Surround Sound Production Guidelines

[TerryG]

The Recording Academy's Producers & Engineers Wing
Recommendations For Surround Sound Production


http://content.grammy.com/PDFs/Recording_Academy/Producers_And_Engineers/5_1_Rec.pdf

[D]

And thanks again for this.

Bill

[Thonex]

Hey Lex,

WHat are you guys using for surrond channel assignments?




4.2 Bus- and Track-To-Channel Allocations

We recommend the usage of the following 5.1 bus-to-channel allocation, which conforms to the recommendation made by SMPTE and ITU:

Bus 1 2 3 4 5 6
Channel L R C LFE Ls Rs

Other allocations are permissible. However, it is vital that the final surround mix be labeled clearly and correctly so that the mastering engineer knows exactly which track is carrying which channel. One alternate allocation, used for DTS encoding, is as follows:

Bus 1 2 3 4 5 6
Channel L R Ls Rs C LFE

Both of these allocations offer logical, phase-coherent pairs (i.e., L/R, C/LFE,
Ls/Rs), an important factor when utilizing stereo converters. However, another commonly used allocation serves as the film standard in Europe:

Bus 1 2 3 4 5 6
Channel L C R Ls Rs LFE

It is worth noting that one popular digital audio workstation (DAW) records 5.1 data as a single, grouped track, displaying the channels in this format ("L, C, R, Ls, Rs, LFE"). Although this display cannot be changed, the input/output routing should be altered to default to the SMPTE/ITU allocation described above.

[Sam]

Hey T, I am using L,R,C,LFE,Ls,Rs - this seems to be the most widely accepted setup for who I am delivering to....I have never had it requested any other way yet actually.

Sam

[neilwilkes]

The commonest setup is - when using interleaved files - L,R,C,LFE,Ls,Rs.
AFAIK, if you import an interleaved file with another common channel map (L,R,Ls,Rs,C,LFE) it will get remapped internally to match Nuendo's outputs.
I don't know if you can remap them manually with VST Connections - never tried this as there is no real need.
Most Music exports will require re-encoding to MLP Lossless, DTS or Dolby Digital. This usually requires you to export the mixdown as split files, so order here is not an issue. The DTS Encoders I use all ask for separate mono files to be imported - interleaved is not an option - or else you can run the export right off the Nuendo timeline if you have the plugin and channel order sorts itself out internally so again, not an issue. I suspect the same thing will apply to the CAE hardware devices too.
Film may require DTRS, and that's often L,R,Ls,Rs,C,LFE but might not be depending on where it is going. Either way that is a simple repatch & not a problem.