Everything you need to know about Galaxy 32’s Atmos functionality
In order to use the functionality of the Galaxy 32 SC's "SURROUND" tab, you have to do the proper routing first. You should think of the "SURROUND" tab as if it is a separate device nested in the Galaxy 32 SC.
It has its own 16 inputs and 16 outputs, so you can send signals from all sources to the "SURROUND" tab by dragging them to a channel in the "SURROUND IN" (1-16) section. In the same manner you can send signals from the output of the "SURROUND" tab to any output of the Galaxy 32 SC by dragging the corresponding "SURROUND OUT" (1-16) channel to any rectangle in the "OUTPUT" section of the "ROUTING" tab.
* A practical example:
Imagine you have 16 channels of audio entering the Galaxy 32 SC through itss Dante inputs and you want to send those 16 channels to 16 speakers in your room via the Galaxy 32 SC's DB-25 line output connectors (using a DB-25 to XLR/TRS cable). The proper routing for such a configuration will be:
DANTE IN (1-16) -> SURROUND IN (1-16) and SURROUND OUT (1-16) ->LINE OUT 1-32 (1-16)
For the purposes of this example the channel numbers are shown in parentheses and are fixed to 1-16. Different channels could be used depending on your configuration.
Overview of the Surround tab
Section 1:
Those are the signal level meters. You can switch between "PRE" and "POST" depending on whether you want the signal levels entering or exiting the "SURROUND" tab to be visualized
Section 2:
Add delay of all the channels that are outputted by the "SURROUND" tab. You can bypass the delay using the "Bypass" button.
Bypasses the total delay of the channel.
Bypasses the EQs from Section 5.
Section 3:
Let's you select the surround format.
Section 4:
This is the Speaker Layout section. Each rectangle here corresponds to a speaker in your setup. From here you can select which speaker's parameters are going to be displayed in Section 5.
* You can mute a speaker by Alt + left clicking on it on Windows or Option + left clicking on it on Mac.
* You can solo a speaker by Ctrl + left clicking on it on Windows or Command + left clicking on it on Mac.
* If you have soloed a speaker and want to add another speaker to the solo group, you should press and hold "Shift" and click on the second speaker.
* The same applies for muting more than one speaker.
* If you want to disengage the solo group, you can hold Command (Mac) or Ctrl (Windows) and click in the empty space.
* The same applies for disengaging a mute group.
Section 5:
Adjust the level for a selected speaker. TOTAL GAIN = SURROUND LEVEL (Section 2) + LEVEL. Bypass and Invert options are available.
Adjust the delay for a selected speaker. TOTAL DELAY = SURROUND DELAY + DELAY.
The reason why you might want to add delay to a particular speaker is to correct for the placement of the speakers in your room. Since the speed of sound is constant, it is desirable that each speaker is at equal distance from the listening spot. If, however, that's not the case, you can delay the closer speaker to create the audible effect of it being further away. In the case of two speakers, there is a handy formula you can use to calculate the delay for the closer speaker:
where D is the delay, S1 is the distance between the farther speaker to the listening spot, S2 is the distance between the closer speaker and the listening spot and v is the speed of sound.
In the case of more speakers, you can calibrate pair by pair taking the largest distance as S1.
There are also third-party party software applications with which you can calculate the delay needed in your Atmos setup. For that purpose, a measurement microphone is required.
Adjust the frequency below which signal will be passed only to the LFE channel.
If you select the LFE channel in Section 4, a couple of new buttons will show up in Section 5. Those are the "CROSSOVER/OFF" button, which essentially allows you to bypass your crossover settings and the "LFE CROSSOVER" button. This button gives you access to the bass management mixer.
The Bass Management Mixer
The Bass Management Mixer allows you to set the frequency above which signal will be passed to your speakers (HIGH PASS section) and below which signal will be passed to your subwoofer (LOW PASS section) for each individual channel.
The CUTOFF frequency of the HIGH PASS section is linked with the CROSSOVER LOW PASS frequency in section 5 of the SURROUND tab and the CUTOFF frequency in the LOW PASS section can be freely adjusted.
Each control in the LOW PASS and HIGH PASS section has a link control, which you can disable if you want to manipulate the channel's parameters separately.
The FILTER TYPE option lets you choose between two different filter styles - Butterworth and Linkwitz-Riley
The FILTER ORDER option lets you adjust the filter steepness. As an example, all other factors being equal, a fourth-order filter will roll off twice as fast as a second-order filter.
The MIXER section allows you to adjust the level of each channel in the final mono mix that goes to your subwoofer.