Downmixing

Downmixing is a way of previewing your surround project in stereo only. There are various cases where surround is not available and it may be that someone plays your project in stereo only. A radio broadcast is a good example. Downmixing is a valuable tool for determining if your project will sound good in stereo. However, you can export your project in stereo, and Sonar uses your downmix settings to create your exported file.

The following table lists the downmixing settings in Edit > Preferences > Project - Surround and gives a brief description of what the setting does. You can also manually enter other values besides these preset ones.

Downmixing Setting	Options
Center Downmix Level (dB)	These options determine how much of the center is mixed to the left and right. -3 dB. Maintains the same level of center channel sound when you listen in a typically reverberant room. -4.5 dB. A compromise level between -3 dB and -6 dB. -6 dB. Maintains the same level of center channel sound when you listen to direct sound without typical room reverberations. -INF. Eliminates all of the Center channel signal.
Surround Downmix Level (dB)	The amount of Left Surround and Right Surround mixed into the Left and Right channels respectively. -3 dB. Maintains the same level of surround. -6 dB. Reduces the level of surround so that it doesn’t compete with center channel sound such as dialog. -INF. Eliminates all of the Surround channel signal.
LFE Level (dB)	The amount of the LFE channel mixed into the Left and Right channels respectively. -12 (or type in a value). Lets you choose the level of LFE in the stereo mix. -INF. Eliminates all LFE.

To downmix a project

1.	If you do not have a stereo bus in your project, create one by right-clicking in the Bus pane in the Track view or Console view and selecting Insert Stereo Bus from the menu that appears.

2.	Go to Edit > Preferences > Project - Surround, select a center downmix level and a surround downmix level, and click OK.

3.	In each of the surround buses, assign the output to a stereo bus.

4.	Listen to your project through the stereo bus, and make any final adjustments to the stereo mix by changing the values in Edit > Preferences > Project - Surround.

5.	If you want to export your stereo mix, use the File > Export > Audio command. This command obeys your downmix settings.

 

See:

Panning in surround