Hi thanks for the info.

The config options are a bit of a tease!! - the sound card device shows 6 different inputs (via 3 stereo pairs), which I assign via the Vegas audio device prefs on a perfect 1 for 1 mapping for each channel.

Only ... it just doesn't work. I guess its because as you said.

Damn - looks like I need to get me a discrete 6 channel card. :-/

Thanks again for the info.

Cheers,
Jason

In the Surround Mixer check your buss assignments. The defaults might be a bit mixed up. By default all my busses were routed to Analog Out 1/2! Then change the pan type of the surround panner in the track header to say Constant Power.

I don't have a 5.1 setup but I do have a decent external sound box and the metering on it showed exactly the same problem you are seeing until I got the buss assignment sorted and changed the way the pan pot works.

The setup I described above may not be ideal or correct but it should get you started with discrete outputs so you can monitor what you're doing.

Bob.

I am not familiar with this soundcard, but I have found in the past just setting the default front/rear/center/LFE in the options dialog is not enough to get them set right for timeline playback.

In the mixer pane there is a little graphic of signal flow. Click on that and it assigns the surround outputs to hardware outputs. Check that to make sure it is correct.

Another gotcha is the surround panner. There are 2 in series, the "trim" which is what you see when "show automation controls" is off, the the keyframed one which shows when controls are on. You need to make sure both are doing what you want as they are both routing the sound for that track.

A little poking around seems to confirm what I suspected -- the Audigy 2 ZS models do not have enough discrete channels to handle 5 or 6 channel input.

They list a mic channel, a stereo pair, and a digital input that decodes 5.1.
That's it as far as I can tell. The three stereo pairs the OP is referring to are audio outputs.

"A little poking around seems to confirm what I suspected -- the Audigy 2 ZS models do not have enough discrete channels to handle 5 or 6 channel input."

The number of INPUTS is irrelevant.
Three pairs of stereo OUTPUT pairs are all he needs

Bob.

i've done this on the built in AC97 audio on my old comp. All you should need to do:
1) setup the project properties for surround sound.
2) change your audio audio device type to whatever it should be
3) it works (if you actually have surround sound hooked to three outputs from your sound card(s).

Try the Direct Sound Mapper option. That's what I always used (it will then auto assign the playback devices).

Hi All,

Thanks for taking the time to comment and suggest. I really appreciate it.

In the mixer pannel, I found the assignments - they are identical to what is configured under the Audio Device Prefs, so they were already correct (as I had configured the audio device prefs previously). So nothing wrong there...

I also ensured the mixer was on the surround logo for mixdown and not stereo - it was originally on stereo (!!!) but sadly the result is still the same.

I tried the Direct Sound Mapper instead, and suprisingly, it gave better seperation and control over the front 3 speakers (the LR pair, and the center/dialogue speaker) than the correct "sound blaster" ones. Howevewr, rear LR pair and LFE were still silent (no change).

All the bits are there, including the 3 discrete stereo outputs from the sound card, both in Vegas and physically connected. But I'm beginning to wonder if the original comment about that sound card just not supporting proper surround isn't the beginning and end of this case?? I seem so frustratingly close, yet something fundamental is in the way!!

Turning all front channels off and sending sound to the rear is weird - it actually sounds a little muffled like the fake Q Sound surround processing would do - even though its coming out of the front 3 speakers, it actually muffles the rear sound that is supposed to be coming from behind. Even when the front 3 are disabled in the mixer, the muffled but clear enough sound still comes from the front. Yet the Vegas mixer shows only levels from the back - the front ones are silent. Just weird!!

Perhaps most telling is when I assign all 3 output pairs in Vegas (Front L/R, Center & LFE, Rear L/R) all to the Rear L/R pair only, I get the same result - slightly muffled sound coming from the front 3 speakers with no rear sound.

It's like something on the sound card config is getting in the way ... OR it's just not capable, despite having 3 discrete output pairs and playing Surround games.

Happy to see any other suggestions!

Cheers,
Jason

Please see if this thread helps:
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/forums/ShowMessage.asp?ForumID=19&MessageID=575768

Sony PCH's two references in that thread to exposed outputs are what I incorrectly was referring to in my earlier posts. My underlying assumption was that outputs that are available (exposed) to the mapper would also have input channels associated with them. My apologies for being such a total idiot.

My other assumption, possibly also incorrect, is that there are some consumer 5.1 cards that simply do not permit access to the Rear and LFE output channels through through the mapper, but only through its native 5.1 decoder associated with the digital / optical input(s).

Now that I have taken myself completely out of this discussion, because based on Peter's response in the aforementioned thread I still do not own a consumer 5.1 card, I hope that the information I found helpful when making my learning choices then, may also become helpful to you as well.

It looks as if your original question of whether your particular sound card is capable of passing six discrete PCM channels to the outputs has yet to be answered definitively. If it is, I will be interested in knowing how you got it to work. Maybe Peter can jump in here and put this issue to rest.

Please let us know the outcome of your investigation. I am still looking for an inexpensive solution for previewing the Vegas timeline in surround. My M-Audio sound interface only has four discrete input / output sets. My current low-tech solution is burning test DVDs on RW media and taking them to the living room . . .

I'm more than a bit lost and am beginning to think it might be a hardware failure.

I've swapped the speakers around (front for back) and the back ones work fine).

But I've plugged the front output into the back, and the back into the front, and we get silence at the back (when we should get the front channels coming out of the back).

That was unexpected given we'd just established all speakers work fine. It was starting to seem like a sound card hardware fault, until I realised the following: the mapping I'm using under vegas is spitting out a slightly muffled version of the sound when its sent 100% to the rear, and it is spitting that sound out of the front channels. Even when the front 3 channels are switched off in Vegas, it is completely delivered via those same front channels. The sound is almost like that out of phase effect you get from bad cabling.

Whilst I'm not ruling out a hardware fault, I AM saying that no sound should be audible from the front outputs once all 3 front channels are switched off in vegas.

It's like something at the OS level is overriding the assignment choices made in Vegas.

Cheers,
Jason.

Are you certain your buss assignments are correct???

If you look at the mixer panel, top left there's a square icon, directly under that is another icon that looks like a fork. Click that. Now select each buss in turn, check which output pair it is assigned to. This is tricky, it can look right and it isn't. It took me a few goes to get it right. I thought it was right but the all my busses were assigned to the front pair!

Once You have that correct you then need to look at how the surround panner is working. By default if you pan a stereo track it will pan accross left, centre, right. This is wierd but logical as it's working like a BALANCE control, not a pan control. Change the behavior to Constant Power and nothing should appear in the centre channel as shown on the meters when you pan hard left or hard right.

Bob.

Creative has long been criticized for sending "contoured" sound to the rear speakers -- with your more-than-average needs, and your inability to route to the rear channels, maybe you will want to try a less consumer-based solution. There are several good brands out there, and prices have come down a lot just within the last year. I won't be able to make a recommendation for you, but Echo and M-Audio get mentioned a lot in these forums, and there are others. Given the choice, I would probably go with firewire rather than USB next time around. Again, refer to the thread referenced above for the Sony sound guru's take on this.

Hi team,

Yes, the bus assignments are right, both in the mixer (using the "fork" icon, I choose where to send the 3 pairs for 5.1), and also in the Preferences under Audio Device.

Even changing those assignments to something silly like everything to the Rear, doesn't change things. All it does is give that slight "out of phase" sound I spoke of earlier.

I've also experimented with all panner types, especially constant power. No joy. I've also tried disabling the front speakers in the panner. Again, no change.

From what I can see, I've done everything right. I'm going to have to get a new system in the next few months (too many out of memory errors on my 3.25Gb 32 bit system), so I may as well focus on a better sound device.

Thanks again for trying to help! If anyone has any last minute ideas, I'm all ears! Because it *should* work!! :-/

Sounds like you have the Vegas side of thing under control. Are you using ASIO and have you disabled the Windows Sound Mapper?

I've had issues when both were installed and ended up having to delete files to get things working correctly
You could also try Creative's own forum.

I'd certainly like to tell you the Creative products are rubbish but on the other hand they're probably good enough for monitoring and I hate to see anyone spend money they don't need to,

Bob.

Hi Bob,

This is interesting - I am using ASIO but the Win Sound Mapper is still an option.

I'll have to research how to disable it. Will let you know how I go.

Agree, Creative isn't the right market for Pro use, but as you say its just for monitoring.

Cheers,
Jason

In your Audio Device type, do you have an option for the Windows Classic Wave Driver? And does selecting that affect anything?

Hi,

The option is available, and the sound was not too much different. It did however remove all the mappings, including the mapping button itself in the mixer.

Cheers,
Jason

By the way, I have ordered a 2nd hand Gina 24, so I will post the results after I get it (in a few weeks) and have it set up.

Cheers,
Jason