Surround Mixing Problem

  • Thread starter Thread starter maverickempire
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maverickempire

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ok, so here's my issue. i record my songs in stereo, so therefore i mix them down in stereo. the mixes all sound pretty good when played on a computer, in a car, and even on cd players and out of headphones. where the problem comes in, is if a computer or some other audio device is hooked up to like sorround sound speakers, the songs sound absoluetly terrible...other songs sound really good out of the surround sound speakers, but mine doesnt.im not sure what to do. i only have one pair of monitors, so im not sure how to mix using a sourround 5.1 setting...any advice would help tremendously...
 
Hmm, my mixes have always held up in 5.1...

Well, my mixes are shit. But no more so on 5.1 systems than stereo ones.

In what way do they sound 'absolutely terrible' ?
 
well they sound terrible relative to the stereo mixes...the vocals seem sort of distant and "airy"...they just dont feel as crisp as they do on the stereo mix. maybe its something im doing wrong?
 
maverickempire said:
well they sound terrible relative to the stereo mixes...the vocals seem sort of distant and "airy"...they just dont feel as crisp as they do on the stereo mix. maybe its something im doing wrong?
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You're doing nothing wrong. A 5.1 surround receiver should be set to stereo when playing stereo material. If it's in surround mode your music is being "decoded" as if it were a Dolby ProLogic surround mix. Which it's not. Also, there are two types of Dolby ProLogic - I and II. The older ProLogic I muffles stereo music badly as you describe. Newer receivers that have ProLogic II usually don't sound as terrible when playing stereo. But the sound always improves when you set the receiver to stereo.

--Ethan
 
You mentioned that other songs (pro mix) sound fine it's just your mixes that, you feel, don't sound good... Well then it's probably some sort of subtlety that you're missing in your stereo mixes- where you think everything sounds fine but something’s off or amiss. The only time I’ve encountered something like that was in a mix down that wasn’t mastered correctly- and it wasn’t my receiver that was the problem. So one day as an experiment I mixed everything down in 5.1 and encoded it in stereo to see if it would help and surprisingly it did, so then I reversed engineered the stereo track to see what I had been doing wrong. It worked out well for me; maybe you could do the same… You don’t need a 5.1 setup to do a 5.1 mix down you just need a good encoder plug-in that automatically mixes down to stereo. In the process it can help you organize your mixes and allow them to breathe slightly more…
 
When a surround decoder needs to fake surround from a stereo track it takes what is common to both speakers and puts it in the center, keeps the wide stuff to the sides and then delays the wide stuff and sticks it in the rear channel. It is pretty much the same as M/S or Mid-Side decoding. Look that up on google if you don't know what M/S is.

I've noticed that mixes that have great mono compatibility usually have great surround compatibility because any type of phase cancellation will create weird but opposite issues on both types of playback systems. When a stereo track, like drum overheads or delayed vocals or guitars, has some cancellation issues when summed to mono that same track will tend to be pushed super wide when played in surround because it will only come out of the side and rear speakers and not the center channel.

Always check your mixes for mono compatibility and you should be good on surround too.
 
TexRoadkill said:
When a surround decoder needs to fake surround from a stereo track it takes what is common to both speakers and puts it in the center, keeps the wide stuff to the sides and then delays the wide stuff and sticks it in the rear channel. It is pretty much the same as M/S or Mid-Side decoding. Look that up on google if you don't know what M/S is.

I've noticed that mixes that have great mono compatibility usually have great surround compatibility because any type of phase cancellation will create weird but opposite issues on both types of playback systems. When a stereo track, like drum overheads or delayed vocals or guitars, has some cancellation issues when summed to mono that same track will tend to be pushed super wide when played in surround because it will only come out of the side and rear speakers and not the center channel.

Always check your mixes for mono compatibility and you should be good on surround too.
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+1! What he said ^^^^^^^ :)

G.
 
thanks for all the help guys...i think i have a concept of what to do, so all there is now is to try some things out and see what works. if i have anymore questions, i'll be sure to ask
 
oh...this may be a dumb question, but how exactly do i check my mix for mono capabilities?
 
maverickempire said:
oh...this may be a dumb question, but how exactly do i check my mix for mono capabilities?
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That just means to temporarily create a mono version of your mix (all stereo tracks converted to mono, all tracks panned center), and then listening to that mix to see what tracks may be screwing with each other. Then using EQ, compression, levels adjustment, etc. to tweak the individual tracks until they all can pretty much hold their own in a mono mix.

G.
 
maverickempire said:
oh...this may be a dumb question, but how exactly do i check my mix for mono capabilities?
Click to expand...

If you're lucky your DAW or monitoring system has a mono button. Otherwise do like Glenn suggested and pan everything straight up.
 
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