<<<-- Originally posted by George Beck : lets say you make a wild-life documentary... do you think that in practice someone goes over and makes the sounds one by one? NO. Only editing is done on the footage, narration is added and given this way to the TV station, and most often it is NOT 5.1, and the only reason for not being 5.1 is that the cam did not (could not) record the rear sound. -->>>

I guess we just have different backgrounds with documentaries, because in my experience, YES, this is exactly how documentary sound is done. An interviewer and interviewee are both on mono audio tracks. Sound may be captured by the on-camera mic in the field, but that is supplemented by recording the audio team does on their own - without the tromping and coughing of the video crew around. Then in editing, the tracks are selected and mixed for best effect.

You are of the opinion that recording of a 5.1 soundtrack "live" is easier and cheaper than mixing multiple mono tracks back in the editing room to get the same effect. I guess I just don't see that. It sounds (pardon the pun) a lot harder to do it live. But that could be because that's the way I've always worked.

It does sound like an interesting thing to do, though. I'm interested in finding out how you end up doing it.

// Ric

George: my post was primarely about "big" movies and how they
do it. As Richard points out, documentaries do it as well. It all
depends.

My post also clearly stated that the system your looking for can
be handy indeed. I was just trying to elaborate on the different
techniques that might be available.

Hope this clears things up a bit.

Coming in late. I see everyone has already covered the fact that most 5.1 is done in post, rather than live. However, I recently came across the remarkable web site of Wendy Carlos (of Switched on Bach fame) and an article about the history of surround sound. Find it at http://www.wendycarlos.com/gosurround.html. In particular, there is an interesting section on recording surround sound. See http://www.wendycarlos.com/surround/...d5.html#surrec.

Hey, Rich, thanks for that link. I'd not read that article. some interesting info there.
We do quite a session on surround sound in the VASST vegas sessions, and in the PPT VASST sessions.
We also have a training tour based on surround, for those interested.