Dolby Atmos

[dewdman42]

kind of a scattered brain dump through my iPhone...

[bayswater]

kind of a scattered brain dump through my iPhone...

Au contraire — very readable and well organized. Thanks.

[Killahurts]

Yes, thank you Dewdman! I have been putting off educating myself about all the Atmos buzz.. yet in your post I was able to glean pretty much everything I need to know, especially as to whether or not I want to engage in it.

But don't feel responsible for that.. I am a surviver of 5.1 surround for music in the early 2000's. We got burned with it so hard, both financially and time spent. I don't relish the thought of reliving that experience, only now I have to sell 13 speakers instead of 6. Still, the practicality of doing the binaural headphone mix can't be overlooked.. I suppose I can pull something up in Logic and give it a go.

[dewdman42]

I think Atmos is gonna be different then 5.1 because of the playback flexibility. But more generally, I think so called "immersive audio" is going to become quite a thing because of advances in psycho-acoustics that have happened in the past 10 years or so...and the upcoming VR fad that is going to slam us all like the internet did in 1995. Facebook's metaverse is truly next gen internet and its coming. ...and I'm not sure how I feel about it philosophically, but the truth is that in not too many years from now, we will be using a lot of VR glasses and binaural immersive audio to do everything from online banking to doctor visits and shopping and many things we can't even imagine right now. Watch concerts, etc. VR will not only be about gaming. Stereo in that environment is going to feel like Black and White compared to color.

I'm so impressed with how MirPro3D sounds using binaural headphones... I had a couple "WOW" moments like I haven't had in a long time. MirPro3D sort of does automatic 3D panning without much effort....at least for that type of music..its easy...but the impression it made on me made me realize I want to produce some rock tracks with similar spaciousness and clarity, even if I'm using completely different spatial tools then MirPro3D... The ability to put the "stage" in front of you...with a lot of the reverb...literally being to the side and behind you..its amazing.

I have also heard some sample recordings in YouTube..there are some YouTube videos that have the a audio in binaural so you have to use headphones to listen to them, but of jazz bands in a small venue, and the separation between players sounds f__ing incredible..like you are right there on the stage among them. Complete separation of each player...its truly killer. The software tools we have today to mix 3D audio is way way ahead of what was available in past decades. The binaural pyscho acoustics is what is going to bring that immersive sound to the masses through headphones.

[James Steele]

I don't know if this is any help, but this new software production from PSP looks interesting...

https://www.pspaudioware.com/products/psp-auralcontrol

Only AAX right now for Pro Tools, but other formats coming soon.

[dewdman42]

I saw that this morning. Immersive audio is becoming more and more of a "thing"

[dix]

Apple's Logic is including Spatial playback and Atmos in their next update. Is DP anything close to that?

Since DP11's surround capability seems to be broken almost entirely, this question may be premature.

As I mentioned in another thread, assigning sends on surround tracks that have automation crashes DP11. I would assume an update that brings Atmos capability would also address this bug, but I'd settle for a fix for the current surround configurations.

[dewdman42]

I also got crashes when attempting surround on DP11. And its surround capabilities are too limited for Atmos anyway. Ask MOTU to update DP12 for Atmos..but it would be a lot of work, I'm not sure they will...

[dix]

I also got crashes when attempting surround on DP11. And its surround capabilities are too limited for Atmos anyway. Ask MOTU to update DP12 for Atmos..but it would be a lot of work, I'm not sure they will...

The aforementioned thread, about surround automation bugs, mentions that a fix for the currently available surround configurations is imminent. Re Atmos for DP, you never know. It might be awhile, but MOTU could surprise us.

Surround automation bug thread viewtopic.php?p=596438&sid=a9549c820482 ... a4#p596438

[dewdman42]

never know.

An easier level of support would be to simply support larger surround busses, such as 7.1.4, 7.1.2, 9.1.4, etc.. Just by adding those bundle possibilities, then a lot could be done for Atmos in DP12, simply by using third party plugins or even Dolby's own tools. We simply need larger surround buses at a minimum... (and no crashing of course).

They would also need to upgrade some of their panners and related plugins to 3-dimensional capabilities...but again, that can be handled by 3rd party plugins as long as they would give DP the ability to have the larger surround busses through the bundles feature.

The last level of Atmos support would be to license technology from Dolby and/or Apple for Atmos and/or Apple Spacial Audio. That would include special plugins for handling Atmos objects and special plugins for binaural encoding.... But that could be handled with third party plugins also. Really, if they just give us a few more bigger surround busses, that would be minimal effort on their part and we could find a way to do it in DP. If they want to make more of a major Atmos upgrade and market it as such, there would be quite a bit of work involved...if you look at all that Cubase can do, for example, in this regard its quite extensive. LogicPro's integration is somewhere in the middle.

[dix]

Sure. And obviously it's in Dolby's interest to make Atmos widely available. I'm sure a licensing deal could happen at any point, but unlike Logic and Cubase's user base, I'm not sure Atmos or even surround is important to but a handful of DP users.

[dewdman42]

think of it the other way around...how many people who are interested in Atmos might embrace DP!?!? You don't attract new users by ignoring market trends.

Well as I've said already, Atmos and/or Spatial Audio is going to increasingly be a thing. MOTU can embrace it or miss it, its up to them. I still plan to use DP either way...I just will use it for MIDI and when I'm doing orch work or other surround mixing, I will bounce my tracks to audio and take it to another DAW. Obviously I'd prefer it if I could work all in DP start to finish.

[dix]

This!

I still plan to use DP either way...I just will use it for MIDI and when I'm doing orch work or other surround mixing, I will bounce my tracks to audio and take it to another DAW. Obviously I'd prefer it if I could work all in DP start to finish

I feel like it's a huge advantage to compose and mix, and create immersive installations all in the same DAW, but apart from ProVerb maybe?, there hasn't been any surround development in DP for over a decade - and currently that is broken. It sure seems like they're conceding ground to consolidate the composer market at this moment. ...MOTU has proven my pessimism wrong more times than I can count. I'm hoping they do so again, while investigating alternatives.

[dewaard]

+1 for integrated Dolby Atmos support in DP. We (at our company) are forced to use Nuendo for this, but we would like to stay with DP.

[labman]

but DP won't let me insert it to the 5.1 channels...only to stereo channels...but that defeats the purpose.

We can do that hear provided only if we use VST3 plugin. AU only gives us stereo options. (sorry if that has already been sadi somewhere)