I consider myself a beginner to Vegas, your average home user who likes to mess around but I found most chat relating to Vegas is from the pro, the user who knows all the industry technical terms that I have no clue about.
So I found it hard when trying to find some info on how to make 5.1 surround for my friends wedding video Im editing, everyone told me how I didnt need 5.1 and stereo would be enogh. But I didnt listen and glad I didnt as surround really does make the world of difference.
But guides for noobs who have been using it 5 days like myself were hard to come by. Especially when it comes to 5.1.
So here are my getting started tips for using 5.1. We will cover how to create a 5.1 project, convert your humble stereo music or audio to full surround and then render.
Step 1.
Create a new project and in the properties ensure youve set it to surround (see below)
http://img95.imageshack.us/img95/6279/projectwo3.jpg
Now we have this we must setup the audio tracks for our 4 main points. Front, Centre, LFE (sub woofer) and Surrounds. 4 tracks but the fronts and surrounds will be stereo, so thats our 6 tracks (5+1=6)
To do this right click and create 4 audio tracks.
Name them Fronts, Centre, Sub and Surrounds, just so you remember which is which.
Right click on the surround panner on the Sub track and select "LFE only".
Now, the important bit, getting the surround panning correct for the others. Many dont know this but if you click the little speaker icon on the panner you will see it go from light blue to dark blue, this means the speaker is now disabled. For the fronts you want to disable all speakers apart from the front left and right, including the centre. Then, move the little yellow dot all the way to the front.
Do the same for the centre, disable all apart from the front centre one and move the dot forwards
For the surrounds turn off all apart from the rear and move it all the way back.
It should now look like this:
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/966/projectpankw7.jpg
Step 2.
Nows the time to add your sounds.
You could just do what most do, take a stereo audio track and just paste it into all the various tracks that are panned. But this isnt very professional.
Its actually very easy to split a stereo track into its various components so that it sounds perfect on a surround system including the main vocals just coming out of the front speakers. There are a few ways but I found this one to be the easiest and really is quick and easy
http://users.tpg.com.au/adslrotx/pseudo51.rar
So now youve added your parts. Your music is in, you can use the above guide to also split the audio from your movie into surround channels also.
Step 3.
Time to create the AC3 file you will burn to your DVD. For this I recommend using Vegas 7.0b (if your using 7) as any version below that doesnt actually create a surround file properly.
Select the audio part you want to render and do a 'Render As'.
Select 'Dolby Digital AC-3' as the file type and make sure you say '5.1 Surround DVD' as the template.
Then just save it, you can change the settings for the dolby if you want but for most the default is just fine.
Thats it, render your movie, add both the MPEG2 video and your new AC3 file to DVDAchitect and you will have a nice surround sound DVD with beautiful music.
So I found it hard when trying to find some info on how to make 5.1 surround for my friends wedding video Im editing, everyone told me how I didnt need 5.1 and stereo would be enogh. But I didnt listen and glad I didnt as surround really does make the world of difference.
But guides for noobs who have been using it 5 days like myself were hard to come by. Especially when it comes to 5.1.
So here are my getting started tips for using 5.1. We will cover how to create a 5.1 project, convert your humble stereo music or audio to full surround and then render.
Step 1.
Create a new project and in the properties ensure youve set it to surround (see below)
http://img95.imageshack.us/img95/6279/projectwo3.jpg
Now we have this we must setup the audio tracks for our 4 main points. Front, Centre, LFE (sub woofer) and Surrounds. 4 tracks but the fronts and surrounds will be stereo, so thats our 6 tracks (5+1=6)
To do this right click and create 4 audio tracks.
Name them Fronts, Centre, Sub and Surrounds, just so you remember which is which.
Right click on the surround panner on the Sub track and select "LFE only".
Now, the important bit, getting the surround panning correct for the others. Many dont know this but if you click the little speaker icon on the panner you will see it go from light blue to dark blue, this means the speaker is now disabled. For the fronts you want to disable all speakers apart from the front left and right, including the centre. Then, move the little yellow dot all the way to the front.
Do the same for the centre, disable all apart from the front centre one and move the dot forwards
For the surrounds turn off all apart from the rear and move it all the way back.
It should now look like this:
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/966/projectpankw7.jpg
Step 2.
Nows the time to add your sounds.
You could just do what most do, take a stereo audio track and just paste it into all the various tracks that are panned. But this isnt very professional.
Its actually very easy to split a stereo track into its various components so that it sounds perfect on a surround system including the main vocals just coming out of the front speakers. There are a few ways but I found this one to be the easiest and really is quick and easy
http://users.tpg.com.au/adslrotx/pseudo51.rar
So now youve added your parts. Your music is in, you can use the above guide to also split the audio from your movie into surround channels also.
Step 3.
Time to create the AC3 file you will burn to your DVD. For this I recommend using Vegas 7.0b (if your using 7) as any version below that doesnt actually create a surround file properly.
Select the audio part you want to render and do a 'Render As'.
Select 'Dolby Digital AC-3' as the file type and make sure you say '5.1 Surround DVD' as the template.
Then just save it, you can change the settings for the dolby if you want but for most the default is just fine.
Thats it, render your movie, add both the MPEG2 video and your new AC3 file to DVDAchitect and you will have a nice surround sound DVD with beautiful music.