Dolby Atmos Q&A: Where is the LFE Channel in the Binaural Downmix?
Vložit
- čas přidán 20. 07. 2021
- On the mystery of the missing LFE channel in the binaural Dolby Atmos downmix; plus some basic bass management.
Links:
Getting Started with Dolby Atmos Music: • Getting Started with D... - Hudba
I have to tell you, your channel and quality content is top-notch, congratulations and thank you for such great content.
Thanks!
Thankyou Michael, very helpful video.. David
Bass management was always a powerfull tool i remember trying that on my ac3 and dts test back then with nuendo, the bass track gain and volume must be very low and control to be efficient use this only on true bass instrument like bass drum, tom, bass or bass synth or bass organ pedal or some SFX, it's always give you that extra umpff you need, on voice or regular mid range stuff no need.
Excellent information 👍🙏
Thanks!
Hi Michael - love what you're doing for all of us new to ATMOS. I am finding it very challenging getting low end to be satisfactory across 7.1.4, Binaural, and Apple's spatial format. Speakers and Binaural seem pretty well aligned in the low end, but the mp4 renders always seem to have an overblown low end as compared to the others....do you find the same thing - or maybe I'm just not executing something correctly...thanks! Jon
Yes, I also find the results inconsistent. I guess it is similar to “standard” mixing. You need to find the right compromise to make it sound good everywhere.
I believe that the LFE shouldn't contain all of the bass, but only an enhancement that adds to the main speakers. This way you don't overload stereo speakers and headphones with too much low energy, and can automatically cut it in half without adjusting anything, going between theater and TV. I mostly can't hear deep bass in headphones. There is never a sense of loudness oomph and drive.
Yes, the LFE is designed to be used purely for effects.
Hello..I write this NUENDO/DOLBY question under this tutorial by chance: Audio Device (Dolby Audio Bridge) seems to be for MAC only?....I use MERGING hardware....buffer size not supported it says inside NUENDO 11 when at least trying to do a Dolby Atmos creation....so...what about the setting inside NUENDO 11 driven on a WIN 10 PC?....the bridging i meen?...between the DAW and the Dolby Atmos Renderer (btw called and used internally here - but if uesd externally - the same question arises then how to get the connection between them?)
Excellent question. I honestly do not know how to do that in Windows. The bridge is Mac only. In order to use the external renderer in Windows you need the Dolby Atmos Mastering Suite. I have not played around with that yet. I probably should. ;)
Hi!
let's say I have a 7.1.4 project with the correct settings
in my configuration I have a summing mixer that can route an analog output the question is: if I do a print track the mix is the same as the one exported through the export function from nuendo 11?
Good question. No, if you use the export function in thr Dolby Atmos setup, you export the full Dolby Atmos master with all meta data. If you print the 7.1.4 output you just get a 7.1.4 downmix.
Thank you very much for your reply!
Respect !
When already having mixed outside NUENDO into 12 separate mono wave-files (L...R.....C and so on) is it of no importance if i send them as objects or beds?.....now I did 12 separate objects for each.....but then the LFE is not present in the Doldy Atmos Renderer I noticed (watched your tutorial on that subject)
A bed can only be a 10 channel 7.1.2 file. If you have the full 12 channels of a 7.1.4 file and you would like to turn that into a Dolby Atmos master file you could send the 10 channels of the 7.1.2 portion into a bed and the remaining two height speaker channels into two objects. But I am honestly not sure ehy you do it that way.
Thank you Michael, this is a very helpful video.
I have a question regarding the LFE channel in DaVinci:
Suppose I have several audio objects with sounds, and I want them to do Atmos panning while also sending their low frequencies to the LFE channel.
In this case, the SEND in DaVinci does not allow routing the mono channels to the LFE channel. They just stay on the first channel of the bus containing the LFE channel.
In Nuendo or Reaper, there are built-in channel routers that can achieve this very easily. But I cannot find anything similar in DaVinci to do the same task. I wonder if I would need some third-party plugins to accomplish this. Do you have any recommendations?
I would greatly appreciate your advice. Thank you in advance! 🥰
Try the free MChannelMatrix from Melda Production.
@@michaelgwagner Thank you, mate!
I installed it but cannot figure out how to make it show 8 channels in the GUI.
I tried it in DaVinci's 7.1 (7.1 film) and Reaper's 8 channels, but neither allowed me to access its 8 to 8 routing.
I clicked the "preset" button and all of them were LR only. It has a download feature but that's only available for purchased users.
I'll try developing a VST3 plugin these days to accomplish this simple task.
If you are on Windows, I'd be happy to share it with you once it's ready.
You need to switch it into surround sound mode. It’s a bit hidden. Check out my second Digital Performer video from three weeks ago. I use it in that video.
@@michaelgwagner Thank you for the hint! I didn't realize it is a separate setting - I assumed it would automatically adjust to match the speaker layout configuration.
After activating the ambisonics, I'm thrilled to have it working properly even in the 64-channels mode!
I really appreciate you taking the time to point me in the right direction.
Thanks a lot, mate!
You’re very welcome!
Hey Michael, I noticed that you didn’t put the audio track as object into the renderer. I’m in Nuendo 12, and when I put the audio tracks as objects the LFE knob disappear from the panner. I’m a newbie in Dolby Atmos mixing, and I hope you can help me understand why is that. It will work if I use the bass manager?
On the other hand when I put the track as object the meters stop working in the mixer, I have to open the panner to se the meter working inside the panner. Thank you!
Good questions. Objects do not map to the speakers in the bed, therefore an LFE knob does not make sense. The Atmos panner has two modes, one for beds and one for objects. When you add a track as an object, the panner switches into object mode. And because the audio is sent directly from the panner into the renderer, audio does not reach the track meter if the global meter settings are “post-panner”. You can get them back if you change the global meter settings to meter the audio before it goes into the panner.
@@michaelgwagner Thank you so much!!! I was looking for this information even in the steinberg forum. I aprreciate it
@@michaelgwagner Hi Michael, it's me again! The metering part is solved on my end. I understand now how the panner work when is a bed or object. Great help and many thanks for that. Now, when I'm doing the same example as you in this video everything works fine, as soon as I make any audio track an object, I lose all LFE, even having the bass manager inserted in the bed. Again, this is a session from scratch following the steps in the video. What's the point to put the audio tracks as objects? If I can route them through the bed?
Great! Putting them into objects allows a Dolby Atmos capable endpoint to optimize the audio quality for whatever speaker layout is used. The bed is only 7.1.2, objects can be rendered with much more complex speaker layouts at the endpoint.
Hi Mike. As far as I know, u should always use Bass manager in the control room for speaker management. In the old days, the speaker management was done by hardware. In my case, I used the Bluesky Bass Management System. Since we have bass manager vst, we don't have to use hardware anymore. LFE channel also known as Boom channel. In film industry, we only use it for a track that need to have an extra boom such as explosion. That's why LFE channel will always be off. I don't think we need the LFE channel for music since the bass will always be split by the bass manager anyway in the speaker management system.
U shouldn't use the bass manager in the track. It'll mess up the signal. While in terms of ambisonics mix, I think the bass management was handled by the ambidecoder (i'm not sure). Since ambisonics is primarily mend for headphones right? So what u hear in your headphones is what u get. After mixing my song into atmos then convert it to ambisonics format and listen it through ambidecoder, i didn't feel anything weird on the low frequencies (with headphones). Everything is normal. So my guess is all the bass management thing has been handled by the ambidecoder
U shouldn't have to worry about the low frequencies from the main speakers, even they don't have LFE channel content. It will be handle by the speaker management system during playback.
Michael, great videos. I enjoy the series about Dolby Atmos even though I don't use Nuendo.
I think there is an error in this video I want to double check. Based on my information, Dolby Atmos is dropping the LFE channel for the 2.0 downmix but for the Binarual Renderer output it adds the LFE channel to the left and right channel at -5.5dB with virtualization (Render Mode) set to off.
I guess the "2.0" selection that you made in Nuendo is the 2.0 downmix and not the Binaural Render. I just checked the setup with the Dolby Atmos Renderer and it definitely uses the LFE channel.
Also setting the Binarual Render Mode to off just means that it doesn't use any spatialization (Near, Mid, Far), not that the LFE channel is off (=muted). The Binaural Render Mode for the LFE channel of the Bed is alway set to off and can't be changed.
Thanks for the pointer! I think that is an issue with the implementation of the renderer within Nuendo. I am currently away from my studio and will double check when I am back in two weeks.
So the LFE channel is not present in the Dolby Atmos renderer - but listening to a movie with dolby atmos shure has some specially routed information in the LFE channel - so how do they do? -
The LFE channel is present. It is just disabled in the 2.0 downmix of the Nuendo internal renderer.
I hear my dedicated LFE channel....but in the Render Output Level meters i see nothing in the LFE..and not in the 5.1 downmix version either...but you say it is there?
If the meter does not show anything it is not there. But it is possible that the system you use to play the file has its own bass management and moves low frequency content into the LFE channel.
I am confused….I see the circled round flash for the input from my mono mixed separate LFE channel….but the output level meter from the Dolby atmos renderer shows nothing…i think that when I turn off the bass management on my Anubis interface…the sound in my LFE is gone…..should I route my mono LFE track in some special way?
Am I currect in assuming that you use the Anubis in an 2.1 speaker setup? If yes, then is is exactly what the video is about.
It's a "low frequency effect" channel ... not bass channel. There's a big difference!
Yes, many of us coming from the music side of things had to learn that first. ;)