you could really use... but it was 8 feet long and originally cost something like $30,000. You could get a nice PT HD rig for that.
 
Noiz2,

Thanks so much for the feedback. I have been using Logic Pro, which has pretty good surround tools, but not great. I was hoping the new version of Soundtrack Pro might improve on this some. I just got my copy of FCS 2, so I will be trying it out soon.

The great thing about what I am doing is that I get to do every step of the process. The down side, of course, is that I don't really do enough of each to get really good at them.

Kevin
 
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