Atmos Best Practices

[viaspiaggia]

Hi folks, I'm just getting my feet wet with Atmos, remixing a recent 6-episode series into Atmos per the client's request. So far I'm having a ball, but I'm very curious how other folks are approaching some of the day to day choices.

I've seen the full ProTools Expert video series, but I'm wondering what other resources there may be out there for "here's how I've adjusted my surround workflow for Atmos."

My most pressing question is: Are you converting basically any elements that move through the soundfield into objects, or saving objects only for things that use height? eg I've got lots of footsteps that walk off screen either just straight L or R, or go out through the surrounds. Or, perhaps an off-screen yell that grabs a character's attention. Is it best to make everything like that an object? I think the answer is going to be YES but just curious!

I don't want to overload a single post with a million questions, but if y'all are game I'm happy to dump more Q's here, just don't want to duplicate info if it's already out there!

Thanks!

[Leverson]

As with anything, there are multiple ways to do it, I'll detail the general preferences that work for me, but others may do things completely the opposite!

Also this is assuming Atmos Home Entertainment, and not Theatrical Atmos, as Theatrical Atmos is a bit of a different beast and process.

For Atmos HE, personally, I use beds a lot more than objects. If you're used to 5.1 film/TV mixing (or even better, 7.1 mixing) you'll find that you can do things essentially the way you are already used to, you just have a few extra creative options up your sleeve now!

I do a ton of my panning in beds and that includes height layers as well too. However, where I find I use objects the most are:

a.) if there is a height layer sound that I want to place EXACTLY somewhere I the heights, as opposed to in a bed being spread across a general 'upper-left' or 'upper right'. Being able to point-source heights is a great use objects and discrete ceiling speakers (for example a rainforest bird as an exact point source in the trees above)

b.) if there are sounds that do a lot of panning that could better be utilized with how Atmos renders object panning as opposed to traditional bed panning. For example if a sci-fi drone is zipping around everywhere, I feel I can get a more discrete and accurate reproduction using that as an object than I could in a traditional 7.1 format.

But for a lot of things, like if you were panning footsteps L/R like in an animated movie, I'd probably leave those as regular sounds and render those as part of the 7.1.2 beds, which is where a bunch of my sounds and panning goes.

So to sum up - objects are great for discrete height placements, as well as complex or unique sound movements.

But there is nothing wrong with doing it the other way either, and having almost all of your sounds and panning be done as objects, that would work totally fine too and sound great too! So a lot of this is just personal preference.

For Theatrical Atmos I'd rely on objects a lot more, as you have a lot more discrete speakers in a traditional theater space than most home setups would have, and a lot more physical space for your sounds and pans to exist in, and I think objects have a more notable presence in Theatrical Atmos.

These are just my 2 cents! Others may feel the opposite! I hope this helps! And good luck with your first Atmos mix! It's a really fun and creative format to work in! Whatever plan you end up going with, just make sure to think it all out and how your deliverables will look/work ahead of time!

[viaspiaggia]

Thanks so much! I've been sort of heading towards the more theatrical approach you describe - more objects for focused action moving around - but it's hard with an existing mix to move every single footstep into an object.

One issue I've hit is that I was just getting a workflow down with footsteps, props, cloth, touch each being in a routing folder, and so when I pop one of those tracks out to an object they no longer have the volume ducks from the routing folder.... However I've got some creatures where all the layers were in a mono routing folder and that works great for objects!

Do you tend to make new tracks that are object-only, and put sounds there, or automate the "object/bus" toggle as needed? Again, my old workflow had 40-60 "effects" tracks with stuff that wasn't super specific - all the vehicles, doors, etc etc. But now I'm finding I'm getting confused with which of those belong to which object, which track is the object Control track, etc. Need to work towards more discreet tracks, and start filling up those objects!

I have a general idea of what the deliverables side looks like, but I think that will be my next hurdle.

Thanks again!

[Leverson]

I use dedicated object tracks for each major food group, and I label them and color code them so they are easy to see and it's easy for me to see where all my objects are at a glance and what food groups they belong to, and they stay on in Object Mode all the time.

Automating their bed/object switches I feel would get confusing and too easy for me to lose track of what sounds I'm using as objects or non-objects in a mix, personally.

Using dedicated tracks also helps me keep on top of my routing and how many object voices I'm using, as it's pretty easy to mark off "A HFX OBJ 1-6" as tracks as well as label the I/O in both Pro Tools and the Renderer accordingly and it helps me math out at a glance how many of of the max allocation of tracks I'm using.

I still haven't made the jump to routing folders yet, I'm still using Auxes and VCAs for my food groups. But I generally assign the object tracks for the food group to the food group VCA so I can raise or lower them entirely with the overall food group if I need.

As this is a Best Practices chain, I'd be curious what other post sound folks are doing and if their own personal preferences are similar or different to what I am doing too. Hopefully others chime in here as well!

[garret]

Theatrical Atmos is a very different animal so lets ignore that for a second.

One thing to keep in mind regarding HE mixes is that in a 7.1.4 environment which a lot of HE mix rooms and consumer systems are, panning in 7.1, there is no difference between bed and object. They will sound identical. So if that is your final format then you only really need to utilise objects when you want to get discreetly to each of the four height channels.

If your mix plays back in a higher HE format like 9.1.4 then the panning would then play slightly differently between panning in the 7.1 bed or using an object. So you just need to work out if that is a major issue for you.
So it's horses for courses. You may not need to get overly complex in your panning in terms of objects and just use it when you really need accuracy.

Just food for thought.

[viaspiaggia]

Garret that was kind of my starting point - that the end result would be essentially the same with the majority of likely listeners. That being said I always like to get myself in good habits early instead of having to relearn....

What are you all finding works for client review? I've been unable to make an mp4 with video so far - tried converting my video files from the client to h.264 via QuickTime, but I'm getting a runtime error (?!) in Atmos Renderer when doing the final export. This current client is an early adopter type - should he be able to load the ADM .wav file into Final Cut or Premiere and play it back via Airpods or something, or is that insane? I know he's been reviewing Atmos music mixes done by someone else via video-less mp4 files.

Thanks!