Dolby Atmos for the rest of us...

[mgw38]

Modern systems have a system latency of around 30ms and a generally accepted rule is that you need to stay below 60ms to avoid motion sickness. The limit where you start noticing a mismatch is considered to be around 100ms. These are not hard numbers, of course.

[fairlyclose]

Modern systems have a system latency of around 30ms and a generally accepted rule is that you need to stay below 60ms to avoid motion sickness. The limit where you start noticing a mismatch is considered to be around 100ms. These are not hard numbers, of course.

Coming from academia (now retired) I take any recommendations and research out of the IT industry with a grain of salt. But it is in their commercial interests to make products that people can buy in large numbers. Seems from what you say they have reached a point where that will be so and most people will be fine.

[mgw38]

I’m looking at this from an academic perspective myself. We run an immersive media program in my department. The 100ms rule is one that exists in music production as well, btw. The human brain processes audio faster than visuals and therefore has an internal mechanism to deal with a certain level of mismatch. For most people this is in the 60-100ms range.

[pinki]

Great discussion.

I'm not coming from an academic perspective but I have experience of mixing music in both the L'acoustics Lisa System and Dolby Atmos.
To answer Thomas' point about "what is the point of this when it comes to music", which is a really great question: for me the movement of objects is of course of no interest, but what these recent developments in spatialisation bring to the table is an uncanny sense of placement of image and depth of aural field. (my own clumsy way of trying to describe it)

There is just this better aural picture. For sure it's about immersion; but not in a "it's behind you/above you"way. More about being "in" the music.

Of course there are good and bad Dolby Atmos music mixes just like stereo mixes. But when it's good I find it extraordinary. And mixing on it and then going back to older formats is painful!

[fairlyclose]

I’m looking at this from an academic perspective myself. We run an immersive media program in my department. The 100ms rule is one that exists in music production as well, btw. The human brain processes audio faster than visuals and therefore has an internal mechanism to deal with a certain level of mismatch. For most people this is in the 60-100ms range.

I am more interested in the vestibular mismatch with the visual input - the audio/visual one always seemed it would be fixable - vestibular not so much. The vestibuloocular system is pretty critical, do those timescales work there as well?

[fairlyclose]

Great discussion.

I'm not coming from an academic perspective but I have experience of mixing music in both the L'acoustics Lisa System and Dolby Atmos.
To answer Thomas' point about "what is the point of this when it comes to music", which is a really great question: for me the movement of objects is of course of no interest, but what these recent developments in spatialisation bring to the table is an uncanny sense of placement of image and depth of aural field. (my own clumsy way of trying to describe it)

There is just this better aural picture. For sure it's about immersion; but not in a "it's behind you/above you"way. More about being "in" the music.

Of course there are good and bad Dolby Atmos music mixes just like stereo mixes. But when it's good I find it extraordinary. And mixing on it and then going back to older formats is painful!

And to start getting that experience you don't need Atmos, a quad system, or any sort of cobbled together multispeaker array can get you started.
Play with it.

[pinki]

Great discussion.

I'm not coming from an academic perspective but I have experience of mixing music in both the L'acoustics Lisa System and Dolby Atmos.
To answer Thomas' point about "what is the point of this when it comes to music", which is a really great question: for me the movement of objects is of course of no interest, but what these recent developments in spatialisation bring to the table is an uncanny sense of placement of image and depth of aural field. (my own clumsy way of trying to describe it)

There is just this better aural picture. For sure it's about immersion; but not in a "it's behind you/above you"way. More about being "in" the music.

Of course there are good and bad Dolby Atmos music mixes just like stereo mixes. But when it's good I find it extraordinary. And mixing on it and then going back to older formats is painful!

And to start getting that experience you don't need Atmos, a quad system, or any sort of cobbled together multispeaker array can get you started.
Play with it.

I don't understand your response? What do you mean by "Play with it"? Play with what?
Have you mixed a band on Atmos?

If you are saying you can "cobble together" any old multi-speaker array to get the same experience as Dolby Atmos you are incorrect.

[ThomasHelzle]

Thank you all for taking it the way I meant it.
I am very interested in this field myself, so it really is meant as a genuine question, not as a "downer".

Where I personally enjoy "high spatial resolution" probably the most is in our cottage in the woods in summer. The sounds in the forest are just so well spread out and it's such a joy to sit in this space, smell the pine trees in the sun, hear the birds and crickets and wind...

I personally get seasick in cars and when watching 3rd person motion on a screen in pretty much every game after 5 minutes and I do not enjoy S3D movies that use it as an "effect".
My very limited tries with VR were only enjoyable where things were very calm (like "Dear Angelica"), but most of it was nauseating. I don't think the mismatch between visuals and actual body movement and orientation will be possible to overcome anytime soon with standard gear.
I never had any issues with sound in that regard, but I have never worked with anything above 5.1.
I have read about wavefield systems with very high spatial resolution but never experienced one myself.

I do totally get the "in the music" thing though, that is what I do with my very simple and limited 5.1 panner in Bitwig Studio.
And I do think that binaural audio is more enjoyable through headphones than stereo, I just never found an encoder that REALLY does create the full spatial stage (I tried IRCAM hEAR, Waves NX and several others).

So yeah, I really wonder if it will take off if no much better way of encoding/playback that neither needs a dozen well placed high end speakers - which most people won't put in their rooms or can't afford - or massively better binaural techniques show up.
And people/musicians who really embrace the medium and are able to use it for more than some effects.
I heard that Jacob Collier did some surround music - would be interesting if he is able to make it really work.

BTW. I use two Neumann KH 120 A for the front and two JBL 305 in the rear. The latter have pretty good spatial qualities and are quite affordable, since you were speaking about cheap gear.

I'll follow this discussion with great interest, it seems you guys have quite some experience to share!

Cheers,

Tom

[pinki]

So yeah, I really wonder if it will take off if no much better way of encoding/playback that neither needs a dozen well placed high end speakers - which most people won't put in their rooms or can't afford - or massively better binaural techniques show up.

Yes, Dolby Atmos for music is on headphones and comes down to a binaural technique.

[fairlyclose]

Great discussion.

I'm not coming from an academic perspective but I have experience of mixing music in both the L'acoustics Lisa System and Dolby Atmos.
To answer Thomas' point about "what is the point of this when it comes to music", which is a really great question: for me the movement of objects is of course of no interest, but what these recent developments in spatialisation bring to the table is an uncanny sense of placement of image and depth of aural field. (my own clumsy way of trying to describe it)

There is just this better aural picture. For sure it's about immersion; but not in a "it's behind you/above you"way. More about being "in" the music.

Of course there are good and bad Dolby Atmos music mixes just like stereo mixes. But when it's good I find it extraordinary. And mixing on it and then going back to older formats is painful!

And to start getting that experience you don't need Atmos, a quad system, or any sort of cobbled together multispeaker array can get you started.
Play with it.

I don't understand your response? What do you mean by "Play with it"? Play with what?
Have you mixed a band on Atmos?

If you are saying you can "cobble together" any old multi-speaker array to get the same experience as Dolby Atmos you are incorrect.

I'm talking about playing with spatial audio - there is nothing particularly special about Atmos for creating spatialised audio. I dont want people to think they have to fork out a lot of money to start getting the experience of working with spatial audio. They dont.
(last time I mixed a band was for a live gig in 1983 )

[fairlyclose]

two JBL 305 in the rear. The latter have pretty good spatial qualities and are quite affordable, since you were speaking about cheap gear.

I use them sometimes, last time was for a 4 channel touring art installation, they are really great value

[pinki]

I'm talking about playing with spatial audio - there is nothing particularly special about Atmos for creating spatialised audio. I dont want people to think they have to fork out a lot of money to start getting the experience of working with spatial audio. They dont.
(last time I mixed a band was for a live gig in 1983 )

OK then agreed, you don't have to use Dolby Atmos.
But what these latest generation of immersive sound formats (Lisa, Soundscape, Dolby Atmos etc) have, is a LOT of real time number crunching going on, which was previously not possible due to a lack of DSP power.
That is what I was trying to get across in my post..the end user experience and the recording engineer experience is different than surround-sound- it's just..better.

[AudioBabble]

If you are saying you can "cobble together" any old multi-speaker array to get the same experience as Dolby Atmos you are incorrect.

I have to confess this is exactly what I was considering earlier in this thread!

In the light of more info... both from the knowledgeable contributors here and my own reading, I've somewhat modified my parameters.

Minimum dimensions (between speakers) according to the Dolby website for an Atmos mixing room are 3m between side speakers and 3.5m between front and back. 2.4m from floor at mixing position to centre of ceiling speaker (if I remember rightly, which is a bit of an odd measurement, 2.4m ceiling height should do i think). I did attempt to use Dolby's "room design tool" to find out more, but in their characteristic "elitist" way they've written it as an xlsb spreadsheet which can only be opening with MS Excel... a program I have no call for and no intentions of paying for!

This means an Atmos setup could be done in a fairly small room... which leads me to ponder whether small monitors would be sufficient to carry full range, rather than relying on a "re-enforcing" sub (something I was considering earlier, but scratching my head how to get it to integrate properly). A matching LFE sub would also be needed.
I'm now considering Tannoy 502's as a possibility, I've heard good things about them and they're pretty affordable.

I'd be running 12 outs from a multichannel interface for 7.1.4 surround for mixing, then I'd need a suitable decoder to run the speakers for mix testing purposes - plus I'd be mad to put in all that work and investment and not enjoy other people's music and watch a few movies now and again!

This is all future-projection really, but it would be nice to have things planned out as something to work towards.

[fairlyclose]

Certainly if you can combine home theatre and studio use it becomes more attractive. Good planning !

[pinki]

If you are saying you can "cobble together" any old multi-speaker array to get the same experience as Dolby Atmos you are incorrect.

I have to confess this is exactly what I was considering earlier in this thread!

In the light of more info... both from the knowledgeable contributors here and my own reading, I've somewhat modified my parameters.

Minimum dimensions (between speakers) according to the Dolby website for an Atmos mixing room are 3m between side speakers and 3.5m between front and back. 2.4m from floor at mixing position to centre of ceiling speaker (if I remember rightly, which is a bit of an odd measurement, 2.4m ceiling height should do i think). I did attempt to use Dolby's "room design tool" to find out more, but in their characteristic "elitist" way they've written it as an xlsb spreadsheet which can only be opening with MS Excel... a program I have no call for and no intentions of paying for!

This means an Atmos setup could be done in a fairly small room... which leads me to ponder whether small monitors would be sufficient to carry full range, rather than relying on a "re-enforcing" sub (something I was considering earlier, but scratching my head how to get it to integrate properly). A matching LFE sub would also be needed.
I'm now considering Tannoy 502's as a possibility, I've heard good things about them and they're pretty affordable.

I'd be running 12 outs from a multichannel interface for 7.1.4 surround for mixing, then I'd need a suitable decoder to run the speakers for mix testing purposes - plus I'd be mad to put in all that work and investment and not enjoy other people's music and watch a few movies now and again!

This is all future-projection really, but it would be nice to have things planned out as something to work towards.

I'm referring to the DSP and algorithms more than the speaker set up. The 'clever' bit of Dolby Atmos is in the number crunching and design of the software. I think you are fine to be a bit loose with the speaker set up for the purposes of getting started.