Mixing in 5.1 & Stereo

I want to mix a movie in 5.1 but also want stereo in case a viewer doesn't have surround setup. If I mixed in 5.1 then exported it to a stereo file as well would that be a good interpretation of the mix or would I have to go through and remix in stereo? Thanks

You can downmix a 5.1 file by sending L-R to L-R, C to L-R (and drop level by around 3 db), Ls-Rs to L-R and maybe adjust level a bit.
Also if you export a 5.1 mix to AC3 for DVD production the default setup for AC3 will automatically downmix your file if someone plays it on a stereo only machine.

Similar Messages

"Up Mix" from 2-channel "Stereo" audio content to 5.1/7.1 Surround

Hello,
This is a feature that I had strongly hoped would make it to Media Center in Windows 8, but didn't. Please consider this for a future update and/or the next version of Windows...
Feature Request: "Ability to Configure Stereo Up-Mix Capability in Windows Media Center and/or Windows Media Player from 2-channel Stereo to 5.1/7.1 Surround so Stereo MP3/WMA audio files output to *all* speakers in my system, not just the left and
right main speakers."
More information:
My audio content (MP3s, WMAs, etc.) are of course all 2-channel stereo format (left channel, right channel). My home theater PC outputs to my home theater receiver (which is a 2012-model Sony 5.1/7.1 receiver) via HDMI. When I play
2-channel music (MP3s, WMAs, etc.) from Windows Media Player (WMP) and Windows Media Center (WMC) both in Windows 7 and Windows 8, I only hear music from the left and right main speakers, *not* the subwoofer not the rear surround speakers.
In order for this to happen, WMP/WMC would need to "up mix" the stereo signal to take full advantage of my physical speaker configuration (as specified in my Windows' Playback Devices configuration, which Windows is able to discern from the capabilities of
my receiver). Media Center even has an Audio setup in which the end user configures the audio configuration to either Stereo, 5.1, or 7.1 yet music is still output over only two channels!
I would like to see WMC/WMP either "automagically" perform the "up mix" or provide the user with an option to enable/disable it when 2-channel Stereo audio content is played.
Too difficult? Rhapsody.com already accomplishes this with its online audio player! Note that my audio equipment has the capability of forcing output to two channels between the PC and the receiver, which my receiver will then up-mix, but this
requires physically maintaining a dip switch and also several button presses on my receiver's remote... and this physical configuration must be updated each and every time I switch between audio and movies. Too much work when it could be accomplished
automatically by WMP/WMC!
Thank you for your consideration of this feature request!
-Tretchie

The ability of windows to better control audio channel output is definitely an issue that needs to be fixed. It's really basic in this day and age where everyone and there mother has more than two speakers (i.e. 5.1 or 7.1). I understand that certain media
players, or certain decoders/channel mixers can be a workaround for this problem. But that's not enough. Today, we have many different sources for audio that are not just files on a computers:
1) Video/Movie files on computers (played through media center, MPC-HD or other)
2) MP3s/audio (played through same)
But there is also:
HTML5, webpages, Netflix, Amazon TV, Flash players, silverlight, etc. etc.
Hence why windows needs an option at the level of windows audio decoder to better control channel outputs over LPCM-HDMI! Either Mirroring L/R outputs to rear/side speakers, or, formal upmixing algorithms like Dolby Pro Logic etc., applied before
outputting over HDMI (Note I am NOT talking about bitstreaming!)
This is a trivial problem using WASAPI or ASIO. Why has windows audio not been properly updated since Windows XP!!
Recently, HTPCs and Media Centers are becoming many households primary source of entertainment.
Examples of some issues:
1) With no bitstreaming at all:
- Configuring HDMI audio "Playback device" to 5.1/7.1, and,
- Using a software decoder/media player to decode Dolby Digital, DTS, DTS-True HD, or Dolby True HD, and sending the data in LPCM over HDMI to the receiver/soundbar
-> works totally fine for outputting 5.1/7.1 surround from those sources
-> windows (i.e. software) completely fails in any ability to upmix 2.0 stereo sources to 5.1 or 7.1, or even mirror L/R channels to rear/side L/R channel for more room filling sound. Both these options should be available - upmixing with Dolby or other
for videos and mirroring/doubling the channels for music/MP3s.
Instead, windows audio sends silent channels over LPCM/HDMI when playing a stereo source. This has the added awful effect of not even letting my receiver upmix/mirror the outputs.
Hence, we need the ability to duplicate (for audio) and upmix (for videos) the L/R channels in a stereo source to the Rear L/R and or Side L/R channels through windows audio "playback devices" configuration before outputting over HDMI-LPCM!
In the day and age of 5.1 and 7.1 speakers this seems like such a BASIC feature that is missing.Otherwise, so many of us with an HTPC in our living room as our main source of media can't play music mirrored
through all our speakers, or watch videos with upmixed audio.
HDMI is the new standard, so this should really become an option.
I've done a fair amount of research on this problem, and do not believe there is any solution short of switching to optical (which I do not want to do because it can only carry 5.1) or, buying a fancy receiver instead of a soundbar with discrete rears and
a subwoofer (which I have) to do the mirroring/upmixing for me.

MOTU 828 mk II & I/O mixing 5.1 surround & stereo

Hello all
Is anyone aware of a link for implimentation of MOTU 828 mkII I/O's using Logic 9? The 828 mkII manual doesn't make mention of how to assign Logic Inputs or Outputs in relation to the MOTU channels.
I'm setting up a MOTU 828 Firewire Mk II after my Mk I just went down. The Mk I input & output channels seemed so obvious to set up in Logic I/O prefs ..... 5.1 surround came out of Logic Audio Channel Outputs 1-6 then via the Firewire went into the 828 mk 1 and out of the corresponding channels   .... and ordinary stereo came out of Logic via channels 1 & 2 into 1 & 2 of the 828 mk 1..... monitoring and bouncing was simple and obvious.
However I can't sort out a basic output routing in the 828 mk 2 for what should be straight forward?
PLEASE CAN ANYONE POINT ME TO AN AUDIO ROUTING SET UP FOR USING LOGIC WITH SURROUND & STANDARD STEREO WITH A MOTU 828 mk 2 ...... IT SEEMS LIKE KINDERGARTEN STUFF BUT I CAN'T FIND ANY INFO ANYWHERE?
I've got a happy surround mix coming out of all six Logic channels and playing back out of the 828 analogue outs with Logic Prefs I/O Assignments like this:
Basic - 5.1 (ITU 775)
Left OUTPUT 3
Right OUTPUT 4
L surround OUTPUT 5
R surround OUTPUT 6
Centre OUTPUT 7
LFE OUTPUT 8
However I haven't tried a 5.1 bounce yet as am not sure what on earth ends up in the resulting 6 audio files (SO confusing !)
My Mac OSX stereo sound is playing out of the 828 by choosing OSX System Prefs Sound - "MOTU 828" ... but the idea of choosing Outputs 3 & 4 to bounce a standard stereo audio file out of Logic seems totally nuts.
However ... I don't seem to be able to bounce a standard stereo mix ? (even though I can hear it playback in the L & R monitors of my 5.1 studio monitors ...... the resulting sound fle has no sound in it (either WAV or MP3?)
Please can any one help !!!?? I got my knickers in a major twist?
Is there a Logic Channel Re- Routing guide somewhere for using both 5.1 & stereo with a 828mk2 without the necessaity to change standard stereo Logic outputs to 3 & 4?
Best wishes
Richard

GUYS - THIS IS THE SILLY SIMPLE FIX ......
Keep everything routed in Logic outputs as normal:-
L - 1
R - 2
Ls -3
Rs -4
C - 5
LFE - 6
So bounce everything as normal including standard stereo outs.
Make the MOTU audio setup:-
DEFAULT STEREO OUTPUT - MAIN OUT 1-2
Take the 828 mk2 outputs to your surround monitors;
L comes out of MAIN OUT 1
R comes out of MAIN OUT 2
Ls comes out of ANALOGUE OUT 1
Rs comes out of ANALOGUE OUT 2
C comes out of ANALOGUE OUT 3
LFE comes out of ANALOGUE OUT 4
DONE ....... you can carry on as if nothing happened!
Thanks for looking at this ..... sorry for being a nincompoop !
Best
Richard
PS NOT GOOD MOTU - this info isn't anywhere to be found - just my trial and error

Bounce DOESN'T sound like Mix Playback, Mid boost, stereo field smaller

Anyone had this one happen yet? Your mix is rockin along, client is happy, you hit bounce and it sounds like someone just threw a comforter over your speakers and cut your low end at 100 during playback?
Freaking out. Never had this happen in years of use. No plugs on Master, bounce Interleaved, AIFF, 48k 24 bit.
Help!
Thanks

I've struggled with a similar problem i.e my mix will sound awesome and perfect when I play it back through Logic and my (pretty decent) monitors. I will bounce the mix and say, bring it into WaveBurner. When I play the mix in WaveBurner is sounds a little different. This makes since as the file has to be dummied down a bit to fit on a CD. The real shock comes when I play the song in say, my car. I expect it to sound little different (different speakers) but what I find is the bass is gone...Or way too loud. Or the vocals are completely soft. Or (I work with bagpipers) the pipes will be so loud you can't hear anything else! This drove me nuts and wasted tons of blank CD's and time running back and forth, re-mixing this or that.
After some discussion with other groups it occured to me that maybe it's my audio interface. If you have a cheap AD/DA converter in your interface then your mixes will not be true. I used a Mackie 400F then upgraded to an Apogee Ensemble. The Apogee doesn't sound as good as the Mackie but I think the output is more true to what you hear on the final product.
I don't know if this helps (and I may be completely off about cheap converters!). I wanted to share my experience with a similar problem. -T

Mixing tracks down to stereo cd from Garageband 3

Would the finished cd sound quality be better if I used the optical outs to an external cd burner rather than exporting to itunes and burning to cd from there? Any ideas.

Probably not.
The catch is that the loss in quality is generally from the dithering down of the high bit-depth data GB uses internally to the 16-bit files that are exported ... in the end your files have to be 16-bit for an audio CD, so you still run into the same problem
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Weird XML behaviour - mixes L and R of a stereo track on export

Situation:
1. I have a sequence with a dual mono track (stereo track with L on track A1, R on track A2). L = microphone 1, R= microphone 2. When exporting an XML (e.g. for sync in PluralEyes), the channels get mixed together, like a mono mixdown.
Here is a screen vid showing a round trip of the XML and what it is doing to the audio: https://www.dropbox.com/s/2st9308p3sjq4qd/Premiere%20Weird%20XML%20Audio.mp4
Note: A temporary work around once I have my sequence synced by PluralEyes is to make the audio media offline, then relink it. This seems to reset Premiere's referencing of the file, and L and R are on A1 and A2 once again.

Ok, so here's the solution that I've worked out.
I created a new mono submix track at the bottom of all my tracks. Then in the Audio Mixer, I remapped my stereo audio track to go to the mono submix before going to the Master. This forces all of the audio to come out as mono in the end, which is exactly what I was looking for.
For what it's worth, a stereo track filled right or left doubles the audio and is louder then the normal stereo track, even though it's playing two channels of audio they don't add up to the loudness of the dual mono. I just applied a +4dB gain to the stereo sections to compensate for this.

Does anyone know how to remove vocals from an import from I tunes...a polyphonic stereo mix ? o mixdown ,

Does anyone know how to remove vocals from an import from I tunes...a polyphonic stereo mix ? What are some other editing allowed on a stereo import (polyphonic mix) Thanks, Sploink.

Does anyone know how to remove vocals from an import from I tunes...a polyphonic stereo mix ?
If you are talking about some "Karaoke" method using Logic I'll try to offer one. Before that I must say that most of the Karaoke methods are based on reversing the Phase of one of the stereo channel and bussing or merging the stereo into Mono. The result is: killing all Pan Centered in the mix - like Main Vocal, Bass, Kick, SN ect.
The artifacts of the Stereo FX of the main vocal will stay in the Karaoke, cause the FX is stereo etc.
Here is the Logic Setup I can offer to try some Karaoke trick using Logic.
1. Import a Stereo mix into a Logic Stereo track.
2. Create another stereo track and duplicate (copy) the Original Mix region to the duplicated track.
3. Hard Pan L/R both stereo tracks.
4. Insert an EQ and Gainer plugins into the duplicated track (R).
5. Set the Output select of the both tracks to a Bus and assign the new Aux Track Switch mode to "Mono".
6. Open the Gainer plugin and thick the "Phase Invert" Right button.
7. To keep the "lowend" instruments like the bass and kick, open the EQ plugin and enable the Low Cut filter and try some Hz settings 80-115, or different Q which will sounds better for your Karaoke.
P.S Click the image below to show its real resolution!
Regards,
A.G
======================================
www.audiogrocery.com
Author of: Logic GUI Deluxe(Free), Vox De Bulgaria s.a.g.e vocal pack for RMX, Logic Snapshot Console, RMX Power CTRL - Logic Environment Midi editor for Stylus etc.
======================================

Stereo Audio Dissolve Triming

I've searched but I can't find a way to trim a stereo audio track dissolve that trims both channels at the same time. I can only seem to trim one channel of the dissolve at one time.
Track headers are on and the audio is stereo for sure.
I'm sure it's there somewhere and yes I did read the manual.
CS6 6.01
Mac Pro 10.6.8

I can now see the logic behind stereo tracks in a single track. Clearing the clutter is one bonus. Can you mix mono material and stereo material in the same track?

Recording my mix from my dj set ?

Heres my gear.
2 turntables
vestax pro 6 mixer
studio amp
Maudio fast track interface
very simple set up. im coming out of my mixer to the interface then from the interface I'm going into the mac. using rca from the mixer to 1/4" to interface is the cable. Sounds really bad and when i record and low. Can anyone help?

Couple of options:
A) Get a better interface. The FastTrack is essentially the cheapest proper audio interface on the market. I had to monkey with the one we use at my church to record sermons before I got it to sound any good. Since your mixer out is stereo, you want a device that can properly transfer stereo from your mix out to a stereo track in Garageband.
B) If the first option is not possible, the way I got our audio to sound good coming out of the mixer is to send it through the XLR microphone input in the FastTrack. You get a much higher input level that way, but it will not be stereo.

Exporting files for Surround mix... fairly urgent!

hi there... I'm having an advert piece i've written mixed in surround sound which is a first for me. it was all recorded and mixed my end in stereo so I need to know how best to export them for the mix engineer. I am yet to hear from them so I was wandering if anyone could answer the following:
- Should I send split or interleaved files (assuming 48khz 24 bit .aifs are suitable)?
- Where there is corrective or creative compression or EQ, should I keep in bounced versions?
- Where tracks are panned, should I bounce this information or leave centered?
- Where a track is bussed to a reverb for example, should I send the bus as a separate track, or send the original file wet?
- Where more than one SFX appears on a track, should I separate them onto separate tracks?
- I'm assuming I should retain creative volume rides in the bounced information (eg. long fades).
And is there anything I'm overlooking? I'd be VERY grateful for any input (this has to be sent by tomorrow afternoon!).
Thanks

Q: Should I send split or interleaved files (assuming 48khz 24 bit .aifs are suitable)?
A: Interleaved! see down here.
Q: Where there is corrective or creative compression or EQ, should I keep in bounced versions?
A: depends on the media you are going to ship your production.
Q: Where tracks are panned, should I bounce this information or leave centered?
A: Be shure your tracks are surround at the first place. then the pans could have been converted. better check in the Automation screen if it does.
Q: Where a track is bussed to a reverb for example, should I send the bus as a separate track, or send the original file wet?
A: By my knowledge is this your choice. In the bounce all tracks are mixed to the 5+1 (or the 7+1) channels.
Q: Where more than one SFX appears on a track, should I separate them onto separate tracks?
A: Deepends on the effects you have in mind. I see no reason do split it up.
Other thing: if you are going to bounce be shure it is a PCM 48000 (required for replay on standard dvd player) Interleaved (all channels in one file) put the button Surround on.
checking your work on a standard video-dvd-player is only possible if you put the audio files in to a video stream with a black image as video. there is no other option unless you have a DVD-A player in your collection. such a player is hard to find these days.
hope this helps a little,
R

Stereo field, wideness

I'm have a difficult time understanding how to harness the stereo field, specifically wideness of sound. I just created a small mix in garageband (where i doodle ideas, its faster than loading up LP). a few guitar layers, some synth rock bass and a rock drum set. it sounded pretty good coming out of GB, and loading it up into itunes it didnt sound so bad.
i decided to master it in LP, just for kicks. i loaded the mp3 into LP and suddenly it sounded much much different. the stereo field was different somehow. and the volume a bit too... then i mastered the mix in logic and bounced back to my HD, and listening to the bounce in itunes the mix doesnt have much stereo wideness.... instead of sounding like a full rock set, wide and warm, it had a coldness to it because the stereo wideness wasnt there.... it sounded like the sound was coming from directly in front of me, and the wideness of the sound was almost lost in fuzz.
it almost hurt my ears to listen to. all I'd done in LP was throw an EQ and multipresser on it, an adaptive limiter as well. and listening to the bounce was almost straining on the ears because it felt like they were trying to focus on the direction of the sound, rather than bask in what should've been a warm, smooth stereo wideness (I cant think of better ways to describe this...)
can someone explain to me wideness, and ways to regain it, or give songs a pleasant, commercial stereo wideness?
thanks!
chris

Hi Chris,
You may find it useful to try importing a commercial tune into LP, then on that track, switch on logics multimeter (set to 'goniometer') - this will give you a visual representation of stereo width (while you get the hang of using your ears!). You'll generally find if you switch the 'hold' funtion on the goniometer on you'll see a rather pretty diamond shape form.
To get width across your own mix, I'd avoid actually rating the whole mix (ie output 1&2) but instead focus on pulling mids & high frequencies of individual tracks wider across the stereo field. I've generally found, at least in the dance genres I do stuff for) that if bass frequencies/parts are wide in the mix it can sound uncomfortable & a little wierd, especially on headphones.
As a rule I'll always keep bass sounds & Kick drum VERY central. conversely I've found a nice wide snare usually works great in getting a wider percieved width. (at least in dance genres) - Being aware of the stereo width of backing vox can have a massive impact on an overall sound.
Good ways to get extra stereo width on an individual track can include
1) using stereo reverb or delay
2) use a logic 'sample delay' with a really short setting on one side, ie 100 ms (I personally avoid this on heavily percussive sounds but is great for chords/pads etc)
3) use LP's stereo widener or direction meter - be extra careful not to overdo as can sound very artificial, & again focus on mid & high freqs in the stereo widener. If you find you have sounds that are 'too stereo' in some freqs - say like a synth bass, some 3rd party plugs like ozone's widener can be set to 'pull in' width - so you can dial in negative stereo width on certain (ie low) freqs . if this probem isnt freq dependant then Logic's direction meter can work (or as an extreme, a 'gain' plug at the end of the effects chain with 'mono' switched on)
As you're going along, it's good practise to keep checking the whole mix in mono as well to make sure it'll translate onto different (ok, crappy!) sound systems
It's also reading up on the forum about experimenting with Logic's 'Pan law' (somewhere in 'song settings') - This is a new one to me but have just started working with a different panlaw (-3db compensated) to the default 0db & like it so far.....
Hope some of that rambling was useful!....
Cheers
Adam

Help! Exporting tracks from FCP to pull into a Compressor 5.1 mix

Hi all
I'm having difficulties pulling audio tracks out of FCP 6 into Compressor to create a 5.1 mix for a DVD, and wondered if anyone could offer advice.
Our sound mixer has given us stereo and 5.1 WAV tracks, which I've laid into separate sequences under picture. (I would love to drop his tracks straight into Compressor, but they have messy heads, and include 2-pops, so I'm first aligning them with the video track in FCP.)
When I export the stereo tracks, I create a stereo mix, getting one AIFF file, which goes into Compressor's 2.0 process to create an ac3 file. All well and good.
But how should I export the 5.1 tracks? Bear in mind that I don't want to do any kind of "mixdown" in FCP, which I'm afraid is happening. The tracks are laid in this order: L, R, C, Lf, Ls, Rs.
This is what I did:
In FCP, set in and out points where I want to trim the audio
In Audio Settings for the sequence, set all 6 tracks to Dual Mono and level at 0. (I can't help but suspect this is where I'm going wrong...)
Export - Audio to AIFF, and set export to "Channel Grouped". This gives me six separate AIFF files. BUT! Files 1 and 2 are blank (although they have the correct duration), file 3 (which I expected to be track 3 - center) has M&E but no dialog. Track 4 (LFE) has all the dialog! And 5 and 6 also sound blank.
Now, if I set Audio Settings to 5.1 (first pair stereo, 3 and 4 dual mono, and last pair stereo) I can't hear the center track playback (I only have stereo speakers).
What am I doing wrong? Am I misunderstanding the export process in FCP? Should I just give up and try to trim the WAV tracks outside of FCP (if so, what do you recommend - Soundtrack perhaps?) and then drop them into Compressor?
Many thanks
Matt

OK. I found the solution!
The six "audio outputs" do NOT automatically correspond to the tracks A1 ... A6. In fact, in my sequence (I don't know if this is default), A1 went to output 3, and the rest of the tracks went to output 4. Go figure.
To set the outputs correctly, you do have to set six outputs, dual mono and zero levels, which I did, but then right-click in each audio track (between the A1 label and the padlock icon) and set the output to the required file. So track 1 should go to output 1, track 2 to output 2, and so on.
My outputs now sound right - hooray! I'll mix it down and make a test DVD now.
Phew. Hope this helps someone else out.
One question that comes out of this: for a stereo mix, am I safe to export as a stereo mix in FCP? (Which is what I've been doing.) The FCP/Compressor process won't somehow be downmixing it twice? I don't see any way to pull two mono files into Compressor for a 2.0 mix. Thanks!
Matt
Message was edited by: Matt Clifton

True stereo - export audio to movie bug?

I've been testing a mix using wide stereo elements. when bouncing normally the mix is as expected. when using 'export to movie' function, i'm getting a 'false' stereo mix laid back, not whats in my arrangement. sounds like a mono mix thats been made stereo. why is the 'export to movie' not rendering a proper bounce? anyone...?
I think it would be nice to be able to use this setting in a 'Pro' application.

furthermore, i wonder what this means if you want to make a 5.1 movie in this way....

Going from stereo to surround in Logic?

I know that the manual discusses setting up for surround in Logic, but I'm just wondering how difficult/time-consuming/different people have found dealing with setting up sequences and mixing when going from stereo to surround in Logic?
thanks in advance-

Real easy, not a problem at all. You'll lose your pan placements but simply set up your outs correctly highlight all your tracks in the audio environment and convert them to "surround". One thing to watch out for is the centre channel. I would always recommend panning your L/R field stuff between L&R without using the C channel. Especially if the stuff you're panning is from a stereo source (phase nightmare). So to do this double click on the pan knob and select "5.1 without centre" in the output pane. Some sound guys really like you to keep the C channel clear for dialogue but for montages/ music-centric sequences but slinging a mono kick or bass into the centre speaker is never going to be a bad thing, imagine an entire woofer dedicated to the bit of your score that gets you laid?
Couple of other pointers:
• Using a big reverb? set up a duplicate verb for the Ls/Rs send only, set a slightly larger initial delay (10msecs would do you nice) and pan it hard to the surrounds, hey presto surround reverb.
• Don't ever use saxophones in surround.
• Don't stick too much dry/ live matter in the surrounds, people will fear you're taking people "out of the movie" and re-recording mixers don't like it either. So reverbs, delay returns and a snitch of this and that will be substantial. I love duping pads for the surrounds/ Take an Absynth pad and then adjust a small parameter to change the sound slightly. Get one to fight the other between fronts and rears, hey presto, surround!
• Watch the amounts you're sending the LFE, this stuff works better if you're selective. So if a sound isn't in need of sub assistance zero the LFE send (which - again - you get to on the surround pan pot). If you can limit your LFE send to a bit of kick and bass you will be looking at fattos tightus maximus.
Best of luck and hope this has been a help.
C.
P.S. When aligning your speakers remember that the surrounds are always attenuated slightly differently. Off the top of my head I think it's -4db, but don't quote me on this (yes I got someone else to do it in my studio, and it's way past time I did it again!). Can someone confirm this?
P.P.S Saxophones...... don't you think we should leave those onerous windy pipes in the 20th century?

Stereo 3D Rig: Compositing with S3D-Footage & C4D-Renders

Hello @ all!
I do a research for stereoscopic workflows with the new Stereo 3D Rig in Adobe After Effects CS5.5.
I really searched the web and think there is no resource about stereoscopic workflows anywhere that I've not seen.
I even bought the Video2Brain-Tutorial hosted by Angie Taylor.
But though there are few questions remaining!
1. How can I achieve a horizontal image translation (HIT) with a parallel camera setup (without converging) to adjust my parallax?
background information: I try to compose some text-layers with my real-footage shot with a parallel setup. I know how to set the footage-parallax indepently with expressions - this is not the problem!
I don't want the Stereo 3D Rig to converge when adjusting the parallax for my compositing elements (the text-layers).
I tried it with a mix of using the stereo scene depth parameter and the scene convergence parameter, also tried the expression which avoids moving the convergence plane, but i can't manage to get the result that i want. This is because i have to decrease the stereo scene depth to about 0,1% which is too less, but otherwise the deviation of left and right view is too big. The coordinates of the text-layers are ok.
Of course i could just use the Converge to option (as everybody does this in all the stereoscopic workflow resources that are available in the web), but this creates strong keystoning effects and in a way works against the principles of stereoscopy.
Also this is not recommended by the Adobe Help Sites:
You can also use parallel virtual cameras. This technique is useful if you need to match live footage and add digital elements to that scene. Keeping the virtual camera orientations consistent with the cameras used in the footage helps to keep the perspectives of the digital elements and that of the stereo footage aligned.
[…]Real scenes are almost always shot with parallel cameras. Keep this in mind if you are trying to mix and match live footage with digital elements. If your scene consists of only 3D elements in After Effects, then it is probably safe and preferable to use converged cameras.
[Source]
Understanding stereoscopic 3D in After Effects
http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/898/cpsid_89868.html
2. What about the Stereo 3D Rig for compositing purposes with footage rendered out of Cinema 4D?
I try to figure out a stereoscopic workflow in After Effects allowing me to make use of the composition-project-file that i exported out of Cinema 4D.
After importing the file i have my left and right camera and some Nullobjects as placeholders which are supposed to be replaced by some other 3D-elements in After Effects (e.g. text-layer).
Actually, the cameras have already the right data and could be used, but the of course creates left and right Eye View automatically based on the Master Cam.
Is there any idea for using the Stereo 3D Rig in a stereoscopic workflow to make a compositing with data exported out of Cinema 4D?
Or is it better to create, in this case, a structure of compositions which only uses the cameras exported from Cinema 4D?
Any help is appreciated!
Best,
Paul

Hi Paul,
1.
Sounds like you're hitting a limitation of 3D glasses effect. The HIT (or scene convergence in 3D glasses) works on the pixel level and does not calculate sub pixel.
Here are some things you can try.
Use this expressionin in 3D glasses scene convergence to cancel out your stereo scene depth more robustly and allow you to either change your scene convergence in pixels, or in % of comp width.
if ( effect("ADBE Stereo 3D Controls")("ADBE Stereo 3D Controls-0006") == 0 ) {
    offset = effect("ADBE Stereo 3D Controls")("ADBE Stereo 3D Controls-0003");
    if ( effect("ADBE 3D Glasses2")(5) == 1 ){
        offset *= thisComp.width / 200;
    value - offset;
} else {
    value;
Now you can switch your 3D glasses units to pixels and change your convergence by 1 pixel at a time, instead of 0.1% of comp width.
If that is not enough control another option if you need sub pixel accuracy; you will need to recreate what 3D glasses scene convergence is doing manually using precomps. Try Precomping your left and right eye comps and then then hook up an expression to those comps x position, left comp moves right the right moves left. Put that slider right next to 3D glasses, and now you should be able to adjust the convergence by sub pixels. Another benefit of this method is it doesn't crop, you will get only one image on the edges though.
(This is a bug in 3D glasses, it should really operate with sub pixel values but we ran out of time to do this feature).
2.
I'm not as familiar with the C4D workflow. Can you import their stereo cameras directly in AE? If so, you can set up your Master cam to follow one of their cameras and set the mode to be Left or Right hero. Then match their convergence settings. You could try ploppling their cameras into the left and right eye comps above the AE camera so it uses theirs as the active camera if you don't want to deal with matching settings, but then you can't make quick changes to the camera without changing both cameras exactly.
If you're exporting left and right footage, you can follow the guidance on the document you mentioned.
Let me know if this helps out or you have further questions.
Amir
After Effects Engineering (the guy that made the stereo rig and who is responsible for your pain)

Mixing in 5.1 & Stereo

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