Getting Started with Dolby Atmos in Ableton Live

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Links:
Dolby Atmos Production Suite at Avid: www.avid.com/p...
Dolby Atmos Production Suite at Dolby: customer.dolby...

[@sleepykidstudio]

This is an excellent tutorial - I followed your steps and everything worked perfectly, which never happens with so many moving parts haha! Thanks for being so clear and concise, very helpful

[@michaelgwagner]

Thanks! Great to hear that it worked out!

[@TheSakuraGumiLTD]

It does seem like a good idea would be to get a small (maybe touch screen monitor) to house the renderer to stream line the process... especially when creating a song in Atmos as you will need to go back a forth a lot as you add new object rather than a full mix where you make all those in one go

[@hunnidyard]

Back in renderer its been a while. I tired out Dolby Composer demo but couldn't figure out the monitoring. Will stick to Renderer for now as it makes more sense to me. V5 came out so I upgraded and big improvements in performance efficiency. Thanks again these videos are goated!

[@michaelgwagner]

You’re very welcome!

[@sonicsnares]

thank you so much for your great tutorial! Such a big help to get into mixing Atmos!

[@michaelgwagner]

You’re very welcome!😊

[@augmented-reality-recordings]

great and practical explanation. our future releases will be available in dolby atmos in addition to the standard stereo edition. we are looking forward to more trips and tricks regarding dolby atmos and ableton live. regards from heidelberg

[@michaelgwagner]

Thanks! Heidelberg is a cool place. I’ve only been there once but I have fond memories.

[@augmented-reality-recordings]

@@michaelgwagner Heidelberg is considered one of the most beautiful cities in Germany. The harmonious ensemble of castle, old town and river in the middle of the mountains already inspired the poets and painters of the Romantic era and still fascinates millions of visitors from all over the world today. Those who come will find more than romance.

[@thegeenius]

amazing breakdown,, trying to get a feel for how it all works,,- so -- thank u ,, appreciated,,

[@michaelgwagner]

Thanks!

[@jonesing4fame922]

FYI, Apple Logic Pro has integrated Dolby Atmos tools for mixing and exporting songs as spatial audio. Please consider teaching us Logic Pro, PLEASE!

[@michaelgwagner]

Well, I have a Logic license but I have not yet worked much with it. I will put that on my list.

[@jonesing4fame922]

@@michaelgwagner Thank you!

[@domejunky]

This helped me get things working in Bitwig, routing was a bit easier actually

[@michaelgwagner]

Great!

[@TheSakuraGumiLTD]

Going to be doing this myself at some point... currently the version is 5.3, so this is now better or is there any issues that have arisen with new versions and ableton? Will be doing presonus for professional mixing and mastering but for my own production I will be using Ableton

[@michaelgwagner]

I’m not aware of any issues. The main functionality of the renderer is still the same.

[@stormbh]

Hello, First I would like to thank you for your explanation and time to dedicate yourself to sharing your knowledge. I'm developing a project for a live presentation in surround. I produce some sounds with Ableton Live, and for this presentation I'm thinking about getting an interface with a lower price initially due to the budget I have available. Do you think it is possible to use an audient evo 16 for this type of application? Or is there any other interface that I could use for this project? I don't need many channels, I need the effect itself, sounds of birds passing from one side to the other, flutes and elements of nature and more. Thanks

[@michaelgwagner]

You would need enough outputs to drive all the speakers you want to use im your live performance. A popular low cost option would be a Behringer UMC1820 in combination with a Behringer ADA8200 for the Adat outs. But really any interface with enough outputs works.

[@stormbh]

@@michaelgwagner Thank you.

[@djcyroc]

Thank you for helping me set that up! this video is the best one yet..... i just have a quick question, why does my dolby master come out really loud and distorted?

[@michaelgwagner]

Thanks! Your audio most likely clips somewhere. Check the levels going into the renderer.

[@djcyroc]

@@michaelgwagner meaning check the levels in my daw mix ?

[@djcyroc]

@@michaelgwagner before I used atmos I uploaded the track and then put a limiter on the master chain. The song itself sounded perfect with no distortion. It was just the way I wanted it. Now that I put the Dolby panner on my different audio tracks it’s coming out so loud after I render it thru dolby

[@michaelgwagner]

There is no mastering step in Atmos, so you can’t use the “limiter on the master.” approach. You need to set all levels correctly at the mixing stage.

[@imokatguitar]

@@djcyroc because you’re bypassing the master in Ableton to send the tracks to the panner, you’re essentially bypassing anything that’s happening to the master. So, if you have stuff grouped, it’s the same thought process. Unless you’re sending the whole group to the panner, instead of a singular channel, you won’t get any of the processing that you did on that group.

[@rosbymusica9889]

Interesting that you didn't have to set in and out points within the renderer. I can't seem to record without it. Also, I had to match the inputs within the render to the objects in use (had to disable all tracks not in use) to record. Did you notice any tonal differences when you bounced the mp4 since it uses the DJ+JOC and Dolby uses the AC4?

[@michaelgwagner]

Interesting observation. For this video I honestly just followed instructions on the Dolby Developer site. But they did make some changes to the renderer. Are you using the latest version? On my system the difference of the mp4 is not noticeable. But I’m sure that on an actual Atmos endpoint it will sound different.

[@rosbymusica9889]

@@michaelgwagner Ahhh This could be the issue I am experiencing. I am currently on 3.7 I believe. I should update. Are you running Ableton 11? I'm currently on 10 still

[@michaelgwagner]

Yes, I’m on 11.

[@Yunizen]

My Object Pairs in the Atmos Panner are always greyed out

[@jai.joylove]

Does Pro Tools have the multi-channel capability for Atmos?

[@michaelgwagner]

The new Studio version has that, yes. It used to be only available in the Ultimate version but they recently integrated that in the lower tier version as well.

[@jeromekruft]

Question 3. Is the mastering suite by Dolby Atmos not inferior to proper mastering plug-ins one could use in a DAW? (Like UAD's 5 band eq/compressor, tape simulation, Q3, proper limiter, etc?)

[@hithere4289]

the thing is that only the atmos plugins are 7.1.4 while the uad are stereo

[@michaelgwagner]

The mastering suite does not exist anymore. Everything is now the “Dolby Atmos Renderer”. They combined mastering and production suite. In Atmos there is no traditional mastering step. Everything is done during mixing since Atmos is rendered at the endpoint device.

[@johnp3541]

Thanks!

[@jeromekruft]

Questions 1. When changing the input and output configuration to Dolby Atoms (where it now says UAD Apollo Twin, that I use), will that not disable my UAD Apollo Twin soundcard and with it all the UAD plugins that I use on my tracks?

[@michaelgwagner]

Very good question. I honestly don’t know how the UAD stuff can be integrated into the Atmos workflow. On a Mac you could always work with aggregate devices, I think.

[@englishbobshousemusic]

Hi Michael Cannot get the Dolby bridge (Renderer 5.2.0_1801-e2e7b7e7) recognised by Ableton 11 (No Output list at all). I am using ASIO4ALL v2 on Windows 11. Can you advise where I am going wrong. Thanks

[@michaelgwagner]

Dolby Bridge is Mac only, unfortunately. 😕

[@englishbobshousemusic]

Thanks. Save me some time trying to get it to work!

[@AmaanKhanMusic]

as soon as i'm trying too open dolby atmos renderer it closes abruptly with no error. working on windows please help

[@michaelgwagner]

I had the same issue. If you have FL Studio installed you need to delete the FL Studio Asio device through the registry editor. If you don’t have FL Studio you would need to look through the ASIO devices you have on your system. One of them is capturing the DAR and causes it to crash.

[@jeromekruft]

Question 2. If using Dolby Atmos, I would no longer be able to do any mastering in my DAW, correct?

[@michaelgwagner]

In Dolbe Atmos there is no mastering in the traditional sense since the audio is rendered at the endpoint device.

[@user-vj1mz3ix6h]

Ableton is not syncing to Dolby Atmos. Dolby Atmos is not receiving audio from Ableton pls help. The computer is running macOS Monterey version 12.6.5. Ableton is 11 standard for Max. The version of Dolby Atmos Renderer is 5.2.0_1801-e2e7b7e7.

[@michaelgwagner]

Difficult to diagnose from a distance. Make sure that you have the LTC and the Dolby Music Panners setup correctly.

[@corticallarvae]

Is there a spat revolution that isn’t subscription ?

[@michaelgwagner]

There should be, unless they changed that recently.

[@corticallarvae]

@@michaelgwagner like something of the same quality… I only saw subscription… all of the sound designers I know stay away from subscription plugins.. as a principle

[@corticallarvae]

@@michaelgwagner also I tried the rjk head tracker guy and had issues anything else of the same price range and or better quality at the price point…

[@michaelgwagner]

Go for the Supperware headtracker.

[@michaelgwagner]

Just checked. They do offer a perpetual license option. You don’t need to subscribe.

[@yodhamheaven]

do u have always to rerecord in dolby renderer? so if i have 2 hour movie i have to wait and rerecord to dolby renderer in 2 hour? is there any way beside this, it look like a big no to me 😢

[@michaelgwagner]

Yes, the Dolby Atmos Renderer requires online rendering. Fiedler Audio’s Dolby Atmos Composer can render offline but that isn’t much faster. Atmos rendering always requires some time to complete.

[@yodhamheaven]

@@michaelgwagner there is new pack in ableton from spat, multichanel and stereo. would you mind review this plugin and is the new multichanel spat will become another solution for bed in dolby renderer?

[@michaelgwagner]

@yodhamheaven Spat is on my list of to-dos.

[@yodhamheaven]

thank you for your kind reply, your chanel help us in learning dolby. have a good day to you michael

[@BingBoing652]

Is there anything similar but for PC?

[@michaelgwagner]

The Dolby Atmos production suite requires a Mac. You could work with the Dolby Atmos mastering suite, but that is pricey and requires a two computer setup.

[@JustBazile]

ableton is not syncing to dolby atmos. Dolby atmos is not receiving audion from ableton pls help

[@michaelgwagner]

I would need a bit more info in order to be helpful.

[@Giovy-Perez]

thanks.

[@михаилкиселёв-н5г]

I cant change to master

[@Marzetz]

Hi! Thanks for your video! It helped me a lot! Do you know if i can send Dolby Atmos signal form my macbook m1 pro through hdmi cable to my AV Receiver that has Dolby Atmos decoder?? I've already connected my macbook with AV Receiver (Onkyo TX-NR686) and it's working perfectly with 5.1 but i have problems to send Dolby Atmos. Do you know how can i make it?? I even make proper routing in Dolby Atmos Renderer for 5-6 channels as my surround speakers and 7-8 channels for my height speakers but testing it with signal generator withing Renderer and for height speakers my surround speakers are playing :

[@Marzetz]

When i'm connecting my laptop with windows 10 and Dolby Acces app, my Onky AC Receiver gets Dolby Atmos signal but doesn't work with my macbook :< You know how can enable Dolby Atmos on macbook m1??

[@michaelgwagner]

Sorry, but that is something I have no experience in. Hop over to my discord and search the discussions. Some people there have done that before and might be able to help you.

[@viharm2960]

I use ableton but on windows. Is there no hope?

[@michaelgwagner]

At the moment this is an impossibility, unfortunately. You could stay with Windows by utilizing a 2 computer setup with the Dolby Atmos Mastering suite, but that’s expensive. It would be a lot cheaper to just buy a Mac.

[@johnp3541]

hello! how would we put Ableton live in binaural?

[@michaelgwagner]

Just set the external renderer to binaural.

[@johnp3541]

@@michaelgwagner okay thanks!

[@bradleyboucobsa1516]

ma guy

[@michaelgwagner]

:)

[@amigow0306]

Are you german? You sound like german😅

[@michaelgwagner]

Close. Austrian. 😉

[@amigow0306]

@@michaelgwagner wusst ich doch das ich die deutsche sprache rausgehört hab 😅 Meinst du dolby atmos wird zum neuen standart und alle mixing und mastering engineer‘s müssen sich umstellen?

[@amigow0306]

Gut erklärt übrigens 👍

[@michaelgwagner]

Seems to be that way. I’ve heard from multiple sides that major streaming services are planning to make this a requirement.