Your first port of call should be the Dolby website: search for “home entertainment studio technical guidelines”. The fact that you don’t need to meet strict standards and achieve an official certification to mix music certainly means it’s more affordable, but that’s not to say you can set your room up any old way. As studio designer and consultant Carl Tatz explains, “Since Dolby does not certify Atmos Music rooms the same way they do film stages, it’s the Wild West right now as to how they can be configured - with a general nod toward some of the Dolby specs.” If you’re ‘only’ mixing music - or “home entertainment” as Dolby call it - things are more relaxed. To mix movie soundtracks, you will need a studio that meets Dolby’s cinema specifications, and should expect to spend a substantial six‑figure sum. Realistically, though, if you want to create commercial Atmos mixes, you are going to need access to a suitable speaker‑based monitoring system. Options are available to anyone who wants to try, and are discussed in the box. It is essential to check Atmos mixes on headphones, but the desirability of actually mixing Atmos on headphones is doubtful. You’ll need to be able to hear what you’re doing: and it’s no exaggeration to say that pretty much all of the rest of this article will be devoted to this topic. To create an ADM file that’s worth uploading anywhere, you’ll need more than just a computer. Atmos support in Logic and Cubase is streamlined in some respects compared with ‘full fat’ Atmos, but not in any way that is likely to prove limiting for music mixing. The main options at present are Logic Pro X, Cubase Pro 12, Nuendo 12, Pro Tools Studio/Ultimate, Ableton Live, Merging’s Pyramix and Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve Studio. The Atmos mix is then created from these stems in a separate session, and it’s only this stage of the process that requires an Atmos‑compatible DAW. The most common Atmos workflow is to mix the stereo master first, then export key elements as stems. If your existing DAW doesn’t support Atmos, fear not: switching might not be as disruptive as you’d expect. To mix Atmos, you’ll need the Dolby Atmos Renderer - but which version? In Apple’s Logic Pro X and Steinberg’s Cubase/Nuendo, by contrast, the Renderer runs as a plug‑in on your master bus, and the DAW still addresses the audio hardware directly. If you want to work in Pro Tools (including HD, as of the 2022.9 software release) or Ableton Live, you’ll need to purchase the separate Dolby Atmos Production Suite and set up the Dolby Atmos Bridge, a virtual soundcard that pipes all the necessary audio channels into the Atmos Renderer software. When running on the same machine, DAWs address the Dolby Atmos Renderer in different ways. However, as Pete Hofmann of Miloco points out, “Mixing in Atmos is quite CPU‑intensive, so you’ll need a relatively modern and high‑spec computer to handle everything.” Unless you’re working on a hardware console, it should be possible to do everything you need on one machine. In a music production context, though, this is unlikely to be needed. The deluxe option is the Dolby Atmos Mastering Suite, which runs on its own Windows PC or Mac, accepting 128 channels of audio over MADI or Dante from the device doing the mixing. So the first things you’ll need are the Dolby software and a compatible computer. This is an extension of the Broadcast Wave format, and can be created only by the Dolby Atmos Renderer software. When you deliver your first Atmos mix, it’ll be as an ADM file. But what equipment will you need to exploit that potential? How should it be configured? Will your existing mix space work, or are you better off building a new one? And how much will it cost? To answer these questions and more, I spoke to some of the world’s leading studio design consultants. The artistic and commercial potential of Dolby Atmos is obvious. Here’s what you’ll need to do to make your studio Atmos‑ready. Immersive audio is a massive opportunity - if you’re equipped to take it. This is Chris Lord‑Alge’s studio in Los Angeles, recently outfitted with an Ocean Way immersive monitoring system. Many leading mix engineers are upgrading their studios to be Atmos‑capable.
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