POST
DOLBY ATMOS FACILITIES
“You also need to think about the client experience, as in any other studio”
ADAM DAVIDSON COMPANY 3
walls and hard surfaces should be angled where possible so sound waves are not able to bounce or reverberate between them. Additionally, traps must be installed strategically to absorb treble and bass where needed so that you end up with a fantastic, clear perception of the sound coming directly from the speakers and not from the room. The room is also designed to retain a controlled element of ‘liveness’ but is tuned to have focus and parity so you can mix in the most neutral sounding space.” While ENVY concentrates
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primarily on factual and reality TV programming, together with commercials, Molinare works on television drama, documentaries and feature films. The company currently has six Dolby Atmos suites, from a big theatrical room to three HE studios and two smaller facilities for deliverables. Director of technology and visual services, Darren Woolfson, observes that the specification is slightly different for theatrical and HE Atmos rooms. “In an HE room you tend to have the mixer in the centre of a circle of speakers,” he explains. “Cinemas tend to be longer rooms and have a lot more speakers in them, so that is true for the theatrical suites as well. Sound pressure levels are different: HE is typically 79dB and cinema is 85db. Potentially, you need bigger speakers and more power for theatrical and the speaker layout is different as well.”
First positions From the perspective of someone
who has to work in an Atmos room, Adam Davidson, senior re-recording mixer at Company 3, comments that the primary concern is the sound, with the size of the room dictating
what loudspeakers are used to get the best listening sensation. “You also need to think about the client experience, as in any other studio,” he says. “This includes where they will sit, how the sound can vary in those positions and their view of the screen. Acoustically you have that third axis to put sound above people’s heads and more speakers at the side, which gives you more detail when panning from back to front.” The big name loudspeaker
manufacturers all produce models that can be used in Atmos suites. John Johnson at HHB comments that PMC is seen as particularly suited to in-wall installation, while Genelec has a very broad range that includes slim-line cabinets for on-wall mounting. Other favoured names include ATC and Dynaudio.
Out of the box The processing, editing, mixing,
object positioning and mastering aspects of an Atmos project are handled by the Dolby Renderer. This comes in two forms for Atmos HE: the Dolby Atmos Production Suite and the Dolby Atmos Mastering Suite. The Production Suite, costing
$299, is a software plug-in that works on DAWs such as Avid Pro Tools, where everything can be done “in the box” although it can also be used with a hardware control surface. It is aimed at HE projects (and is Netflix approved), plus music and virtual reality. The Mastering Suite is designed for bigger, higher- end HE productions, where there might be more than one DAW involved, handling dialogue, music and effects separately, as well as a conventional mixing desk. It runs on PC or Mac and is compatible with both Dante Audio over IP and MADI (Multichannel Audio Digital Interface) networking interfaces. Theatrical releases are more likely to involve the Rending and Mastering Unit (RMU), a hardware system used in conjunction with large mixing consoles. Designing audio suites does
not appear to be getting any easier but there is enough support and expertise available to achieve good sounding results. And as the aim is to produce mixes with realistic or dramatic soundtracks so that the listener feels as though they are part of the action, all the effort is surely worth it.
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