mixing ambient nature sounds for surround

[wildfoto]

Hi folks I'm not a muso at all but a wildlife photography/cinematographer - and I've been getting into recording nature audio a bit more serious now. Mainly using a rode NTG4+ with a Zoom FM2 and finding the 32bit float really handy for recording thunder and bird sounds etc...

I put a few recordings together into this stereo mix in reaper

https://youtu.be/QLxmZbzRtKY

But I have some Yamaha surround sound speakers and thought it'd be really cool to mix this in 5.1 to get some cool ambience and directional sounds.
I've watched a few youtube videos on it but a lot of them seem to be for mixing for movies/videos and I'm not really getting some of the basics.

The reasurroundpan effect seems to be working for me ok... but I haven't quite worked out how to put all my recordings or tracks in the mix and control them separately. For example if I want a particular birds call to come from behind.. I thought I'd do a route from its stereo track to the master track i have setup with 6 channels.. and route the stereo channels to the two channels in the master that represent the rear speakers.. but the signal just seems to spread throughout the 5 speakers on the master track..
And I think I get I can "pan" the audio on the master track to the back but that'll do the whole mix not just the part I want.

Also wondering how I'd get the thunder to the LFE speaker...

I also wonder if I don't need any fancy panning and is it possible just to have a 6 channel track and put my audio in where i like? but not sure how to put clips on individual channels except for routing? And whether the output would still work in a 5.1 system not using the reasurroundpan effect.

Cheers for any directions

[pepe44]

Maybe this is helpful: https://youtu.be/Gm2bw7OUP_w
Worth checking Dolby atmos too. Very nice format.

[mat chat]

Originally Posted by wildfoto

The reasurroundpan effect seems to be working for me ok... but I haven't quite worked out how to put all my recordings or tracks in the mix and control them separately.

Hello,
you actually have to put one ReasurroundPan per track and then you can pan where ever you want your sounds separately ( I don't know if i quite understood your problem here). if you speack french here you have the whole plugin explained.