Q&A: Ambisonics vs. Atmos, Stereo vs. Binaural, Waves NX in Fairlight

[@markashworth2609]

Thanks!

[@michaelgwagner]

Much appreciated!

[@MarvelJAM]

Yes, please on the as I am an aging professional. Thank you so much for all you are doing for us

[@gabrielwolfcolor]

Vielen Dank für dieses tolle umfassende Video und die Tipps mit Fairlight!

[@payman_azari]

you answered lots of my questions at once with your great video. thanks, I promise to share my knowledge for free as you do.

[@torjeamundsen]

such helpful videos Michael, KZbin should give you the spatial audio award for 2024. When that hopefully is a thing.

[@michaelgwagner]

😂 Thanks!

[@amdenis]

Great video as always. BTW, you likely know by now, but DaVinci Resolve supports ASIO drivers as of 17.3. It worked with Core Audio on the Mac before, and you can always run most plugins on both platforms within Fairlight, but now you also have an ASIO option for routing and bridging too.

[@bharathj63]

This man sounds like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Thankyou for all your wisdom sir! 🙏

[@michaelgwagner]

Haha. Schwarzenegger does not really have an Austrian accent, btw. Nobody really knows what exactly his accent is. He speaks in his own language. Lol.

[@seek4truth]

Only a german could explain these with this much accuracy! I loved your video! Thanks!

[@michaelgwagner]

Haha! Yes, there’s some truth to that. Thanks!

[@uuser9876]

Even though Michael seems to be Austrian. Which is actually a big difference, speaking of accuracy. 🙂✌️

[@michaelgwagner]

But I’m a mathematician by training. That makes up for that. 😂

[@richardsisk1770]

Thanks for sharing your extensive knowledge!

[@michaelgwagner]

You‘re very welcome!

[@HRave2008]

Liked the Jumpcuts.

[@michaelgwagner]

Lol. If the channel ever gets beyond 10k subs I might start doing a bit more sophisticated editing. ;)

[@alvaromorello]

At 13:55 you say that if we use the DearVR monitor it does not allow you to monitor vertical information. Can you clarify? Do you mean we cannot hear the height speakers or do you mean there is no way to view panning info?

[@michaelgwagner]

You can’t move your head up and down. I haven’t used DearVR for a while but I think this is still the case.

[@VictoryAviation]

Excellent video! I want to start some ambient field recording (think nature sounds or riding a train/jet type environments), mainly for the medium of KZbin. I have a live sound engineering background but was curious as to what your thoughts were on recording with XY vs ORTF vs binaural vs ambisonic. What happens to the quality of sound recreation if I record with binaural microphones, but then reproduce the sound on open field stereo speakers instead of headphones? What about using an ambisonic microphone setup such as the zoom H3-VR, and then rendering the recording to a left and right channel? Lastly, why are large diaphragm microphones not used much for field recording?

[@michaelgwagner]

Excellent questions. I am not a sound engineer, so you need to take my answers with a grain of salt. Mathematically speaking, Ambisonics is the most general representation of spatial sound. It is basically a description of the entire sound field around a point in space. If you are interested in capturing spatial ambient sound, that is the way to go. Binaural microphones capture the sound in relationship to the how the human auditory system receives the sound. Reproducing sound captured that way with regular stereo speakers will give you an incorrect impression. Binaural recordings need to be heard with headphones. If you have a field recording in Ambisonics format you can easily create a binaural render using various tools. Not sure about your last question.

[@VictoryAviation]

@@michaelgwagner Excellent! Thank you so much for addressing these questions, and so quickly as well. Since I don’t have direct access to someone that does field recording, it looks like I’m just going to need to experiment some. My main issue is not overspending on gear just starting out. That’s why I was curious if I could get away with something like the zoom H3-VR. I think what I’ll probably end up doing is picking up some Lewitt LCT 040’s and a Zoom H4N, and playing around with the Jecklin Disc method for stereo recording. That way I’m still getting the benefits of wide stereo imaging without the coloring issues I’d have trying to replicate binaural recordings with standard speakers. I wish I could take some of your classes in person. I’m sure I would learn a ton!

[@michaelgwagner]

The H3-VR is pretty good, I used it in a class once.

[@VictoryAviation]

@@michaelgwagner Thanks again for the feedback… no pun intended 😅

[@mbourque127]

About headphones, I read somewhere that open back headphones are better for recreate imaging that closed ones. Maybe someone could comfirm or deny that. I use Sennheiser HD600, which are open-back, and I have to say, those are really great.

[@michaelgwagner]

Generally speaking, open back hesdphones are better. But there are some closed ones that deliver the same imaging quality.

[@OfficialStevenCravis]

Can software instrument tracks be mixed in Dolby Atmos or do they have to be converted to wav files first?

[@michaelgwagner]

You do not need to convert them to wav. You can mix intrument tracks either into the bed. Or you can also route them into the renderer as objects. No need to convert intrument tracks to audio tracks.

[@OfficialStevenCravis]

@@michaelgwagner thank you so much. Your videos are very informative and helpful.

[@afnannn]

Thanks for this video! I was wondering if there is any quality loss when converting 7.14 to ambisonics. It seemed like the binaural rendering from ambisonics sounded different from the binaural rendering in nuendo. Unsure if im imagining it.

[@michaelgwagner]

These conversions are not completely lossless. And it also depends on the quality of the decoder, especially in case of a binaural decoder. So, yes, these will sound somewhat differently.

[@amsai.universe]

Thanks. I have a couple of basic questions: 1. Which players (not platforms such as Apple Music) actually support the playback of the exported Dolby Atmos wav file from Nuendo? 2. why use Beds when we can put everything as objects and place them statically or dynamically? Any technical differences?

[@michaelgwagner]

Windows supports it natively. However, to actually use it you need to enable Dolby Atmos for Headphones by installing the Dolby Access app from the Microsoft Store. Unfortunately, that is not free. A license costs $15. But there is a free trial. And yes, you could channel everything through objects and not use a bed at all. This is just a guess but I think the main purpose of the bed is to ensure some backward compatibility. If you have surround sound content, you generally want the renderer to play that directly and not spatialize that again. But there is no technical need for it, strictly speaking.

[@amsai.universe]

@@michaelgwagner Thanks. I'm a mac user. I read in the Dolby Developer page that Dolby Atmos is supported in certain Apple products and certain operative system updates, which I have, but have not managed to play the DA wav file. The only place where it is playable other than Nuendo is the Dolby production suite itself. I wonder if the wav file containing the metadata really is readable 'out there' or maybe needs to be convereted to other file formats?

[@michaelgwagner]

@@amsai.universe Unfortunately, I currently do not work on a Mac and cannot test that, but you should be able to play local Dolby Atmos files through the Apple Music app by enabling Dolby Atmos in the settings. If that is not successful you could try to use the Dolby Atmos conversion tool to convert the BWF WAV file into an ATMOS file.

[@mohanshiva_musical]

For you tube content we have to mix in stero? Or Bin aural??

[@michaelgwagner]

That’s up to you. I do everthing in stereo since not everybody is listening on headphones. If you use binaural is sounds off if you listen on speakers.

[@Not-Only-Reaper-Tutorials]

in Reaper you could use ReaRoute (it comes with Reaper). So you docul keep it running and use DaVinci only with ReaRoute using Reaper to monitor in Ambisonics ...

[@michaelgwagner]

Interesting, I need to check that out. Haven’t looked at ReaRoute yet. Thanks for the tip!

[@michaelgwagner]

It appears that ReaRoute is ASIO only. Unfortunately, DaVinci does not support ASIO so this seems to be a no-go as well. :(

[@Not-Only-Reaper-Tutorials]

@@michaelgwagner from 17.3 ASIO is supported by DaVinci. It’s not declared into the change log, but it is. I have it 😉 Not only that: ReaRoute is visible as well

[@michaelgwagner]

Nice! Did not notice that yet. That opens up a host of options. :)

[@Not-Only-Reaper-Tutorials]

@@michaelgwagner indeed 🙂in DaVinci the only one thing is missing, to me, a binaural encoder …

[@lancelotkamaka2563]

Was this video done over 2 years ago, and hardly anything has changed much to me. I am a totally blind person and I am totally reliant on sound. There are lots of dolby atmos and spatial audio. Some of them are great, and some of them leaves something to be desired. I waste my money on things like netflix, if the sound doesn't give me that real spatial audio that is claimed to be. I guess it's all about the money.

[@sebguyader]

Gregory Scott of Kush Audio actually talked about hearing loss/imperfections very recently on his House of Kush channel. Worth a check as well.

[@michaelgwagner]

Yes, I was very excited to see Gregory Scott’s video. When he posted that video I had this one already scheduled. Otherwise I would have referenced what he said.

[@geickmei]

Can head tracker be used for stereo listening at home?

[@indiefilmcomposer]

Assuming I have the ambisonics plug in , in cubase pro and Nuendo What is the advantage of Nuendo vs cubase for VR and binaural content creators ?

[@michaelgwagner]

Nuendo has additional surround sound features. If you are "only" producing in Ambisonics for the purpose of creating VR content, Cubase will do just fine.

[@indiefilmcomposer]

@@michaelgwagner thx can you help me understand the relationship between Atmos and Ambisonics, is it possible to render atmos objects into a stereo wav file without the ambisonics plug in? For example for use with a pair of headphones to hear the dimensions in the recording ……if so then is ambisonics really necessary if you have Nuendo for creating content ? I might upgrade to Nuendo very interested in where this is going

[@WayneHoldenMusic]

How does mixing in headphones with cubase ambisonics and bouncing a stereo file translate to stereo, 5.1, atoms etc etc speaker systems ?

[@michaelgwagner]

You would bounce in the correct format. If you are targeting a 5.1 speaker system you would bounce 5.1 and not stereo even though you are mixing in stereo. This is primarily why you need some sort of head tracking when you mix in stereo because otherwise it is difficult to get the 3d information right.

[@WayneHoldenMusic]

@@michaelgwagner Gotcha. So if I mix in Ambisonics and monitor in stereo in Cubase I can then bounce it down to say 7.1 and the panning for the most part will actually translate to a real speaker system?

[@michaelgwagner]

Yes, that is the way you would do this. Think of Ambisonics as a speaker independent exchange format.

[@WayneHoldenMusic]

@@michaelgwagner Amazing. So it takes the panning data and down mixes it to work in what ever format you want similar to what dolby atmos does? Cheers!

[@michaelgwagner]

Not exactly because Dolby Atmos anchors everything in a 7.1.2 bed setup whereas Ambisonics is completely independent of any speaker layout. But the idea is the same.

[@DjRubenDias]

Audio Monitor VST try and never bay

[@robertbash380]

I know this is an old video, but in case you haven't figured out how to get LFE into a Nuendo master, you need to use a child bus: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oKnNepl7rLKHmZo