New Atmos-Capable DAW: Fiedler Audio Dolby Atmos Composer

[martin russell]

Maybe this has been fixed in the latest release of Logic (and maybe you already do all this) - but if you have a copy of the Renderer, I would strongly recommend listening to your ADM's generated from Logic via the Renderer before delivery, just to make sure they sound the way you intended. Particularly heights. You can change the overall level of the heights by using the downmix settings in the renderer, and re-rendering your masters. If find that in some cases overhead material that sounds great in 7.1.4 becomes too prevalent when checking the 5.1 fold down...this isn't a Logic thing, but a Dolby thing. But it can be mitigated with the downmix settings. Lastly, I would also suggest generating BIN's and MP4's via the Renderer and checking those too. I found the Apple monitoring of BIN and Spatial to be completely different than what Logic was playing back. Again, things may be different now with Logic, or you may be doing this already - if so, apologies.

Many thanks for the thoughtful responses - very much appreciated. It looks like the actual Renderer software will be on my shopping list in the near future! When I looked at this I only went as far as loading my test ADMs back into Logic, and didn't really go near the binaural or Apple Spacial stuff as I currently only have work in progress on five or so tracks, with any eventual delivery being quite a way off...I did plan to do a playback event somewhere suitably equipped, and was half expecting to be making revisions on the back of of that. From what you've said, it sounds like there's a possibility that I may get a rude awakening when this happens!

 

[austinsignal]

Many thanks for the thoughtful responses - very much appreciated. It looks like the actual Renderer software will be on my shopping list in the near future! When I looked at this I only went as far as loading my test ADMs back into Logic, and didn't really go near the binaural or Apple Spacial stuff as I currently only have work in progress on five or so tracks, with any eventual delivery being quite a way off...I did plan to do a playback event somewhere suitably equipped, and was half expecting to be making revisions on the back of of that. From what you've said, it sounds like there's a possibility that I may get a rude awakening when this happens!

no problem. Hope things are better now with Logic. One piece of advice - don't wait to check headphone mixes until the end! Check and adjust as you go...big surprises can lurk in the land of headphones....

 

[austinsignal]

Just fyi to Logic users - good news for ATMOS mixing! New Logic 11 supports downmix and surround/height trim controls....finally!

 

[~dave~~wave~]

Just fyi to Logic users - good news for ATMOS mixing! New Logic 11 supports downmix and surround/height trim controls....finally!

As well as a stem splitter:

Stem Splitter: Recover Great Recordings​

Most musicians perform their best without the pressure of a formal studio session. These moments are often found in Voice Memos recordings, an old demo cassette tape, or are captured from a live show. Listening back, these recordings can reveal magical performances that are nearly impossible to re-create, making them lost to time.

Now, with Stem Splitter, an artist can recover moments of inspiration from any audio file and separate nearly any mixed audio recording into four distinct parts: Drums, Bass, Vocals, and Other instruments, right on the device.

 

[austinsignal]

As well as a stem splitter:

Stem Splitter: Recover Great Recordings​

Most musicians perform their best without the pressure of a formal studio session. These moments are often found in Voice Memos recordings, an old demo cassette tape, or are captured from a live show. Listening back, these recordings can reveal magical performances that are nearly impossible to re-create, making them lost to time.

Now, with Stem Splitter, an artist can recover moments of inspiration from any audio file and separate nearly any mixed audio recording into four distinct parts: Drums, Bass, Vocals, and Other instruments, right on the device.

yeah - interesting to see how well that works...

 

[Blackwood]

I’m going to risk a possibly dumb question if the answer is obvious and I just missed it: How do you convert (or package) an ADM/BWF file to MKV?

Background: I’ve been toying with mixing stuff for a while. As an early Father’s Day gift, my wife got me a Scarlett 18i20 as I slowly build out a system to do surround mixing. (She doesn’t know she got it for me yet, but she’s generous like that.)

I’ve had the Dolby Atmos Composer bookmarked for a while and starting to go through some of the tutorial videos before putting down the money for the software. (Another Father’s Day gift my wife doesn’t yet know she’s going to get me. By the way, for Mother’s Day it’s the same thing... I find out what I got her when it’s delivered or she brings it home.)

The Composer appears to export to ADM/BWF files. But I want to play it on my Neumi device which will play MKVs. I’ve seen the Dolby Atmos Conversion Tool. I don’t know if it makes MKVs... I can’t see the documentation unless I sign up which I’m happy to do if that’s the only way to convert files.

But am I missing something easy or obvious about creating MKV files? I’ve done some Google searching, but never seem to find an answer.

 

[jimfisheye]

Not a dumb question at all!

.atmos file -> Dolby media encoder for .mlp file -> change extension from .mlp to .thd -> MKVToolNix for .mkv or .mka

The encoder is the only app in the world that can encode lossless Atmos from the intermediate file set. They only let you output the lossy version from the renderer or the composer.

 

[Blackwood]

Not a dumb question at all!

.atmos file -> Dolby media encoder for .mlp file -> change extension from .mlp to .thd -> MKVToolNix for .mkv or .mka

The encoder is the only app in the world that can encode lossless Atmos from the intermediate file set. They only let you output the lossy version from the renderer or the composer.

Thanks. This has been a classic case of “the more you learn, the more you realize you don’t know” so I’m trying to process all this new info... and going down lots of rabbit holes along the way. Fun, though!