New to Reaper SMPTE 5.1 to FILM 5.1 conversion

[Dave JG]

Hi.

I have been using Reaper for a couple of months and I would greatly appreciate some help with a conversion issue between two 5.1 channel formats - the North American SMPTE/ITU six channel surround format and the FILM European six channel surround format.

The issue is this :

Many of the surround plug-ins (Including Waves) follow the European FILM format channel standard. I wasn’t aware that this was the case when I bought a couple of these plug-ins.

Reaper’s surround panner and surround output is geared towards the North American SMPTE/ITU standard. The two systems have channel arrangements which are different from each other and I would prefer to work in SMPTE.

Without going into too many details, I have some SMPTE format six channel multichannel wave files exported from another DAW. I like using these blocks of multichannel file because it simplifies synchronization between channel tracks. I want to tweak these a little and test them in Reaper using a couple of Waves surround plug-ins.

Is it possible to create a sub master which would channel switch SMPTE to FILM. This would not be for rendering an output in the format but for monitoring in surround and doing eq using the Reaper surround panner and the Waves surround plug-ins. After tweaking this multichannel file, I would bounce or render the file back into a SMPTE 5.1 six channel wave file.

Currently, my option for monitoring is a binaural surround sound plug-in by Waves. It works really well, but again there is that format issue.


The SMPTE/ITU format for 5.1 has the following six channel arrangement:

Channel 1 - Left Front Speaker

Channel 2 - Right Front Speaker

Channel 3 - Center Front Speaker

Chanel 4 - Low Frequency Effects Channel

Channel 5 - Left Surround Channel

Channel 6 - Right Surround Channel


The European FILM format for 5.1 has the following six channel arrangement:

Channel 1 - Left Front Speaker

Channel 2 - Center Front Speaker

Channel 3 - Front Right Speaker

Chanel 4 - Left Surround Channel

Channel 5 - Right Surround Channel

Channel 6 - Low Frequency Effects Channel

If anyone has any solution to offer, I’d appreciate your assistance with this.

- Dave.

[serr]

If you have some plugins that use the film channel format - and you have some tracks of actually already 6 channel surround program that you are working with - you could decide to run with film channel format throughout the mixing board with your track channel and bus routing.

You could make two render buses for the final mix render if you need/want to make both versions for the 5.1 mix.

That's really the only question: How do you want the final render to look? You could make both if you needed.

The rest of the mixing board - with probably mostly mono source content that you are using to create your surround mix as it goes 99% of the time - isn't really changing.

There will be a couple tracks/buses where you have to insert 6 mono sends routed as you need instead of being able to choose "multichannel 1-6" on a single send.

If you have something where one of the sources is already a 5.1 stem and sometimes you get it one way and sometimes the other...
You could make a source track for that that routes to two bus tracks - one SMPTE and the other FILM. Mute the one not used.

[Dave JG]

Hi serr

I thank-you very much for your clear explanation of how to proceed with doing this.

I have followed your directions and have produced a bus to switch tracks around to a workable order.

Again, thanks serr for your help with this problem.

- Dave