Dolby Atmos

[vspiegel]

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

[Gravity Jim]

Seriously, who knows how close they are?

[mikehalloran]

The good news: the Dolby Atmos Mastering Suite is available for $998 and includes 3 copies of Production Suite (Mac only!!); Production Suite $299.
https://www.rspeaudio.com/Dolby-Atmos-M ... -suite.htm

The bad news: compatible with Pro Tools and Nuendo only at the moment.

Dolby has tools that work with Logic Pro, also but it may be the hardware boxes. I don't know.

https://professionalsupport.dolby.com/s ... uage=en_US

[mikehalloran]

Found this at Dolby:

While Ableton and Logic Pro have the ability to incorporate the new Dolby Music Panner plug-in, so far only Pro Tools and Steinberg have natively integrated Dolby Atmos Panning and provide a direct connection to the Dolby Atmos Renderer.

https://www.mixonline.com/technology/gu ... ic-edition

[dix]

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

I have a feeling spatial audio will have to get in line behind M1 compatibility.

My hunch is that DP11 was due and close to being ready before Apple announced the M1s, delaying its release in order to make it natively compatible when it shipped. Adding Dolby Atmos may be more than MOTU can handle for now.

[Michael Canavan]

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

I have a feeling spatial audio will have to get in line behind M1 compatibility.

My hunch is that DP11 was due and close to being ready before Apple announced the M1s, delaying its release in order to make it natively compatible when it shipped. Adding Dolby Atmos may be more than MOTU can handle for now.

There's a lot of positive information saying the next version will have an articulation management system, maybe MPE etc. but the last thing I was told back in roughly december is that they weren't asking the beta testers as of yet to get M1 macs. Not saying they didn't change their minds on that, but it is possible that DP11 comes out with a promise of future M1 compatibility etc. As far as spacial audio, I can't say what they're thinking, I would guess they're on it, but not too worried. Isn't it mainly geared towards headphones?

[mhschmieder]

I'm going to take a wild guess that DP has been involved in the ATMOS initiative for a while. My former employer (pre-pandemic) was in partnership with Dolby on aspects of that work, and MOTU was also one of our early partners on the AVB initiative.

Nevertheless, M1 may be a higher priority, but I would give more credit to MOTU for being foresighted on large technical shifts. Maybe more when it affects their hardware vs. DP though?

[dewdman42]

Now that MirPro3D is out...I really really wish DP had Dolby Atmos, or at least more surround mixing formats.. but 7.1.2 atmos would suffice and is becoming common now. MOTU is way behind the curve on this. Hope they will add it soon.

If MOTU is listening to this..please consider also adding a built in Binaural encoding mode as well.which could convert 7.1.2 into binaural on the fly...so that we could theoretically monitor an elaborate 7.1.2 mix with a pair of headphones using binaural encoding.

[dix]

Now that MirPro3D is out...I really really wish DP had Dolby Atmos, or at least more surround mixing formats.. but 7.1.2 atmos would suffice and is becoming common now. MOTU is way behind the curve on this. Hope they will add it soon.

If MOTU is listening to this..please consider also adding a built in Binaural encoding mode as well.which could convert 7.1.2 into binaural on the fly...so that we could theoretically monitor an elaborate 7.1.2 mix with a pair of headphones using binaural encoding.

DP does have 10 channel capability. Could this not be configured for 7.1.2? …I guess panning would be a kludge, but there may be workarounds until MOTU gets on board with Atmos

[dewdman42]

No I don't think so. And in any case MirPro3D does not have any kind of matching profile for that loudspeaker configuration and when I asked them about it, they inferred that most likely 10.2 is not including vertical component of 3D audio. its just more speakers at ear level.

DP currently does not have any 3D mixing format available that could be used to produce Dolby Atmos or other binaural 3D audio.

It will need 5.1.4, or 7.1.4 or perhaps 7.1.2 in order to support any of those in its mixing.

For now I will have to export stems to LogicPro if I want to create 3D mixes with MirPro3D or any other 3D tech for that matter.

With Apple jumping on the Dolby Atmos bandwagon, people will be able to listen to Dolby Atmos productions using their Air Pod Pros... and lots of tv soundbars coming out now are Dolby Atmos...so this is becoming the defacto standard. In order to mix for that, you need 5.1.4, 7.1.4 or perhaps somewhat with 7.1.2.

Also, right now I can't find a way with DP11 to even create a surround bundle in 10.2 because I don't have enough physical audio outputs on my computer and apparently DP requires you to have the physical audio outputs in order to support adding a bundle with a lot of outputs on it. That is a glaring problem also. Most of us will be monitoring 3D mixes using binaural headphones. We need to be able to setup a 7.1.4 mix in DP, with or without the physical audio outputs to support that many actual physical speakers... And if they want to get serious about catching up with the times, they should also throw in a binaural encoder for the master bus so that we don't have to pay $250 for dearVRmonitor. Whether or not they actually support the encoding of Dolby Atmos would be a seperate matter. LogicPro can do that now, but Apple probably had to work out a big licensing arrangement with Dolby for that. So I would expect MOTU won't or can't do that, but they still need to provide the ability to mix in at least 5.1.4, or better yet 7.1.4 format. otherwise DP is useless for 3D audio production which is starting to become a "thing". Its especially a thing for me now that VSL has released MirPro3D...I want to hear my orchestra productions in full 3D venue sound that it can provide! I can't do that with DP. I can do that with LogicPro now...if I plug my nose and use LogicPro.

[dix]

DP requires you to have the physical audio outputs to support adding a bundle with a lot of outputs on it

There is a way to have virtual outputs in DP that will allow you to work with more channels than are physically available. Now, if only I could remember what it was! It involves selecting multiple interfaces in the Hardware settings. I just don’t recall what the app was that would show up in the Hardware settings as if it were a physical i/o. …could be Loopback? I’ll need to rummage my memory and/or MN.

[dewdman42]

well you can create aggregate devices in AudioMidi setup if that's what you mean, but they aren't really virtual devices with make believe outs... So I don't think that would solve the issue. maybe there is something else?

I just spent an hour reading Cubase12 manual about surround..holy crap Cubase has everything and the kitchen sink related to 3D sound...it is WAY beyong what LogicPro can do even, much less DP11. Its so extensive that I think I would have to take a class to completely understand how to use it. But anyway, I didn't realize just how sophisticated Cubase's surround and 3D audio support is. They are truly way ahead of the game and I seriously doubt we will see DP suddenly add as much support. It would take quite a lot of man power to bring DP up to that level of integration. But anyway, I will call that the standard for now. I'd much rather use DP, so I hope MOTU will at least get us partway there in the not too distant future. Truthfully the Cubase approach is maybe TOO sophisticated and complicated for all but the most dedicated engineers to use. Maybe it can do everything, LogicPro's approach is a million times more simple..and its more limited too, but still maybe there is a happy medium.

One thing cubase can do is mix directly in 3rd order ambisonics. I'm not sure of the CPU implications of trying to do that yet, but in MirPro3D terms that means I can monitor with binaural headphones the clearest representation of what MirPro3D is doing...as if I were actually standing in the room. Yes I want to get that working!

[bayswater]

well you can create aggregate devices in AudioMidi setup if that's what you mean, but they aren't really virtual devices with make believe outs... So I don't think that would solve the issue. maybe there is something else?

I suppose you could just set up 10 virtual output channels with something like Blackhole and not bother with aggregate devices, but as you describe it, there's more to this than routing output to 10 channels.

[dewdman42]

I think DP just needs to see however many audio output ports available (not used by another bundle either I don't think). For 10.2 that is more than ten outputs. If they are fake in some way it wouldn't matter for my purposes because I am going to monitor the results through binaural encoded stereo anyway. But DP seems to need a bundle defined in order to do surround mixing...and the bundle needs to see some actual audio outs available in order to be created. I'm not sure what happens if I create the bundle and then remove the fake ports. Will the bundle still work to provide the surround mixing mode...or do all the audio outs need to actually be available?

Well anyway, 10.2 isn't what I need for 3D audio, I have since found out that what is needed for 3D audio is something like 7.1.4, 7.1.2, 5.1.4 or 5.1.2. It an also be argued that for music, the LFE channel is not needed, so 5.0.2, 5.0.4, 7.0.2 and 7.0.4 would also work. DP really doesn't provide appropriate surround mixing models that fit anything related to 3D audio such as Dolby Atmos, binaural. gaming audio, etc. We will need to see an update to DP11, probably a rather substantial one, in order to get any of that. I'm not even going to try to mess with it. I'll just export stems to LogicPro or Cubase in order to mess with 3D audio and potentially export Dolby Atmos from there also.

I did also find out my Sonos system, only supports up to 5.1.2, I believe. No side channels. It has Left,Right,Center,Sub,RightTop,LeftTop,LeftRear,RightRear. So if I wanted to create mixes that are suited for playing on this very typical home theater setup, 5.1.2 would be the mixing method, but mixing to 7.1.4 would be more encompassing and that is what LogicPro basically provides. Cubase provides all of those and more, Cubase support is extremely comprehensive. The way Atmos works is that you render an Atmos file and then when it plays back on any number of different configurations, it automatically adjusts itself to the speakers found at playtime. So you can mix it to 7.1.4, for example, and it will still play on a Sonos system that is missing side channels. But when you mix it, you will have mixed it assuming the sides were there...so it will work, and Atmos will attempt to correct for it, but probably it won't sound quite the same as the way it sounded when you mixed it with sides. Something like that.

But the real beauty of all this is that with the binaural capability, you can basically mix any of these big sophisticated surround setups that none of us have in our home studios...but then monitor it through headphones using binaural technology..and you'll get a good enough impression of the 3D audio...then you just render it to Atmos and people can play it back later from Sonos...or on to Apple Air Pods through Spotify even..that is going to be come a thing.

I have also been told to not OCD on 3D audio and go with 5.1 instead, which of course DP supports easily and would still be quite immersive..it just would not demonstrate to me the sounds captured by MirPro3D quite fully.

[dix]

well you can create aggregate devices in AudioMidi setup if that's what you mean, but they aren't really virtual devices with make believe outs... So I don't think that would solve the issue. maybe there is something else?

You may be operating above my level of understanding but, if the goals, or one of the goals, is to fool DP into letting you create bundles (and then busses and tracks) that exceed the number of physical outs you have? There is, or was a way - and, yeah it utilizes aggregate virtual devices. If I'm understanding what you're wanting to do, I'll investigate how when I have a chance...but you may be trying to do something else entirely.