Setting up surround hardware
Before you create surround projects, you should set up your system to provide 5.1 surround playback. To play a 5.1 surround project,
you must have an appropriate speaker setup such as:
• Six powered speakers
• Six passive speakers with a six-channel amplifier
Your system must also have an appropriate sound card setup such as:
• 5.1-compatible sound card
• Sound card with three stereo outputs
• Three stereo sound cards
There are several ways to set up your system, depending on the sound card and speaker setup you are using.
Six powered speakers Six passive speakers with a six-channel amplifier
5.1-
Connect powered speakers to your sound card’s
Connect your sound card’s front, rear, and center/
compatible
outputs as indicated by your sound card’s
subwoofer outputs to the appropriate inputs on a
sound card
documentation.
six-channel amplifier/home theater receiver. Connect front,
rear, center, and LFE speakers to the amplifier.
Sound card
Connect powered speakers to your sound card’s
Connect your sound card’s outputs to the appropriate
with three
outputs where you have routed each of the pairs of
inputs on a six-channel amplifier/home theater receiver.
stereo
channels. The left channel of the Center/LFE pair is
Connect front, rear, center, and LFE speakers to the
outputs
the center channel; the right channel is the LFE
amplifier.
channel.
Three stereo
Connect powered speakers to your sound cards’
Connect your sound card’s outputs to the appropriate
sound cards
outputs where you have routed each of the pairs of
inputs on a six-channel amplifier/home theater receiver.
channels. The left channel of the Center/LFE pair is
Connect front, rear, center, and LFE speakers to the
the center channel; the right channel is the LFE
amplifier.
channel.
Setting up surround projects
You can configure an ACID project to use 5.1 surround in the Project Properties dialog. You can also choose to apply a low-pass filter for
the LFE channel. Applying a low-pass filter approximates the bass-management system in a 5.1 decoder and ensures that you’re
sending only low-frequency audio to the LFE channel.
1.
From the File menu, choose Properties.
2.
Click the Audio tab.
3.
From the Master bus mode drop-down list, choose 5.1 surround.
4.
To limit the audio sent to the LFE channel, do the following:
• Select the Enable low-pass filter on LFE check box and enter a value in the Cutoff frequency for low-pass filter box. The low-
pass filter isolates the audio sent to the LFE channel by limiting it to frequencies lower than the value entered in the Cutoff
frequency for low-pass filter box.
• Choose a setting from the Low-pass filter quality drop-down list to determine the sharpness of the filter’s rolloff curve. Best
produces the sharpest curve.
Note:
Before rendering your surround project, check your surround authoring application’s documentation to determine its required
audio format. Some encoders require a specific cutoff frequency and rolloff, while other encoders require that no filter be applied before
encoding.
5.
Click OK.
The track list and Mixing Console window switch to 5.1 surround mode. The Master bus becomes the Surround Master bus, which
contains faders for each of the six surround channels. Surround panners appear on tracks and Mixing Console controls. Tracks routed to
Mixing Console controls (busses, assignable effects, or soft synths) do not have surround panners; panning for these tracks takes place
on the Mixing Console control.
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