Binaural Strategies for Dolby Atmos Music Mixing

Mix engineer Dave Stagl explains his strategy for using the binaural settings while mixing music in the Dolby Atmos format.

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SOCIAL MEDIA
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00:00 - Intro
00:42 - What are the Binaural Settings?
02:24 - Pro Tools IO Setup
05:04 - Dolby Plug-Ins
06:48 - Binaural Plug-In
07:10 - Binaural Plug-In Setup Considerations
08:51 - Binaural Strategy
12:28 - "Mix Bed" Binaural Settings
14:49 - Binaural Demos
15:44 - Demo #1 - "Full" Mix
16:52 - Demo #2 - Single Instrument
18:25 - Binaural Setting Comparison
19:31 - Wrap-Up

[MDHeleniak]

Great series of vids on ATMOS. I'm a new subscriber & am eating them up. Thanks for doing.

I heard your hint at 19:25 - using near/mid/far settings as a strategic mix tools. That got me thinking. Are you panning wide left and right? You must be b/c on studio monitors, I don't hear phase issues as I walk around. In fact, your percussion example sounds nearly identical on studio monitors as on headphones, and from every position on the room. I get the same depth of stage and hear the better detail. Again, this is on both studio monitors and headphones. Note: I'm making this comparison to the standard 2tk mix.

So in other words, the ATMOS binaural downmix sounds crazy-good on studio monitors, just as on headphone (over Youtube). Better than the standard 2tk mix.

QUESTION: If they sound better, why not use an ATMOS binaural downmix as standard operating practice when creating the 2tk mix? Why do a conventional 2tk mix?

[damianpress]

Thanks for sharing. My experience with Dolby Atmos 714 is a big thumbs up but binaural headphones not so. Settings, near, mid and far just add a short room reverb (like a bathroom verb) to the signal. The whole sound becomes an out of phase soupy mash. You could probably get same results with stereo widening / imaging plugs and some short bathroom reverbs on the wide pan setting to emulate distance.

[citizenworld]

Great vid. Seems there is a big push back to atmos atm for normal music. Not necessarily for music in movies. Personally I'm only mixing in binaural now coz most are listening with headphones etc.

[therevoltsband]

Interesting video, thanks. You didn't really touch on panning, are you using the music panner for object panning?

[ArielQuesada]

Hey Dave is it possible to “master” a binaural file? Like in sending to a client a binaural file from the DAR but the guy told me it sounds really low in volume to him and asked if I could raise the volume…. If I apply a limiter to it will the binauralization get destroyed?

[reallyniceaudio]

Actually you can select the tick boxes all at once. Hightlight all the objects then use shift+option to drop down all the paths, still holding shift+option tick one off the boxes and they will all tick on.

[breevwhyman]

Sir,

am very unsure about Dolby Atmos.for HANDSET supports ATMOS and i can get TONS of ATMOS tracks streaming into the handset from AMAZON MUSIC

will i still hear things in "atmos style" if i am just using regular strereo headphones on the

( must i first flick over a BINAURAL switch someplace? to hear ATmos

does the streaming Atmos track also need to have been initially additionally mixed with Binaural
artists actually DO THAT additional mixing if it's atmos tracks?

can you

BEn

[paulovmendes]

The guitar when in Solo, sounds like out of phase in the 2.0 Re-Render.

[PASHKULI]

Placebo… it does some "spatialization" but can not compare to using proper BRIRs.

[filipghiorghi]

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