Folding down 5.1 mixes?

[Stuart P.]

Would any of you kind folks know the proper procedure for folding down 5.1 mixes into stereo and mono. How many dB must the surrounds and LFE be brought down in order for this to work correctly. Is there any standard procedure? Thanks in advance.
S. [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[ekuehnl]

Check out this old thread:

http://duc.digidesign.com/cgi-bin/ub...=016567#000001

[The Chinese]

Stuart-
If you're referring to a Dolby Fold down, it is done as follows:
You will need one of the following:
Dolby 563, Dolby SEU-4, or Dolby Surround tools Plug In.
L,C,R of the 5.1 mix to the L,C,R, inputs at 0 (Unity gain)
sum the Ls and Rs and lower to 0 and send to the Surr input.
Take the sub at -9dB in the L,C,R.

that being said, therre are a lot of custom fold-downs used. When I was working on "Taken", the mixers requested that I send everything at unity gain into the Encoders, and the sub at 0 in the c.ch onlly (This is the same as -9dB, but it could overload the front end of the encoder...).

For music, this all goea out the window....I've seen all kinds of techniques....
Hope this helps-
-Todd A.