5.1 to LtRt

[zzstation]

Hi guys,
I'm working on a short movie. It's only in one location (a quite hospital) and there's no music, only in the end of the film.
So I have quite bg in 5.0, Dialogue on Center with a little reverb for the LR, and this song in the end. That's it.
The director already watched and approved the mix.
But now I'm doing my LtRt (Neyrinck plugin) and I have some doubts about it.
The Dialogue was already low in 5.1. Now if I reduce 3 db on my center channel on the encoding it gets even lower. On the other hand, when the music comes it gets too loud, I guess because I'm summing all the channels (but no LFE).
Wha am I doing wrong? Should I encode with my stems (Music, Dialogue and BG) separated?
Thanks in advance,
zzstation

[Postman]

The Dialogue was already low in 5.1. Now if I reduce 3 db on my center channel on the encoding it gets even lower.

Its get lower on the meter, but should not sound softer unless your playback alignments are wrong. Center channel level shift during folddown is done to maintain stereo compatiblity. During your surround mix, the center channel is playing through one speaker. When you fold down to LtRt and listen in stereo, the center channel is now playing from TWO speakers, which add together in the room for roughly 3db increase in level. When LtRt is decoded (inflated) to surround, center information is extracted and RAISED 3db for original playback level through one speaker again. This should be done automatically by the decoder.

If your music is partially panned into the surround channels, it will probably sound louder after fold down to LtRt than in the discrete surround playback. Sound addition through panpots is not the same as sound addition within the room.

[zzstation]

Postman,
tks for your reply. It certainly clarified things to me.
Best,
zzstation

[cjguitar]

Be sure to pull down the surrounds -3db as well when folding into the LtRt.