Waves Audio M360 Surround Manager and Mixdown User Guide

Waves M360° Surround Manager

Software Audio Processors

User’s Guide

M360˚ Surround Manager

Waves M360˚ software guide page 1 of 18

M360˚ Mixdown Manager

Waves M360˚ software guide page 2 of 18

Introduction and Overview

Introducing Waves M360°, a Surround Managing tool for 5 or 5.1 channels. This
tool offers Studio Monitoring Calibration and Bass Management solutions for
working on surround sound productions.

The Waves M360° manager allows you to monitor with a Satellite and Subwoofer
system (“Sub/Sat”) with flexible control of the Subwoofer feed as well as
individual channel gain and delay settings.

The Waves 360° Surround Toolkit follows the reproduction standards
recommended by the International Telecommunications Union in the ITU-R
BS.775 (1993). It also provides means to handle some common compromises
and variations of this standard. The M360°’s versatility allows it to complement
your work style. You will find it the tool of choice for working on soundtracks or
music for the best reproduction in Home Theater systems.

We believe that, with practice, surround will become as easy to work with as
stereo. There is, however, a potential problem with how the consumer’s actual
playback system is configured and calibrated. Even if the playback system is fully
calibrated and conformed to ITU recommendations, this is not the ideal array for
playing a spatial 360° spherical sound field, but it is the common one in
consumer electronics.

Overview of the M360°

The M360° has two plug-in components – M360° Manager and M360° Mixdown.
The M360° Manager is designed to insert on the master surround output. It is

dedicated to carry out some important chores:

• Allow calibration of the studio monitoring system.

• Setup monitoring with a Sub/Satellite (“Sub/Sat”) playback system.

• Preview standard 5.1 target playback processing.

The M360° Mixdown can be inserted directly after the Manager to preview or
apply Mixdown options.

IMPORTANT: In most cases the M360° Manager will be used for Monitoring
calibration and should be bypassed at Mixdown.

If your studio monitoring system elements are well-matched and the speaker
setup is conformed to the ITU recommendation, the use of the manager in
production should be quite minimal.

Waves M360˚ software guide page 3 of 18

Tweaking gains and delays is a common way to calibrate the sound stage,
achieving a steadier all round image and better directionality and localization of
phantom images. Bass management is necessary for proper Sub/Sat monitoring
in surround production facilities as well as Home Theater reproduction systems.

Here, the manager can replace hardware bass management alternatives from
within your DAW. You can safely use the LFE or .1(point one) channel output as
your Subwoofer feed. It will output both the redirected SUB signal and the LFE
channel as if they were separate elements each with its own gain, mute, solo and
invert.

The M360° Manager can be used in many ways, but the basic recommendation
is to insert it on the Master surround output and use it for calibration of levels and
speaker positions.

We strongly recommend that you calibrate your studio. A step-by-step calibration
procedure using the M360° manager was written by Bobby Owsinski and is
provided with this product so that you can calibrate and mix like the pros. Once
you have calibrated, we recommend boldly mixing a 5 or 5.1 channel image.
After the mix is ready, bypass the manager and print it. This will create a
straightforward ITU standard compliant image.

IMPORTANT: Be sure to bypass M360° Manager when printing your mix.

This manual will describe many optional applications and choices. Don’t be
alarmed by the multitude of features, they are here to serve you if you should
need them and not to add confusion to the production process. Read the chapter
on Production Disciplines for more suggestions.

The Surround Manager will only instantiate on 5 or 5.1 channel inserts.

LFE vs. SUB

The LFE channel and the Subwoofer signal are two different signals. They are
often confused with each other.

The LFE is a channel that’s used for Low Frequency Effects such as Explosions
or Dinosaur footfalls in film. You can use the LFE filter to apply a very steep Low­Pass filter at 120Hz or rely on an external encoder to filter it for you.

The SUB signal consists of redirected low frequencies from the directional
“Satellites” or L, C, R, Ls and Rs channels. The full-bandwidth signal of each
channel is split by a crossover to its high frequencies feeding the Satellite
speakers and Low frequencies redirected to the SUB.

Waves M360˚ software guide page 4 of 18

The Subwoofer feed combines the LFE channel audio (boosted by 10dB) with
the SUB signal. While the LFE channel is created in production and printed to
the master, the Subwoofer feed is created by the Bass Management portion of
the playback system and isn’t printed to the master.

Using M-360°

Basic Operation

To enjoy the full capacity of the M-360°, use the Manager as an insert on the
Master Surround output channel. It is recommended to go through the studio
calibration routine provided with this product before you begin to pan sources
using the S360° components. If your studio is not set up according to ITU
recommendations, adjust your speaker angles in the Manager so that the pan­pots will perform optimally in this setup. Even if you are sure that your studio is
well-calibrated, it is still recommended to insert the manager for further fine
tuning. We recommend that you create a custom work setup for your studio and
use it as your convenient default.

Manager Usage:

When you insert an M360° Manager on your master output you can use it for the
following applications:

• Adjust the speaker angles to the ones in your studio to work with the S360°
Panner – This will provide optimal translation of the mix you make to the
standard ITU recommendation.

• Use per-channel gain and delay to align the level and phase of all speakers –
This will assure that the directionality of the image is solid and not pulling in a
certain direction because of speaker level or phase differences.

• Use more target adjustment options to account for –3dB surrounds, +10dB
LFE playback or other options that relate to encoders and settings available in
consumer playback systems.

• Use Bass management to set up proper monitoring using a Sub/Sat
monitoring system.

Calibrating the studio monitoring system is the first step which should be
performed before you begin to mix. Essentially the calibration settings will allow
you to trim the gap between your listening environment and the standard ITU
spec. The Manager behaves like a correcting lens. Remember to bypass
Manager for Mixdown

Waves M360˚ software guide page 5 of 18

ADVANCED CALIBRATION OPTIONS

On top of just basic gain and delay calibration, the M360° manager allows you to
further calibrate speaker angles and make target adjustments.

Speaker Angles Calibration

Speaker angles calibration is required for setting internal rotation and width
algorithms to perform precisely per the default ±30° for L and R speakers and
±110° for the Ls and Rs speakers. You should measure the angle of your
speakers and update the value in the related control. The Speaker angles can be
sent to every instance of S360° Panner or Imager in order to further boost the
precision of the pan pots.

The plug-in top toolbar offers a “Send Angles” button. Whenever this button is
clicked the speaker angles set in the manager will be used in any S360° Panner
or Imager. Before you print a mix, it is important to send angles again to zero the
angle values in all Instances of S360° Panner or Imager. The Interface will
always show the Speaker icons at their ITU recommended angle but the beams
within the Graphs will represent the calibrated angles. This view allows you to
see the difference between the standard and the current setting.

IMPORTANT: Before you print a mix, you must reset the angles to the defaults
and send angles again to zero the angle values in all Instances of S360° Panner
or Imager.

Target Adjustments

After the Studio monitoring system is well calibrated, some further adjustments
can be made. Target adjustments are recommended for previewing common
settings that are found in consumer units.

LFE Adjust sets the LFE channel gain to –10dB, 0dB or +10dB to. When a
monitor system is calibrated, the LFE channel is set to playback +10dB relative to
the center channel. If we mix with our LFE Adjust at 0dB then our LFE channel
will play back 10dB too loud on a properly calibrated system. It makes sense to
adjust the LFE output to be 10dB louder throughout the mixing process so that
the result is aligned with the Standard. This setting is a default setup in the
M360°.

Surrounds Adjust sets –3dB, –6dB, +3dB, or +6dB to the rear speaker channels.
This setting is best previewed and treated after the overall mix is satisfactory as
the rotation and width pan-pots relay on matched gain satellites. Many times the
Surround channels are padded 3dB. Here the recommendation is to use the
Surround adjust control to preview how padded surrounds will affect the sound of

Waves M360˚ software guide page 6 of 18