Dolby Atmos

[dix]

Oh. There's already a virtual device in my system that allows for more outs than I physically have on my 8 ch Lynx Aurora n. Is this anything like what you're after?

[dewdman42]

yea that is what I need to do. If you know a way, love to hear it. At this point its somewhat hypothetical as DP11 doesn't provide appropriate 3D mixing modes anyway. But eventually if they ever do, I will need to know how to do that.

[dix]

yea that is what I need to do. If you know a way, love to hear it. At this point its somewhat hypothetical as DP11 doesn't provide appropriate 3D mixing modes anyway. But eventually if they ever do, I will need to know how to do that.

I installed a trial version of Embody's Immersive plugin recently, on the off chance it would work with DP somehow, and never deinstalled, so DP is still seeing their Immersive Audio Bridge. It doesn't work of course, but I can create dummy outputs, auxs etc.

https://embody.co/pages/ivs-alan-meyerson

I still don't recall how I did it a couple years ago when I had to set up a DP project that was destined for a 20.1 installation. It might have been a ProTools Aggregate Device, but I don't have one currently installed to check.

[bayswater]

From what I see in this thread, the problem is not getting a load of output channels -- you can get 256 of them with BlackHold -- unless you need to listen to it with something other than headphones. It's that DP doesn't pan in more than two dimensions. The latest Logic version can.

Or you can do it with some third party processors, e.g., from dearVR. I had a trial version and it was going for about $100 a couple of months ago. Sounded nice over headphones. I don't know if dearVR is just licensing Dolby Atmos. If so it's probably easier to just use Logic.

In an earlier attempt to read up on this (maybe an Edgar Rothermich writeup) I had the impression that if you don't have the right physical monitor setup and the proper listening room, it would be very difficult to have much of an idea or control what your mix is going to sound like in other listening environments.

[dewdman42]

From what I see in this thread, the problem is not getting a load of output channels -- you can get 256 of them with BlackHold -

what is BlackHold? Never heard of that.

- unless you need to listen to it with something other than headphones. It's that DP doesn't pan in more than two dimensions. The latest Logic version can.

Its not only that DP can't pan in 3 dimensions. That is partly true...DP can't...yet.. But also there are certain mixer bus configurations that are basically recognized by 3D oriented plugins such as MirPro3D. DP will need to support 7.1.2, 7.1.4, 5.1.2, 5.0.4 and other 3D oriented surround mixbux configurations. 10.2 is not a 3D configuration, despite the fact that it has more then enough channels.

But yes, going along with providing actual 3D mixbus configurations, DP would ultimately need to create a number of 3D oriented plugins, including panning plugins..probably a binaural encoder and other things. Cubase actually has quite a lot of stuff. LogicPro did more of a bare minimum support for 3D Dolby Amos. This is actually quite a large feature and I doubt MOTU is going to add it any time soon. But hey, never know..maybe they will. I think for now I will just stick to using DP for composing in MIDI with instrument plugins, when I'm ready for 3D mixing, I'll bounce my tracks and shift to LogicPro or cubase for that phase.

Or you can do it with some third party processors, e.g., from dearVR. I had a trial version and it was going for about $100 a couple of months ago. Sounded nice over headphones. I don't know if dearVR is just licensing Dolby Atmos. If so it's probably easier to just use Logic.

dearVR really won't be able to do it unless the DP mix bus has 3D channels to support it, such as the ones I mentioned. You identify the ear level, the LFE and the above head in three digits x.x.x I don't think you can simply say 10 is enough, they are flagged as being ear level or from-above..and the various 3D plugins need to know that information. I'm not sure if any of them can somehow take DP's non-3D mixbus and allow themselves to reconfigure how they work so that some of the ear level ones would be used as from above, but I doubt it.

In an earlier attempt to read up on this (maybe an Edgar Rothermich writeup) I had the impression that if you don't have the right physical monitor setup and the proper listening room, it would be very difficult to have much of an idea or control what your mix is going to sound like in other listening environments.

Well the true practicality is that almost nobody will have enough loudspeakers to properly monitor any kind of 3D production, with 7.1.4, that is literally 12 speakers needed. Its just not going to exist. LogicPro and Cubase work around this by providing binaural encoding so that you can convert your 7.1.4 mixbus into a stereo binaural and feed it to headphones...which is as close as most of us are going to get to being able to do it. Will it be exactly the same? No, but on the other hand, not everyone playing back Atmos in their home will have 7.1.4. Many will have only 5.1.2 at best. And a lot of Atmos content will in the future be played back via Spotify on Apple AirPod Pros...and they will probably sound a lot closer to what a binaural monitoring system would sound like actually..but anyway, the point is, almost nobody will be playing it back on the same exact system, that has always been the case..people play stuff on home stereo's, car stereo's, iPods and everything else. None of them sound like it did in the studio. The studio is an appromixation only. For most of us, we will have to use binaural monitoring while we produce that kind of content to get a close enough approximation of the 3D sound.

StevenSlate also has an interesting product that can do the binaural encoding of complicated studio environments, including a bunch of modeling for different kinds of environments like the insides of cars, etc.. And that would be an interesting monitoring setup to use in the absence of a dozen loudspeakers in your studio to monitor a full 3D production.

[James Steele]

Geez... I feel like Clint Eastwood in "Gran Torino" when he says "Get off my lawn!"

I guess I'm not much of a media consumer, because I've never even had a 5.1 surround system in my house. When I was feeling saucy I might have run my audio for a movie through my stereo system... LOL. I finally got a large TV this year... 4k... 65" for my living room a year or so ago and it was the first time in many years I indulged in a luxury that wasn't somehow connected to my studio or music endeavors. To this day I'm using the built in speakers... I don't even have a sound bar for it. I've looked at them and balked at the prices. I guess it's just not that important to me. Maybe if I made really big bucks I'd put together a home theater system, but wow... I'm an old stick in the mud I guess.

There's a fairly interesting video on YouTube that I watched with Chris Lorde Alge talking about how he recently set up his mix room for Atmos. I think he has a completely separate dedicated system based on Pro Tools for that. I think it was a Sweetwater sponsored video. I'll go find it in my YouTube history and post the link below:

[bayswater]

”what is BlackHold? Never heard of that.”

Sorry, BlackHole. Like SoundFlower, but doesn’t have some of the problems.

[dewdman42]

I was able to get past hardware requirement, by adding another audio interface that I no longer use...but at least I could create a 5.1 bundle with those existing.

Now on to next problem. What is the proper way to setup a surround mix bus in DP? I created a bundle and assigned that to the master channel output...ok.. I see more meters..must be active...But here is the problem, the intention is to use binaural monitoring, which means the 5.1 bus needs to feed a binaural plugin (in my case I will use dearVRmonitor for this task. In the other daws, I simply put dearVRmonitor on the master bus. This converts the 5.1 (6 channels of audio) into two channel binaural, which can then be monitored with headphones quite effectively. However, the problem in DP is that it won't even let me put that plugin on that master bus when the master bus has been assigned to a 5.1 bundle output. I think its because it sees the dearVRmonitor plugin as being "stereo". Somehow on the other DAW's, they are able to see it as something that can be inserted, but DP won't let me insert it to the 5.1 channels...only to stereo channels...but that defeats the purpose.

Somehow I need to be able to mix all my instrument channels as 5.1 panning...sent to some bus, where I can insert the dearVRmonitor plugin to convert the 6 channels of 5.1 into 2 channel binaural. Its easy in LogicPro and cubase...but it seems so far impossible in DP. I have tried various different things, trying to create some AUX channels, etc. but DP just keeps getting in the way and I'm of the opinion right now this is simply not going to be possible in current version of DP11.

Does anyone have any experience with anything here that might know what to do? I think the same problem must exist for those using Dolby Atmos tools in DP...if anyone actually is. Its a similar process whereby a 5.1 or 7.1 master bus needs to use the Dolby rendering plugin to generate either binaural or Dolby Atmos, etc. I don't know..

Anyway, any suggestions welcome. 7.1.4 would be better, and DP isn't there yet. But 5.1 could also be pretty good for me if I can get this to work...otherwise I will have to relegate all surround mixing tasks to other DAW's and just use DP for the MIDI part of the process..

[James Steele]

Waving hello from the "Stereo Ghetto!" Interesting reading though!

[dewdman42]

Atmos is becoming the new stereo....

Anyway, my main interest is orchestral composing...and specifically using VSL MirPro3D for the ambience...which is very realistic and provides a true 3D audio experience if I could mix in 7.1.4 and if I could monitor in binaural. Unfortunately I can't do it in DP so far that I can figure out. I think its probably not able, but I'm still trying to figure out if there is a way.

But I'm also starting to get a little interested in the idea of producing rock/pop tracks with at least surround, if not full on 3D sound. A lot of tracks can now be listened to from AppleMusic, for example, in full Dolby Atmos 3D sound. And its starting to become a thing. I'm putting in a $2k Sonos system at my house that will have full 3D audio playback also. Dolby is really pushing Atmos. I personally think it will be common place in car systems before much longer also...but the mere fact you can hear it through headphones and so many people are now experiencing music exactly that way...through headphones...

When I see people like CLA installing full blown 7.1.4 monitoring systems...and taking it seriously for rock production... I think we're on the way. This is not the same as the quadrophonic thing back in the day. Hardly anyone owned quadrophonic equipment to play it back. But Dolby Atmos productions can be played back literally through Apple Music on headphones...and many consumer level home theater setups....and will increasingly be the case.. New frontiers in sonic spaciousness are coming...

Not to mention the whole VR thing....Metaverse is coming...and VR stuff will all be using 3D audio like crazy...

[James Steele]

No... I get what you're saying and that's cool and all, but for the independent musician who might have a home studio, this exponentially compounds the problem and creates a tremendous barrier to entry. Honestly, if I'm going to have to hang a crap ton of speakers and create a listening environment where I can hear it properly, well then I'm left behind.

Who knows... maybe this will return us to the days when musicians had no choice but to spend a lot of money to pay professional studios because they didn't have the ability to do it themselves? Keep in mind, I'm all for paying someone for their expertise and ears. But back in the day, you also had to pay because the equipment professional recording studios had on site was either too expensive or impractical for most to have at home. If we're all going to be REQUIRED to mix for Atmos... seems like that's coming back. Good for pros... bad for home studios... at least more hassle and expense.

Probably the middle ground will be guys like myself and other indy musicians working on their own stuff to deliver raw tracks to another studio for re-mixing in Atmos, or whatever. I saw CLA's video on YouTube where he talked about that, and I think a good deal of his work was taking projects originally mixed for stereo and turning them into Atmos?

[dewdman42]

That's why binaural monitoring is so cool. You can actually do a pretty decent job of mixing and monitoring a 3D production with any pair of headphones and a binaural encoding plugin on the master bus. Cubase, Logic Pro and maybe some others include one provided by Dolby and/or Apple. There is also a third party one called dearVRmonitor, which I recently bought... Apple pushed Dolby Atmos as part of LogicPro..and specifically set it up so that any old bedroom producer can mix with headphones, crank out an ADM file to deliver... sure...some mastering might happen..but you can go a LONG ways towards the final mix with binaural headphone monitoring.

I agree with you, very few of us will be setting up a studio like CLA's. Though I am somewhat inspired to add a couple rear speakers and a center channel eventually if space will allow...but really binaural monitoring is pretty fantastic and getting better..

[James Steele]

Though I am somewhat inspired to add a couple rear speakers and a center channel eventually if space will allow...but really binaural monitoring is pretty fantastic and getting better..

Interesting. Perhaps you can educate me, as I'm not hip to this... but doesn't an real Atmos mixing environment require more than a 5.1 surround setup? Aren't there "side fills" and overhead speakers? Taht's what seems so daunting about it.

[dewdman42]

First, most ideally you will have an actual surround system to monitor on. But in some ways it’s no different then stereo mixing in that we have to hear it on a number of different systems to make sure it will translate well where it’s most likely to be played or at least hear a clear enough version we can guess at adjustments that need to be made for playback in a cinema house, for example. So really, home monitoring is always an approximation.

Secondly, Dolby atmos can handle up to 9.1.4 I believe but the interesting thing about Dolby atmos that is unique compared to surround formats of the past: its designed to accommodate the surround recording on whatever system is being used in any speaker configuration, automatically. It’s not so much hard coded to a particular speaker configuration that would result in missing sound when played on a lessor system. It will attempt to fold things down automatically or fill in the blanks so to speak. That’s why if you make a Dolby atmosphere recording, regardless of what you used to make it, it can be played back on a stereo system or a quad system or a 5.1 system or 7.1 system, etc and the atmos technology will attempt to make it sound complete and good. The textbook Dolby playback system would be 7.1.4, which means 4 speakers over head front and back. 7.1.2 has only two over head to the sides. My consumer Sonos system for the living room will have a playbar under the tv, a sub and two rears. It is able to project up from the playbar in addition to center and LR fronts; the two overheads bouncing off the ceiling, for 7.1.2 playback from a rather compact simple setup. This approach will be very common for consumer tv home setups.

Also Apple Music can stream two kinds of 3D audio including their own Spatial Audio format which is similar as Dolby atmos, but atmos is winning that war. Those can be played back on headphones, I am not sure the exact details but you might need apple air pods. However that is only when trying to stream directly from Dolby atmos format, in that case the AirPods are only two speakers but they are able to translate atmos into a binaural format that will sound like 3D in the ears.

So the point is you make your 3D recording using whatever panning and mixing you feel like doing: quad, 5.1, 7.1, 7.1.2, 7.1.4, whichever you want and however much spatial variation and detail you want. They all end up as an encoded atmos MP4 file that can be streamed through any atMos system and will automatically translate it to the playback system, including even as simple as apple AirPods.

The next question is how do you produce that? You can be like CLA and build an elaborate 9.1.4 system or whatever and mix it to that level of detail or could use a lessor system such as 5.1 but then you would mixing only 2D but it will still playback and sound great as 2D on any atmos system, some atMos systems that only have stereo loud speakers will only sound 1D, but nothing will be missing because of missing loudspeakers, the atmos system will fold it down to stereo automatically.

But AirPods are only two speakers but because they are using binaural encoding, you CAN have a 2D or 3D experience in the ears because of fancy psychoacoustic encoding that is being used to fake it. Apparently this can vary from person to person based on head size and other things. But anyway part of why atmos will become popular is because people will be able to stream it to their headphones. I suspect car stereo systems will eventually get atmos playback capabilities but we’re not there yet. That is all in addition to its usefulness for home theater and cinema applications. What is different about Atmos compared to 5.1 and other surround formats in the past is exactly this ability to create a single MP4 distribution format which an be played back on a wide variety of loudspeaker configurations which the Atmos technology will adjust for at playtime.

As for monitoring, you can build a fancy setup like CLA or if you’re like me, unlikely to do that; you can use binaural monitoring through headphones. There are plugins that can take any surround configuration such as those mentioned above, and on the fly converts it into a binaural format that actually works on ANY headphones. So you can basically mix your 2D or 3D spatial mix into binaural and hear it spatially. Later on you would deliver it in a special Dolby file format called ADM, which then later can be mastered and turned into an actual atmos encoded MP4, at which point any system or streaming service that supports atmos could play it back and will translate it at that time to the playback system being used.

VR applications, gaming, the metaverase, etc.. in the other hand will probably just use the binaural format all the way, not using Dolby atmos at all. Just headphones...but with 3D audio in binaural format. You could also always give out or ship out an MP3 to your friends with the words "only use with headphones" and they would hear it in the full 3D binaural glory.

Some people will argue that binaural monitoring is too much of an approximation compared to a real 7.1.4 loudspeaker system like CLA has, but even all loudspeaker arrays are approximations unless you are literally playing it back on exactly the same system in the same room where it will be played in the end. And I think many of us and many studios will be using simple binaural monitoring to make our mixes and send to mastering house to finalize it later perhaps. or maybe you'd use binaural for mixing 7.1.4, perhaps also listen to it on a 5.1 loudspeaker system for comparison or try to play it through your home theater for a third opinion, etc. But honestly a lot of listeners of music material will in fact likely be listening through headphones just like you and me! So the binaural monitoring would actually match more closely what the audience will actually be hearing!

[James Steele]

Hey... no worries about the typos. I appreciate your taking the time to write this. That's some useful info I'm going to have read and digest!