Dolby Atmos entered India in 2012 with the launch of the primary Atmos-enabled display on the Sathyam Cinemas in Chennai. The identical 12 months, Rajinikanth’s Sivaji 3D was launched with Dolby’s object-based audio know-how and premiered at Sathyam. Since then, Dolby Atmos has turn into a family identify, related to earphones, headphones, residence theatres, sensible TVs, smartphones, and some other gadget with a speaker. And that’s how most of us perceive the know-how – a 3D sound stage that creates a surround-sound impact whereas watching motion pictures or listening to music utilizing Atmos-enabled units.
However that is only one half of what Dolby Laboratories does. The opposite half of the Atmos implementation happens properly earlier than the tip person hears the expertise. That is the post-production stage of a tune or film, the place Atmos-enabled software program is used to upmix the music or remaster the film audio, making a 3D sound stage impact.
Then, when a tune blended utilizing Atmos is performed by means of an Atmos-enabled gadget, customers get to listen to music which was greatest described by The Weeknd as an experience that takes “music to a brand new place by creating an immersive world the place you possibly can really feel each element. It is surreal.”
To expertise this and study extra about how know-how shapes the music creation course of, I just lately travelled to Recent Lime Studios in Saket, New Delhi’s sole Dolby Atmos–licensed studio.
Music Creation Inside a Dolby Atmos Studio
Recent Lime Studios, based by Berklee Faculty of Music alumnus Tanishq Seth, incorporates a Dolby Atmos-certified recording room, the place he and his staff help musicians in creating and upmixing their songs within the 3D soundstage format.
The room is constructed round a 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos configuration. It options three monitoring rooms, together with an ISO sales space, a dwell room, and a vocal sales space, and comes with a full suite of drugs from Neumann and Sennheiser. Notably, a 7.1.4 speaker setup refers to seven {surround} audio system positioned across the listener at ear degree, one subwoofer for low-frequency results, and 4 overhead or peak audio system used to ship 3D spatial audio.
Dolby Atmos setup
Picture Credit score: Dolby
On the coronary heart of the music creation course of is a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), a software program (usually Avid Professional Instruments or Steinberg Nuendo) that acts because the central hub to document, edit, combine, and produce audio (consider it because the Photoshop of sound). The DAW runs the Dolby Atmos Manufacturing Suite, a software program toolkit developed by Dolby that permits sound engineers and music producers to create, combine, and monitor Dolby Atmos content material inside the DAW.
Inside this toolset, music producers achieve entry to Atmos Renderer, which permits the position of particular person devices, vocals, or results as separate “audio objects” in a digital 3D area. Not like conventional stereo, the place parts are fastened to the left or proper channel, Atmos permits full freedom of motion by putting a vocal straight in entrance of the listener, panning guitar riffs behind, or letting ambient results swirl above.
Notably, a typical setup helps as much as 128 audio tracks, which may embody as much as 118 audio objects and 10 channel beds. The audio objects permit particular person parts, equivalent to a vocal line or snare hit, to maneuver independently in 3D area, based on the producer or artist’s desire.
Seth instructed Devices 360 that each producer can have a distinct imaginative and prescient for a tune, they usually can upmix or produce the document in a different way, making the soundscape really feel utterly distinctive. In fact, there are some fundamentals to be adhered to, however all the pieces else is a artistic course of.
As talked about above, a observe can both be created natively in Atmos or it may be upmixed (if the stereo model of the observe already exists). For the previous, the artist and the blending engineer take spatial selections from the bottom up, and these might be extra experimental in nature. When upmixing, the engineer recreates the intent of the stereo combine whereas enhancing it with extra depth and dimensionality.
As soon as the Atmos combine is created, it’s exported as an Audio Definition Mannequin in Broadcast Wave Format (ADM BWF) file to retain all of the positional and timing information. This grasp file is what platforms like Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Tidal use to ship spatial audio to listeners.
Singer Sanjeeta Bhattacharya, who showcased a tune upmixed utilizing Atmos, defined that this 3D sound stage additionally provides artists a variety of freedom in creating a novel audio expertise. She highlighted that, not like stereo, the place audio arrives in a linear aircraft and may usually really feel flat, Dolby Atmos makes the listener really feel like they’re in the identical room because the artist and the band.
“With Dolby Atmos, we calibrate the surroundings to replicate how the content material was blended, not only for desire, however for spatial accuracy and emotional depth. This strategy permits sound to maneuver organically by means of any area, connecting with listeners in a means that feels each genuine and deeply participating, thereby making certain a constant premium and immersive expertise, irrespective of the gadget or setting,” mentioned Sameer Seth, Director, Advertising-India, Dolby.
Whereas most individuals know Dolby Atmos as a playback characteristic in headphones or TVs, its actual impression could lie earlier within the studio, the place it’s quietly remodeling how music is crafted, layered, and spatially designed.