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Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm
Try to use the proper names for things. I am not a movie/video person but...
You have TOSLINK optical output and want to run a surround sound format on that. You can't do that with S/PDIF over TOSLINK... that's stereo only and the only thing Pro Tools will directly output to that interface.
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Thanks, I'm glad you were able to understand what I meant. I clarified in the post that I mean the TOSLink cable. I guess I was asking how do I get Pro Tools to use some protocol other than S/PDIF.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm
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Yes, something like that. Good God, $4,000??
Quote:
Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm
Pro Tools does not require ASIO just to worth with video, Pro Tools requires ASIO for *any* audio work on Windows, well it claims to work with WASAPI audio but really is not reliable. Why? Because Windows audio is an awful mess and ASIO is the best out there. ASIO4ALL is a flakey wrapper that may or may not work. You should have planned on getting a proper ASIO interface (with native ASIO driver provided by the interface vendor) to use with Pro Tools. And while mixing supporting you really want multiple monitors set up properly for surround sound. Unless you are targeting something that is going to be used on specific surround capable headphones I think you are wasting your time both trying to use ASIO4ALL and mixing surround on those headphones.
You say you've got monitors... but if they are only cheap PC surround speakers they may not work great... but almost certainly better than headphones if you take a little care with setup. You can try running them off the PC audio analog outputs with ASIO4ALL, but at that point you are so far away from doing stuff correctly who knows if it will work well.
If setting up a mix room to deliver professional product you also may need to pay attention to getting a subwoofer, monitor controller,. and performing level calibrations. That setup will cost.
So if doing 5.1 at a minimum you need an ASIO capable interface with 6 line outputs or more (or digital outputs if driving digital monitors, but they are expensive so I'll assume not). Low cost PC surround monitors will not get you to decent enough SPL levels, but will be better than headphones. There are lots of interfaces out there from Focusright, Presonus, UAD, RME, etc. but these will be in the few $k range to get those outputs.
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I already mixed the first edit of the video actually. I used my Macbook Pro with my Focusrite Scarlett 18i20 to feed the amp and speakers. Yeah, they're only consumer level speakers, I "hear" you. It's just a student short film. I developed a pretty good bus array to bounce 5.1 and mixed-down stereo stem files for DX, FX, MX, and ambiance.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm
The next challenge is video-audio sync, an area where folks spend lots of money on Pro Tools Ultimate and Digilink based systems to get sub frame accurate sync.
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That isn't just a matter of setting the timeline scale to milliseconds instead of frames? That seemed to work. I can align the sound clips to sub-frame time points.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm
Likewise if you are working from field recorders you may want the field recorder workflow in Pro Tools Ultimate. Have you actually imported any of the content and done any editing yet? Seen if what you can deliver will meet producer's expectations? Producer happy with the sync delivered? How is final deliver done for the? DVD? BlueRay? Streaming service? Do you know what all the specs for that you need to meet and the delivery format?
If you are doing this as a hobby/for free I would probably give up on the surround and mix as stereo, and hopefully get Stereo monitors set up. Focus on doing simple well. Lots and lots of really hard stuff to get done even with that, most of which you won't have any idea of until getting started.
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Yeah I should have clarified that I've done all that already. I mix down to LUFS specs for YouTube, and produce the stem files just as an exercise.
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Originally Posted by smurfyou
Yes I'm sorry to say you're going about this the wrong way.
Darryl went into detail but basically no you can't do what you're trying to. Your headphones are designed as a consumer end-use product.
You'd need to get a proper interface with 6+ outs with monitors to match. There are virtualization plugins to emulate surround monitoring on headphones but if you aren't experienced mixing in surround it's not helpful. You are staring down a very deep rabbit hole.
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For sure it's a rabbit hole. Yeah I've already mixed the first pass with 6 outs. I just wanted to figure out if I could use these headphones because they're cool, to do a quick and dirty mix and then fine-tune it later with the speakers. But $4,000 for SoundCode? Holy crap.
RDR2 output the correct compressed surround signal and it didn't cost $4,000. Why isn't there something like that available?
Hrmm... I wonder if there is a plugin for Unreal 5 that would set up an audio device that does this, which could be accessed from Pro Tools....