spatial audio in Bitwig

[S950]

Hey, I work at Codemasters, been there for 10 years, I do vehicle engines for our racing games. Our engine system is granular rather than loops and most of the time I have to slip multichannel recordings down at a cylinder-fire level to splice engine sweeps together.

When you acquire the WRC license, please make it a proper sim and don’t water it down like F1. Kind of like a modern take on RBR mixed with Dirt Rally 2. Sorry for the OT comment but couldn’t resist. I’m fearful that EA is going to take your legacy into simcade hell.

It would be super interesting to hear more about how the audio engine works and the approach to sound design and recording for motorsport games.

[hockinsk3]

Thanks for sharing your Surround Panner preset @ThomasHelzle. I took a look and it made me get my finger out and make my own for Dolby Atmos outputs. Surprisingly easy to achieve using the Vector 8 modulator and a couple of knobs. The tweaking will take a bit longer to exactly match the panning weights of Dolby's panner, but Bitwig even includes different weight curves too haha! Anyway, Bitwig 2.0 to 7.1.4 bus output. Will share when complete. The only thing missing would be the associated Atmos metadata, but I'm not too bothered simply using a VBAP panning method, the Dolby Atmos Renderer will add the metadata needed and if I really want more control can add that in post anyway.

[trevormeier]

Thanks for sharing your Surround Panner preset @ThomasHelzle.

Any further developments on your panner @ThomasHelzle? I'm considering Bitwig after banging my head against the wall building a custom quad mixer in VCV. It sounds great, but it's a huge amount of work to do all of the control modulation. Any tweaks take hours. Bitwig's grid in the end seems a much simpler way to go, but I'm daunted by their lack of support for multi-channel or ambi formats.

Bitwig 2.0 to 7.1.4 bus output. Will share when complete.

@hockinsk3 I'd love to try out the finished product if you have a chance to share!

[ThomasHelzle]

There are some new developments in the latest versions of Bitwig that make it a tad easier, like you can deactivated unused sends, which in the case of my template helps with system load. Also, you can now send from everywhere to everywhere, so it's no longer strictly necessary to use a group for all tracks (although I still prefer it since it makes things more logical and tidy).
I can share my latest template, but it's not that much different from the previous one IIRC.

Until there is real multichannel support in Bitwig Studio, it will always be a bit of a crutch, even though I find it easy to work with after I've gotten used to it. Real Ambisonic support would be RAD...
Also, I did my template "by ear" for my own system and (simple) use, so you may have to adjust the weights to your own usecase.

Let me know if you want it, I can clean it up and post it here, but hockinsk3's version may be more interesting (mine is 5.1 only).

Cheers,

Tom

[trevormeier]

I mostly work in Quad, so your updated template would be helpful (as would hockinsk3's). It's helpful as much as an education tool as anything, to learn from how other artists work as I build my setup. Thanks for taking the time!

[ThomasHelzle]

Ok, will look into it ASAP.
I haven't gone fully Grid with mine, but partially use it for things that are a tad easier that way.
My template has a ton of modulation things built in, so that may or may not be helpful for automatic movement. Love it especially on percussion.
I also mostly use quad, for my kind of music, 5.1 isn't that much of an improvement. Center is optional.

Cheers,

Tom

[ThomasHelzle]

Here you go:
http://screendream.de/stuff/Bitwig/Surr ... mplate.zip

There are several plugins in there that you may or may not have.
The only important one is ReaRoute from the free reaper plugins which I use to send two more channels into Plogue Bidule to create Binaural audio with IRCAM hEAR (got rid of Waves NX).
Otherwise it's a limiter (the free loudmax64), some EQs for my headphones and some effects in the surround group, mostly as examples of how I use them.

If you have questions, feel free to ask.

Cheers,

Tom

[llze]

I requested it quite often, but it surely would help if you guys send request for multichannel tracks as well to the support please.

Recently I saw Sam posting this solution on FB to use spatial audio in Bitwig. It requieres the Mach1 plugin suite, but seems fairly usable to me.

It uses this for routing: https://kushview.net/element/
and this Spatial suite: https://www.mach1.tech/trial

Here Sam explaines it and a template is provided.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQss-0gC4bo

[llze]

Thanks for sharing your Surround Panner preset @ThomasHelzle. I took a look and it made me get my finger out and make my own for Dolby Atmos outputs. Surprisingly easy to achieve using the Vector 8 modulator and a couple of knobs. The tweaking will take a bit longer to exactly match the panning weights of Dolby's panner, but Bitwig even includes different weight curves too haha! Anyway, Bitwig 2.0 to 7.1.4 bus output. Will share when complete. The only thing missing would be the associated Atmos metadata, but I'm not too bothered simply using a VBAP panning method, the Dolby Atmos Renderer will add the metadata needed and if I really want more control can add that in post anyway.

Interesting, I tried with the normal audio outs and explained my issues here, didn't get too much attention. viewtopic.php?f=259&t=577544&p=8346776#p8346776

[ThomasHelzle]

Well, using Ambisoncs in Bitwig is so much pain - especially higher orders -, I'm not sure it's worth the trouble (it's definitely not for me). I'd rather use Reaper in that case and export stems from Bitwig. There you have several free toolkits for Ambisonics and multichannel is natively supported.

That Mach1 video is basically doing the same that I do with my own panner AFAICS (and man that guy is slow... LOL), so I don't see much of an added benefit other than maybe those plugins have more exact panning laws implemented.

But honestly, until Bitwig implements real multichannel tracks or allows way advanced routing and plugins from the Grid, everything above 5.1 is way too much pain IMO to be worth our while.

Cheers,

Tom

[llze]

For me it's worth the trouble, I cannot stand reaper. I also have Cubase though, but I'd still rather go the Bitwig route. Just am much more creative in there and that's where the fun is for me.

If I'd had a serious project for a paying customer I'd probably go Cubase then yea, but for my own things I need and prefer Bitwig to be productive. That's good enough to prepare some 3D Club sounds and perform them.

Btw "that guy" is @hockinsk3 above

cheers

[trevormeier]

Thanks so much Tom! I’m on the road for a few days. I’ll download this as soon as I can and take a look. Much appreciated!

[trevormeier]

I've been able to have a play today. Thanks again for sharing @ThomasHelzle - it's been very helpful to try out. It took a bit to figure out how to do the binaural mixdown (I'm still using Waves, sadly but was able to get it to work with MetaPlugin).

I've noticed the panner tools (LFO, Random, Step) all seem to freak out for a moment when adjusting the rate. Is there a way around this? I'd like to be able to ramp the rate live during performance.

For live work I've built a quad performance mixer in VCV. It supports multichannel FX sends along with a few other modular niceties. Eventually I'd love to port it into the grid, but that won't be possible until Bitwig support multichannel.

[trevormeier]

I took a look and it made me get my finger out and make my own for Dolby Atmos outputs. Surprisingly easy to achieve using the Vector 8 modulator and a couple of knobs.

@hockinsk3 I'd love to try a copy of your Atmos template if you ever finished it?

[hockinsk3]

I've largely switched to creating Dolby Atmos in something called Mach1 which is far more transparent and simple way to get to Dolby Atmos from Bitwig. Mach1 lends itself to working in a simplified multichannel panner and psuedo bus approach. I believe Mach1 are going to package my template into a future release of the SDK/Plugins. The example in this thread I've not really developed more. The latest template I'm using for Mach1, video walkthrough is all available here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQss-0gC4bo