Logic Now Has Atmos Built-In for $199

[Tweakhead]

Logic now has the Dolby Atmos Renderer built-in and included for free (entire Logic app costs $199).
Perpetual upgrades for eternity for free.
Atmos processing plugins included.
It also seems to include actual 7.1.4 mixing paths, unlike Pro Tools - which only has 7.1.2
https://www.apple.com/logic-pro/specs/

Any comments Avid ?

[Obsidian Dragon]

And native compatibility for M1, M1 Pro, and M1 Mac processors!

[Dizaineris]

RE: 7.1.2 vs 7.1.4

From Dolby


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wklzoYHeXr0

He addresses at 58:00

[FilmMixer]

Originally Posted by Tweakhead

It also seems to include actual 7.1.4 mixing paths, unlike Pro Tools - which only has 7.1.2
https://www.apple.com/logic-pro/specs/

Any comments Avid ?

Atmos supports 7.1.2 channel beds/stems.

There is no such thing as a 7.1.4 channel track…. So Pro Tools isn’t missing anything

7.1.4 is a speaker layout, just like 5.1.2, 9.1.6 or 24.1.10 (home Atmos supported layouts…)

Logic is setting it’s internal rendering engine to map to a 7.1.4 layout…. Just as if you set an RMU to 7.1.4.

[Tweakhead]

Originally Posted by Dizaineris

RE: 7.1.2 vs 7.1.4
From Dolby
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wklzoYHeXr0
He addresses at 58:00

thanks for the link.
I don't quite buy the explanation however, saying that upscaling to a theater would mean certain overhead speakers between front and rear would be "discounted as irrelevant". In that case wouldn't the same argument also apply to larger side arrays too ?
Just because someone mixes solely to a 7.1.2 bed doesn't mean that any side speakers not in the original path don't get fed a signal when upscaled.
Or does it ?
I thought the entire point was that Atmos is a scalable system, and intelligently feeds signal to the "in-between" speakers when upscaled to a larger system.
If not, then the entire scalability claim of Dolby Atmos falls flat.

On this Dolby page (in the first illustration), they seem to state that only a bed plus an object becomes "Dolby Atmos", even though a 7.1.2 bed actually contains height information. Is it simply outdated information ?
Did they subsequently decide that they needed to add height to beds too ?
If so, they can also include Front and Rear height to beds. ie 7.1.4

If I'm recording an orchestra and place 4 mics very high in the room, Front L & R, and Rear L & R, then I want to assign those to my 0.0.4 bed. I don't need them whizzing around after the fact in an object. I simply want to simulate the exact sensation of being in that recording space.
I realize that objects can be static too, but why not just build it into the basic minimal bed picture for simplicity.
It seems that objects are not properly delay-compensated like beds are (according to the size of the room), so this object workaround might potentially cause fold-down/phase issues with something as sensitive and precise as an orchestral quad overhead mic array.

So, I say 7.1.4 should be the minimum Bed structure, but Bill Rigby gives an excellent argument here for going even further:
https://duc.avid.com/showpost.php?p=...6&postcount=11

Not standardizing these things now will just lead to add-ons, workarounds, and kluge fixes further down the chain, which will complicate it further from ever being addressed. By then everyone will have just given up and gone back to stereo.
Keep it simple, elegant, and logical. Now is the time.

Or am I missing something ?

p.s. and while everyone is at it, let's standardize the meter order for channels, busses, plugins, etc when set to the Dolby engine. It bugs me looking at my panning and levels in a 7.1.2 Master Channel, and then looking in the Dolby Renderer window and them not being the same order. and give us Pan presets (not Channel presets via another menu, Pan presets - right there in the panner, imagine the luxury)

[Extreme Mixing]

You have to get the price difference out of your mind or you'll go crazy! Apple is making money selling phones and watches, and soon, glasses. Avid can't do that because they don't sell... Oh, wait a minute, says the guy who has bought 3 systems worth of hardware from Avid.

But I love the way Pro Tools works and always have. I do a lot of work in Logic these days, too, but still like the comfort and security of Pro Tools. Just maybe not forever. And Logic is too cheap not to give it a spin.

Steve

[LDS]

Originally Posted by Tweakhead

thanks for the link.
I don't quite buy the explanation however, saying that upscaling to a theater would mean certain overhead speakers between front and rear would be "discounted as irrelevant". In that case wouldn't the same argument also apply to larger side arrays too ?

It does apply to larger side arrays. It is due to the Haas effect. If you are standing in a cinema, listening to a stereo recording, you only need to wander half a meter off the center line of the theatre to perceive the audio as coming entirely from the left or right speaker. And that is a stereo recording with a lot of decorrelated content in it. For room reverbs? Forget, I reckon. That same concept has long been applied to the side and rear channels. Depending on the size of the theatre, there might be 2, 4, maybe 8 speakers per channel, spread along the room... but audiences will really only ever perceive the sound to be emanating from the speaker closest to them. Not all 8 of the speakers.

When you take that into consideration, along with the fact that side and rear speakers are already above the audience, there is really no difference in spatial resolution between the horizonal and vertical axes of a 7.1.2 bed. Left -> side left -> rear left, or left -> height left -> rear left... it is all the same. It is standardized. Realistically, audiences probably won't perceive the 0.0.4 of static height audio of a recording in larger spaces with arrayed speakers. Just the one closest to them... coming from the speaker closest to them.

'Upscaling' only applies to audio objects, but even then I think the term 'upscaling' is wrong. Objects are spatialized in a virtual 3D space using metadata. They get downscaled from there upon playback, into whatever available speaker channels the atmos system has. In the case of a cinema using arrayed speakers, that might be as many as 64 across the theatre. For a sound source on the move, it makes sense. Using objects for a static height recording for 0.0.4 in such a situation becomes even more problematic. Audiences will still only really perceive the sounds coming from the speakers closest to them... but you also create a whopping big hole in the top center when speaker arrays are used.

7.1.2 really is the perfect bed size for the expansion of channel-based audio from 7.1. I think precisely because of the 'upscaling' argument, Dolby don't want people even focusing on the "placement of moving elements in a bed" as Bill suggests. Atmos, and its object-based methodology is entirely new. It is only just beginning to playout as well. Beds have predefined spatial resolution. Objects don't. So how they can be represented or spatialized has every possibility of changing in future revisions of Dolby Atmos.


I have never used the new version of Logic but from comments I have heard, it seems to be much more along the lines of the dolby atmos music panner workflow than any kind of fully fledged Atmos implementation.

[mbourque]

Originally Posted by Tweakhead

If I'm recording an orchestra and place 4 mics very high in the room, Front L & R, and Rear L & R, then I want to assign those to my 0.0.4 bed. I don't need them whizzing around after the fact in an object. I simply want to simulate the exact sensation of being in that recording space.

I think that with Atmos, we have to change the approach regarding room mics. In your example, you want a bed with 4 top speakers. A bed means it outputs sound to fixed destination, to dedicated speakers. What will happen to your room sound in a setup where there's 8 top speakers? The room image captured by the 4 mics will not correctly reflect what you intended to be. If you want things to be decoded properly in space, you have to go with objects.

FYI, I've never mix in Atmos, but I'm eager to try it. I read a lot on this subject lately. It brings a lot of questioning about how to do certain things.