Mixing for a Room, Not a Line
Surround changes the intent of a mix, not just its channel count — what the centre channel is really for, why the LFE and bass management are unrelated mechanisms, and the downmix every surround mix has to survive.
Surround changes the intent of a mix, not just its channel count — what the centre channel is really for, why the LFE and bass management are unrelated mechanisms, and the downmix every surround mix has to survive.
The tempting way to think about a surround mix is as a stereo mix with more places to put things. That framing produces bad surround mixes reliably, because the extra channels were not added to give you more positions. They were added to solve specific problems, and each one has a job.
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