User Manual

B-Chain Support for Audio Monitoring
(Studio Only)
Choosing Fairlight > Immersive > B-Chain Control opens the B-Chain Control window. Using
traditional cinema audio postproduction terminology, the “A-Chain” is all of the bussing and
signal processing that happens within the mix (in our case using the Fairlight page) and the
“B-Chain” is the signal processing, amplification and speaker system that takes the sound from
your workstation’s output and gets it “into your ears.” This typically includes all necessary signal
decoding or pre-processing hardware, amplification systems, and speaker setups for most
professional and commercial listening environments, especially for immersive audio or surround
sound formats. These options are complex and have many variables in terms of speaker
configuration, selection, and placement, output channel timing, attenuation, and phase, and a
host of other considerations.
In DaVinci Resolve, these B-Chain controls affect how the channels of audio being output by
the Main you’re mixing is mapped to the actual audio signals being output from your
workstation into the amplification and speaker system of the current viewing environment. The
extensive level of control the B-Chain presets offer is most useful in situations such as
surround-sound configured grading and mixing theaters, to define how the immersive audio
standard you’re mixing is mapped to the speaker setup of your particular application, and to
fine-tune the channels being output to each speaker specifically for your environment. In
simpler monitoring situations, the B-Chain controls can be useful for configuring the standard
you’re mixing with to play out of a non-standard speaker setup in your room.
Ultimately, the B-Chain controls are designed and intended for users who need to create
custom, fine-tuned settings for their specific monitoring situation. For this reason, pretty much
every real-world use of these B-Chain controls will require custom configuration for your unique
environment.
Overview of Setting Up a B-Chain Configuration
Setting up a B-Chain configuration takes some doing, but once set up, you have a preset that’s
easy to reopen at any time. In the following example, a B-Chain preset will be configured to
convert a 5.1 surround output to a 3-channel left-center-right room speaker setup.
To set up a B-Chain:
1 Choose Fairlight > Immersive > B-Chain Control to open the B-Chain Control dialog.
This exposes the monitoring controls but not the configuration controls.
2 Click the Option menu in this window and choose Setup B-Chain Presets. The B-Chain
Setup window appears.
3 Click the New button to create a new B-Chain preset, then enter a name in the dialog
and click OK. In this example we’ll use the name “5.1 to LCR.” The Name you enter here
is the name of the saved setting data.
Additional buttons let you Delete, Rename, or Duplicate presets that you’ve already
created once you choose them from the Setting pop-up.
4 Enter a label in the Name field (this is the name that appears in the preset menu). The
name you enter here is the name that appears in whatever pop-up menus you select
these options from.
Chapter – 176 Immersive Audio Workflows 3550