5.1 Audio Monitoring QUestion

R

RCummings4885

Member
Greetings all. Okay, so I know FCP doesn't have 5.1 editing power but Sountrack Pro does. My question is regarding my monitoring of said sound. I have a surround sound speaker system with an OPTICAL AUDIO IN and I also have an OPTICAL AUDIO OUT on my power Mac G5. Can I use the OPTICAL OUT on my computer to route my 5.1 sound to my surround sound with the OPTICAL IN? Or do I need to buy an audio interface? Also in my audio output options in system preferences there are options for SOUNDFLOWER 2CH and SOUNDFLOWER 16CH. What are these? Sorry if it's a stupid question but I really have no idea.

Thanks for the help in advance
Ryan
 
Pretty sure you need a multichannel audio interface to get 5.1 out of FCP, and in that mode it does indeed support surround directly. So something like a MOTU 828 would work:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/828mk3/

...or presumably a Digidesign MBox Pro:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MBox2Pro

I'm certain about the 828, less so about the MBox.

In any case, once you have a multichannel interface connected, you'd set up FCP's audio output routing to support it, and the appropriately named channels appear in the timeline (IIRC, that is - I'm doing this form memory, and I don't have mine set up this way at the moment). Then you'd connect the 6 channel outputs to the analog inputs on your 5.1 monitor system. If you only have an optical input, then I don't think it will be possible since it would be looking for an already-encoded Dolby Digital stream, which FCP can't generate. But a stereo receiver that has 5.1 multichannel audio ins will work just fine for that. If you don't have the budget for a new one, there should be tons of them on the used market going for dirt cheap because these types of products depreciate like wildfire and have been commonplace for many years now. You could start by looking on Ebay.

The last step is calibrating and EQing the system, which is a substantial piece of business, and not at all on the easy/beginner's side. You might need an expert in this to assist you at that point.
 
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