Dolby Atmos Speaker Calibration
As labels, artists, and engineers meet the demand for Dolby Atmos music, there is still speculation that we are in the wild wild west of a new technological frontier.
Within a few years, the market adaptation of the new format has taken momentum on the creative and consumer side alike.
Dolby Atmos adoptation timeline
Nov, 2019
Dolby Professional enables onboarding for Dolby Atmos music studios.
May, 2021
Apple Music announces Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos.
October, 2021
Park MGM is outfitted with Dolby Atmos playback system for the 5,200-seat theater.
October, 2021
Mercedes-Benz announces Dolby Atmos for cars
As the market demand for Dolby Atmos music increases, home studios and commercial facilities are on an even playing field in offering this specialized service to artists and labels. Aside from the financial investment, learning to mix in Atmos is a whole other subject that I’ll cover on my online learning page.
When I first discovered that Atmos would be the new standard for publishing new music, I immediately jumped on board and began my journey to upgrade my studio to Dolby Atmos.
My Journey to Atmos
Since I was first introduced to an electric guitar at the age of 12, I learned many aspects from music production to live performance. Thirty years later, I've settled for a more steady lifestyle in focusing my time and energy on mixing and mastering, online education, and personalized coaching.
When I first learned about Dolby Atmos mixing for music, in 2021, I knew this was going to be BIG.
After contacting my inside contacts from Avid and Dolby, I was convinced there would be a demand for mixing music in Dolby Atmos.
So I jumped on board with upgrading my studio to a 7.1.4 speaker configuration. With help from Dolby, they designed the room and speaker layout according to the Dolby specifications for mixing in Dolby Atmos.
Online videos and resources for upgrading to Dolby Atmos were limited at the time. There was no "Guide to get started with Dolby Atmos.” With determination and diligence, I contacted various retailers, Atmos engineers, and relied heavily on the Dolby technical white papers for a roadmap.
After contacting Dolby to onboard my studio, two months later I was fully equipped with a Bowers & Wilkins 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos music studio.
How did it sound? Was it worth the investment? Did I jump in too early?
I had no doubts about my decision to make the financial investment. But from the tech side, it was a whole new learning curve. Yet, I felt that something in my room was just not 100% accurate.
Onboarding a Dolby Atmos music studio
Working with the Dolby team helped me decide on my speakers, amps, and I/O.
My current 7.1.4 configuration consists of the following:
Bowers & Wilkins 801 Series 1 (Left, Center, Right)
Bowers & Wilkins 685 S2 (8 surround speakers)
SBX10 (Bass Management and LFE)
LEA Connect 704D (for the LCR speakers)
LEA Connect 168D (for the surround speakers)
Avid MTRX Studio
1st Attempt at Room Tuning
With all my equipment properly configured, it was time to measure my room for speaker tuning and alignment. This was a bit of a gray area, as there were no local consultants from the San Francisco corporation. Essentially, I had two options:
Hire a third-party contractor
Do it myself.
I chose the latter.
By following Mike Thornton’s measurement recommendation, I measured each speaker using 7 microphone positions with EQ Wizard. I then created a flat EQ curve in the software to output EQ values that I entered into the MTRX Studio DADMAN software.
Did I get it right?
My room didn't sound terrible, but without a second opinion, there was a lingering doubt if my room was calibrated correctly to produce Atmos mixes that translate.
Months passed and songs were published to music streaming with no issues. Various titles were released on Apple Music and the clients were thrilled to publish their music in Dolby Atmos.
But I was not fully convinced that my room was 100% accurate.
Soon after, I came across the missing piece to finalizing my configuration - SoundID Reference.
SoundID Reference
Sonarworks is a software company based in Latvia that designs room calibration software for headphones and speakers. I used Sound ID Reference prior when calibrating my studio for Stereo. Ironically, the same week I joined the Facebook community, they announced support for multichannel setups (aka Dolby Atmos).
A week before NAMM, we scheduled a virtual meeting and met in person at the convention hall. Kartrina and Martins visited my Dolby Atmos music studio in Apple Valley, CA (about 90 mins from Los Angeles).
With Martins' help, we measured my room using their intelligent software and ran the EQ and time delay values into DADMAN.
Speaker Calibration for Dolby Atmos
The Avid MTRX Studio is an atmos-ready audio interface with DSP for speaker calibration and time alignment. The user interface is not easy on the eyes, but it's extremely versatile.
When Sonarworks developed support for multichannel calibration, they allow you to export the calibration values into a text file whose values you input into the DADMAN software.
The beauty of Sound ID Reference is not only that it outputs the EQ values you need to enter per speaker, but it also provides you with the delay values for each speaker based on your room layout.
This was the missing piece!
Dolby Atmos Music Curve ensures room-to-room translation of your mixes.
Room Accuracy for Trusted Creativity
Now that my room was tuned according to the Dolby Spec, I played a few atmos masters I had provided to my clients and the results were astonishing!
The phantom center from the stereo speakers was so clear, that you could reach out your hand and touch the center image. The low-end from my mains was solid. Panning objects around the room didn't sound phasey, but concise.
Finally, mixing in a speaker-based Dolby Atmos music studio made perfect sense!
Lessons Learned
There are various technical challenges when upgrading your studio to mix in Dolby Atmos. Putting aside the financial and time investment, there is the issue of the learning curve. It ain't like mixing in stereo.
Additionally, choosing the right interface (with or without room calibration), the size and speaker models, and the room's physical limitations, are all details that one should thoroughly consider before taking the first step forward.
In my opinion, there is no easier and smarter way than to rely on intelligent software like Sound ID Reference to measure and calibrate your multichannel room according to the Dolby spec.
I had the pleasure of meeting Katrina and Martins, and in this interview, the Latvian team shared the exciting news of SoundID Reference multichannel support for Dolby Atmos.
I’m Alex, a certified Atmos mixer with UMG and WMG. My work spans multi-genres for US labels and across the Atlantic regions. New to Dolby Atmos? Have questions only a pro mixer can answer? Schedule a meeting.
