Oh man it's refreshing to hear someone talk through this who actually understands Atmos. One note though Paul, you seem to be conflating listening to a (Dolby) binaural mixdown on normal headphones with listening to Apple's spatial rendering of a Dolby Atmos track. It's not the same thing, it's not the same renderer. I'm fairly sure Apple will ignore some of that object information you're setting like near/far. Apple uses the core ADM/object spatial information to re-create everything in your head based on head tracking and your personal HRTF. The H1 chip in the AirPods is actually pulling apart the spatial/object information on the fly and working out how to make it sound right in your head. I think you'll find best practice is to also reference on AirPods Pro or Max as well as the Atmos room & Dolby Binaural if you want to cover the range of listening formats the majority of people will listen in?
You can not and should not ever use the apple codec to print a stereo file for mastering. You must use the Dolby Atmos renderer to do this. As you say, apple doesn't take into account near mid and far information. This is highly important to achieve correct playback on speakers. You can not use the apple codec to listen to atmos over speakers. This will give you a very bad and inaccurate playback of atmos. I have the Apple encoder on a headphone output which can be used with Apple airpod pros to monitor playback correctly. This is monitored once the mix is complete. One thing we should not do as engineers is make music sound good on only one device. We must achieve a happy medium between all playback devices, not just apple.
@@AudioAnimalsStudio I think we're saying the same thing, if you're referencing the master through AirPods with Apple's spatial rendering as one of the many references that's awesome. Note in your video it sounds like you said to the dude that binaural mixdown is important because so many people listen on headphones including AirPods, but it's important people understand people will almost always _not_ listen to your binaural mixdown on AirPods, they'll get an Apple render of the full Atmos mix. Anyway I'll be sending some mastering your way, most engineers are way behind on immersive.
@TheMattTricks when listening on Apple Music, you will receive a different playback compared to binaural playback. We are both aware of this. It's important we monitor all types of playback as they are all so different based on device.
@@AudioAnimalsStudio I can imagine. I'm curious how an atmos mixed and/or mastered track, when bounced to stereo/binaural, sounds compared to the regular stereo master/mix. You did a comparison in the video, and the atmos stereo bounce sounded better. Is this usually the case? *I didn't think that would be the case at all*
@darotm7628 Yeah, that's the case every time. Deeper separation and clarity as standard. The mix sounds alive in comparison. The interesting thing with this particular comparison is that the binaural mix isn't mastered through our analogue mastering chain. This is essentially a mix going up against a master and it blows it away. The difference is ridiculous once mastered.
@@AudioAnimalsStudio Thank you for the reply. That's fascinating. One last question: If you listen to a song on a streaming platform (for example), are you able to tell if its an atmos mix/master?
@darotm7628 if you are playing back in stereo you would directly know. You'd just think that sounds incredible. Not knowing why I guess. You'd only know it was Dolby Atmos if the playback is in Dolby Atmos.
I'm glad it proved helpful. I am hoping these videos will shed some light on understanding it better by watching an engineer and processor discuss the process. Focusing more on the conversation over the audio processing.
@@AudioAnimalsStudio Honestly it was great to see you conversing with an artist and not just talking at the camera for a change. You're quite dynamic when conversing with someone else. I hope to see more stuff like it!
@Standard.Candle I don't have artists in the studio a lot, but I will try and get some different people to swing by for more content like this. It's nice for me to talk to a human rather than talking through a camera.
Yeah dude, it was nice to see you have a shared laugh lol, you always have this serious expression on your face that's amusing to me xD If you're having fun, then the audience is having fun.
@Standard.Candle yeah I get that. I'll start trying to get more people involved in the conversation. Shows a different side to me when having conversations. When I'm sitting alone talking to a camera, it's hard to bounce a conversation off yourself and have a laugh.
Incredible difference between the stereo master vs binaural atoms mix. Do you think with the stereo atmos mix being used as a reference you could achieve this sound in a normal stereo mix?
Honestly, no. I've tried, others have tried. There's something about working in atmos and folding down to a binaural mix that makes separating sounds naturally so appealing to the ear. You could emulate it somewhat in a stereo mix but never to degree I am in this video. Additionally that process would take you hours whereas it takes me seconds to pick an object up and move it into the required space in the mix. It's like mixing in mono and trying to get the sound of stereo in some ways.
Objects can be mono. However in this particular session, we are working with stereo stems. For Dolby Atmos mastering you will be working with mixed stems. Playback of the stems playback the finished stereo mix identically.
Thanks for the video Paul. I guess that the original stereo master that we were hearing was not that "heavy" mastered, otherwise I don´t think that positioning alone the stems in Atmos, would render it tonally close to it, without resorting to some EQ and a tad of saturation/aural exciter and even a bit of compression here and there. At least in my humble experience on it. Which brings me to the issue of post mastering the binaural re-render with analogue gear, which I always thought is the way to do it. If one can afford it, that is. How far can you go in terms of processing to highlight/polish specific parts/instruments of the binaural mix, without making it too different of the original stereo master? Assuming that that stereo master is already published in a streaming platform? Also, for people that can´t afford the type of gear that you have at your studio, do you reckon that, considering the advances on hardware emulation, similar results can be achieved in the box for that binaural mastering? Thanks for sharing your (not secret) experience 😉. All the best, Paulo
That's actually the stereo master that is on the release. This was being used as the reverence in order to sync the Dolby Atmos master to the official release.
What you don't see in the video is my unique approach to this process of achieving a sonically superior sound compared to stereo. There's a process not shown that is unique to my sound. Something I don't wish to share with other atmos engineers. Which is why this portion is removed.
@@AudioAnimalsStudio Ok, that´s fine for me. When I mentioned how far do you think we can go in terms of mastering a binaural mix, more than avoiding it sounding too different from the released stereo master, my main concern was the delicate balance of the binaural mix achieved through the use of the Off/Near/Mid/Far settings on the binaural re-render, being to some extent modified by the use of additional processing, be it outboard or plugins. I too think that binaural, while be it primarily aimed at headphone listening, can also sound good on speakers, provided the right tweaks are made. At least artificial generated binaural. Regarding true binaural recordings, I´m not so adamant.
I will have to get a tape out and measure, I can't remember off the top of my head. I built it to the exact dimensions set by Dolby Labs 3 years. This may have changed to accommodate smaller Dolby Atmos studios now.
@@AudioAnimalsStudio Thats bloody lovely 😍 Not there yet obviously. This might single handedly be the best Dolby Atmos demonstration on TH-cam. I only noticed half way that you actually had the binaural downmix going as the audio for the video 👍
@patrick5301 Yeah, at the beginning you won't notice so much as the binaural setting are set to off, but towards the end of the video we start changing those settings and you will start hearing that in the playback. You'll notice with my methods you won't need to use headphones like other videos. You'll be able to hear it over a standard pair of speakers.
@@AudioAnimalsStudio yes I'm really curious on how you accomplish that. Sounds like a really interesting topic for another video perhaps? Whenever I take any of my stereo, speaker-mixed tracks and pan them around using headphones binaurally, the binaural mix turns out utter shit when played back on stereo speakers again. 🙄 Is this something you rely on the Trinnov for heavily? I wasn't quite able to tell if you were using a different Trinnov setting or measurement to listen to the binaural downmix as compared to the multi-speaker mix?
@patrick5301 it is a subject I've been asked many many times to do, but this is something that is a secret within Audio Animals and the reason we get so much mixing work as we're able to do something other industry professionals can't do. I touched on 10% of the process in this video. It's just something that is part of my sound that I don't want others to copy.
Does this mean that lots of tracks out there that are mixed in Dolby Atmos are not going to sound great? How is Joe public to know when it is mixed properly or not? Cheers for great run through.
Some are terrible when you play them back in an atmos room. This is often due to the Dolby Atmos mix being mixed in headphones and not on an atmos system. Also mixing in atmos is new to a lot of engineers and they haven't worked out the dos and don't. It's really important when mixing in atmos that you reference playback for Atmos, binaural and Apple playback. A lot of the time it'll sound great in one format not the others. The key to a good atmos mix is ensuring playback is good across all 3. It's similar to mixing in mono and never referencing how it would sound in stereo. It's guesswork if you never hear it playing back how the user hears it.
You can work in 96k in Dolby Atmos. You can also add any amount of analogue processing you want in stereo. The objects are still stereo and processed in stereo. The only aspect that isn't stereo is the master bus and the bed.
Nice!!! 👍🏾👍🏾.
I have a question though, when are you gonna review the Wes audio Eq? Thanks
I will try get that video out next week.
Nice work Paul thank you for sharing.
This was an amazing watch. Nicely done
I'm glad you enjoyed it.
Amazing session man! Thanks for having me down :)
My pleasure. Great to have you down.
Oh man it's refreshing to hear someone talk through this who actually understands Atmos. One note though Paul, you seem to be conflating listening to a (Dolby) binaural mixdown on normal headphones with listening to Apple's spatial rendering of a Dolby Atmos track. It's not the same thing, it's not the same renderer. I'm fairly sure Apple will ignore some of that object information you're setting like near/far. Apple uses the core ADM/object spatial information to re-create everything in your head based on head tracking and your personal HRTF. The H1 chip in the AirPods is actually pulling apart the spatial/object information on the fly and working out how to make it sound right in your head. I think you'll find best practice is to also reference on AirPods Pro or Max as well as the Atmos room & Dolby Binaural if you want to cover the range of listening formats the majority of people will listen in?
You can not and should not ever use the apple codec to print a stereo file for mastering. You must use the Dolby Atmos renderer to do this. As you say, apple doesn't take into account near mid and far information. This is highly important to achieve correct playback on speakers. You can not use the apple codec to listen to atmos over speakers. This will give you a very bad and inaccurate playback of atmos. I have the Apple encoder on a headphone output which can be used with Apple airpod pros to monitor playback correctly. This is monitored once the mix is complete. One thing we should not do as engineers is make music sound good on only one device. We must achieve a happy medium between all playback devices, not just apple.
@@AudioAnimalsStudio I think we're saying the same thing, if you're referencing the master through AirPods with Apple's spatial rendering as one of the many references that's awesome. Note in your video it sounds like you said to the dude that binaural mixdown is important because so many people listen on headphones including AirPods, but it's important people understand people will almost always _not_ listen to your binaural mixdown on AirPods, they'll get an Apple render of the full Atmos mix.
Anyway I'll be sending some mastering your way, most engineers are way behind on immersive.
@TheMattTricks when listening on Apple Music, you will receive a different playback compared to binaural playback. We are both aware of this. It's important we monitor all types of playback as they are all so different based on device.
WoW Nxt Gen 🔥 Mastering 💁🏾♂️ 🎧
This video has been very eye opening
That's what I like to hear. It's just a shame I can't have everyone experience it in full atmos in this room. That's a truly eye opening experience.
@@AudioAnimalsStudio I can imagine. I'm curious how an atmos mixed and/or mastered track, when bounced to stereo/binaural, sounds compared to the regular stereo master/mix.
You did a comparison in the video, and the atmos stereo bounce sounded better. Is this usually the case? *I didn't think that would be the case at all*
@darotm7628 Yeah, that's the case every time. Deeper separation and clarity as standard. The mix sounds alive in comparison. The interesting thing with this particular comparison is that the binaural mix isn't mastered through our analogue mastering chain. This is essentially a mix going up against a master and it blows it away. The difference is ridiculous once mastered.
@@AudioAnimalsStudio Thank you for the reply. That's fascinating. One last question: If you listen to a song on a streaming platform (for example), are you able to tell if its an atmos mix/master?
@darotm7628 if you are playing back in stereo you would directly know. You'd just think that sounds incredible. Not knowing why I guess. You'd only know it was Dolby Atmos if the playback is in Dolby Atmos.
This is brilliant, thanks for parting the veil for a spell. Still seems like dark magic to me, but there's a rhyme and reason.
I'm glad it proved helpful. I am hoping these videos will shed some light on understanding it better by watching an engineer and processor discuss the process. Focusing more on the conversation over the audio processing.
@@AudioAnimalsStudio Honestly it was great to see you conversing with an artist and not just talking at the camera for a change. You're quite dynamic when conversing with someone else. I hope to see more stuff like it!
@Standard.Candle I don't have artists in the studio a lot, but I will try and get some different people to swing by for more content like this. It's nice for me to talk to a human rather than talking through a camera.
Yeah dude, it was nice to see you have a shared laugh lol, you always have this serious expression on your face that's amusing to me xD If you're having fun, then the audience is having fun.
@Standard.Candle yeah I get that. I'll start trying to get more people involved in the conversation. Shows a different side to me when having conversations. When I'm sitting alone talking to a camera, it's hard to bounce a conversation off yourself and have a laugh.
Incredible difference between the stereo master vs binaural atoms mix. Do you think with the stereo atmos mix being used as a reference you could achieve this sound in a normal stereo mix?
Honestly, no. I've tried, others have tried. There's something about working in atmos and folding down to a binaural mix that makes separating sounds naturally so appealing to the ear. You could emulate it somewhat in a stereo mix but never to degree I am in this video. Additionally that process would take you hours whereas it takes me seconds to pick an object up and move it into the required space in the mix. It's like mixing in mono and trying to get the sound of stereo in some ways.
@@AudioAnimalsStudio makes sense, thanks for sharing!
So objects or “tracks” aren’t mono in Atmos mixes?
Objects can be mono. However in this particular session, we are working with stereo stems. For Dolby Atmos mastering you will be working with mixed stems. Playback of the stems playback the finished stereo mix identically.
Thanks for the video Paul. I guess that the original stereo master that we were hearing was not that "heavy" mastered, otherwise I don´t think that positioning alone the stems in Atmos, would render it tonally close to it, without resorting to some EQ and a tad of saturation/aural exciter and even a bit of compression here and there. At least in my humble experience on it. Which brings me to the issue of post mastering the binaural re-render with analogue gear, which I always thought is the way to do it. If one can afford it, that is. How far can you go in terms of processing to highlight/polish specific parts/instruments of the binaural mix, without making it too different of the original stereo master? Assuming that that stereo master is already published in a streaming platform? Also, for people that can´t afford the type of gear that you have at your studio, do you reckon that, considering the advances on hardware emulation, similar results can be achieved in the box for that binaural mastering? Thanks for sharing your (not secret) experience 😉. All the best, Paulo
That's actually the stereo master that is on the release. This was being used as the reverence in order to sync the Dolby Atmos master to the official release.
What you don't see in the video is my unique approach to this process of achieving a sonically superior sound compared to stereo. There's a process not shown that is unique to my sound. Something I don't wish to share with other atmos engineers. Which is why this portion is removed.
@@AudioAnimalsStudio Ok
@@AudioAnimalsStudio Ok, that´s fine for me. When I mentioned how far do you think we can go in terms of mastering a binaural mix, more than avoiding it sounding too different from the released stereo master, my main concern was the delicate balance of the binaural mix achieved through the use of the Off/Near/Mid/Far settings on the binaural re-render, being to some extent modified by the use of additional processing, be it outboard or plugins. I too think that binaural, while be it primarily aimed at headphone listening, can also sound good on speakers, provided the right tweaks are made. At least artificial generated binaural. Regarding true binaural recordings, I´m not so adamant.
@paulovmendes when mastering you ensure playback is correct for stereo playback. If you need to revert back to the atmos session you can.
How big and tall is your Atmos room Paul?
I will have to get a tape out and measure, I can't remember off the top of my head. I built it to the exact dimensions set by Dolby Labs 3 years. This may have changed to accommodate smaller Dolby Atmos studios now.
Is there a way for us to listen to the binaural downmix of this track?
Towards the end of the video, you'll hear the binaural playback of the track with all objects active.
@@AudioAnimalsStudio Thats bloody lovely 😍
Not there yet obviously.
This might single handedly be the best Dolby Atmos demonstration on TH-cam.
I only noticed half way that you actually had the binaural downmix going as the audio for the video 👍
@patrick5301 Yeah, at the beginning you won't notice so much as the binaural setting are set to off, but towards the end of the video we start changing those settings and you will start hearing that in the playback. You'll notice with my methods you won't need to use headphones like other videos. You'll be able to hear it over a standard pair of speakers.
@@AudioAnimalsStudio yes I'm really curious on how you accomplish that. Sounds like a really interesting topic for another video perhaps?
Whenever I take any of my stereo, speaker-mixed tracks and pan them around using headphones binaurally, the binaural mix turns out utter shit when played back on stereo speakers again. 🙄
Is this something you rely on the Trinnov for heavily? I wasn't quite able to tell if you were using a different Trinnov setting or measurement to listen to the binaural downmix as compared to the multi-speaker mix?
@patrick5301 it is a subject I've been asked many many times to do, but this is something that is a secret within Audio Animals and the reason we get so much mixing work as we're able to do something other industry professionals can't do. I touched on 10% of the process in this video. It's just something that is part of my sound that I don't want others to copy.
Does this mean that lots of tracks out there that are mixed in Dolby Atmos are not going to sound great? How is Joe public to know when it is mixed properly or not? Cheers for great run through.
Some are terrible when you play them back in an atmos room. This is often due to the Dolby Atmos mix being mixed in headphones and not on an atmos system. Also mixing in atmos is new to a lot of engineers and they haven't worked out the dos and don't. It's really important when mixing in atmos that you reference playback for Atmos, binaural and Apple playback. A lot of the time it'll sound great in one format not the others. The key to a good atmos mix is ensuring playback is good across all 3. It's similar to mixing in mono and never referencing how it would sound in stereo. It's guesswork if you never hear it playing back how the user hears it.
the Dolby Atmos question is not at all clear to me // 192 kHz is important to me and an analog console + tape print
You can work in 96k in Dolby Atmos. You can also add any amount of analogue processing you want in stereo. The objects are still stereo and processed in stereo. The only aspect that isn't stereo is the master bus and the bed.
what a haircut😄😄