Is there a plug-in that lets you mix surround without Ultimate?

[Stokestack]

Hi all.

I'm planning to buy Pro Tools as soon as Avid fixes the purchasing function on its site, but I just noticed that surround mixing is only available in Ultimate. That's the only feature I need beyond regular Pro Tools, and that's a mighty steep price.

Is there a plug-in that implements its own surround-mixing capability that works in regular Pro Tools?

[JFreak]

No. Greater-than-stereo requires Ultimate.

However you can do surround in the oldskool way of setting 5.1 outputs and use sends to create surround soundscape. Not as nice as a real surround panner, but that is how we did it before we had one.

[Stokestack]

Thanks! How do you get multiple discrete, pannable channels out of the computer? Thunderbolt audio interface or something?

[JFreak]

Depends on your interface of course. Need at least 6 outputs to get a 5.1 mix, but you obviously have that as you are asking for surround.

So you can set it up like this for example:
- outputs 1-2 front stereo
- outputs 3-4 rear stereo
- output 5 center channel
- output 6 lfe channel

Then do your mix in stereo as usual and use sends to feed your 3-6 channels.

[Stokestack]

Thanks.

I really haven't even explored what kind of multichannel output device to use. I mostly do mixes for video that I shoot. Nothing all that high-end currently, and it's not as if I'm going to be building a Dolby-spec mixing room or anything.

I thought maybe I could use an A/V receiver and send a multichannel bitstream to it from the computer optically to start.

[JFreak]

I'm sure you would think it is that easy.

AV receiver does not handle discreet audio, it needs to be encoded to Dolby Digital or something that the box understands. And to be able to do that, you need Ultimate that has surround mixer. When you have that, you can have encoder plugin that makes it possible.

But without Ultimate, you need to send 5.1 discreet analog audio to your monitoring system.

[Stokestack]

I realize that it isn't likely to encode AC-3 on the fly, but my receiver can handle an uncompressed multichannel PCM bitstream. So I thought that might be an option.

[JFreak]

Are you sure about that? You can always try, but usually consumer gear only handle 2-channel uncompressed SPDIF.

[Farhoof]

Originally Posted by Stokestack

I realize that it isn't likely to encode AC-3 on the fly, but my receiver can handle an uncompressed multichannel PCM bitstream. So I thought that might be an option.

This is only from an HDMI source.

Personally I would buy the Ultimate version if you can make money from it. Otherwise I'd get another DAW that can do surround for a fraction of the cost and just skip the cumbersome non-ultimate workaround altogether.

[Stokestack]

Yep, thanks.

What other DAW would you consider?