User manual

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Surround sound (Cubase only)
Routing channels directly to surround channels
If you want to place an audio source in one separate
speaker channel only, you can route it directly to that
speaker channel. This is useful for pre-mixed material or
multi-channel recordings that don’t require panning.
1. Open the mixer and locate the channel you wish to
route.
2. From the output routing pop-up menu, select the cor-
responding surround speaker channel.
• If a stereo audio channel is routed directly to a speaker
channel, the left/right channels will be mixed to mono.
The pan control for the audio channel governs the balance between the
left and right channel in the resulting mono mix. Center pan will produce
a mix of equal proportion.
Routing channels using child busses
Child busses provide a way to route stereo (or multi-chan-
nel) audio channels to specific speaker channels in a sur-
round configuration.
The most obvious application of a child bus is when you
wish to add a stereo channel to two specific left/right sur-
round speaker channels.
If you have added a child bus within a surround bus (see
above), it appears as a submenu item within the surround
bus on the output routing pop-up menu. Select this to
route a stereo audio channel directly to that stereo
speaker pair in the surround bus.
Using the Surround Panner
Cubase has a special feature for graphically positioning a
sound source in a surround field. This is actually a special
plug-in which distributes the audio from the channel in
various proportions to the surround channels.
1. Open the mixer and locate the channel you wish to
position.
This could be a mono or stereo channel.
2. From the output routing pop-up menu, select the
“whole surround bus” option (not a specific speaker
channel).
A miniature graph of the surround plug-in interface appears above the
fader in the channel strip.
When the “whole surround bus” is selected, the channel strip shows a
miniature surround control.
3. You can click and drag directly in the miniature image
to move the sound in the surround field.
The horizontal red strip to the right controls the subbass (LFE) level (if
available in the selected surround format).
• You can also view a slightly larger version of this control
by selecting “Panner” on the View options pop-up menu
for the extended mixer panel.
This mode offers click and drag-panning as well as numerical values for
left/right balance, front/rear balance and LFE amount – enter the desired
number or use the mouse wheel to adjust them.
• The SurroundPan can also be displayed in the Inspector
for all audio channel track types. To display the Surround
Pan tab in the Inspector, make sure the corresponding op-
tion is enabled in the Inspector context menu.
• For total control over surround panning, double-click on
the miniature image to open the full Surround Panner
interface in a separate window.