Last but not least is the SubBass channel. You will send it to the SubBass bus by dropping a SubBass plug-in onto the channel. When you bring up the plug-in, you will have to select the appropriate options.

Selecting SubBass options

You want all of the output of this channel to go to the subwoofer, and none to go the Surround channels. So, under "SubBass Channel" choose "Thru", and under "Surround Channels" choose "Mute".

Now you have completed the paths necessary for your music bed to make it through the mixer.

Connect to the Tracks
Label the tracks of your mixer. Here we called them:

When we connect our input channels to the empty tracks, the names appear in our mixer.

The mixer is ready. (Click image for larger view.)

We now have a mixer ready for Surround production!

Only one caveat: If you are doing production that will be encoded to Dolby Digital, there are some level adjustments that need to be made during mixing. We will cover Dolby Digital in a future installment.