In this free video tutorial, the sixth in a series of 6 brought to you with the support of Avid, looking at Dolby Atmos Home Entertainment workflows, we now progress to the end game - Mastering.

In this series, Post-Production Specialist and Immersive Audio expert, Alan Sallabank will be sharing tips and tricks to help you get to grips with the audio post-production workflows for content to be delivered in Dolby Atmos Home Entertainment, which will be especially useful if you are delivering to the likes of Netflix and Amazon.

What You Will Need

The Dolby Atmos Production Suite and The Dolby Audio Bridge are software solutions, so while you don’t need any specific Avid or Dolby hardware to follow the advice in these tutorials, you will need specific versions of software -

• Pro Tools Ultimate 2019.10 or later - 2020.5 recommended

• Dolby Atmos Production Suite v3.4

Running everything in software does also put quite a strain on your host computer, so I would also recommend that you are running a machine with at least six physical cores and at least 32GB of RAM.

Consider Watching Parts 1 Through 5 Before You Go On

If you are new to Dolby Atmos we strongly recommend that you watch and read parts 1 through 5 of this series before continuing with part 6.

Part 6

In this free video tutorial, Alan looks at “the endgame” - Mastering.

They Said It Couldn’t Be Done

Here’s an example of what can be achieved, without any Avid or Dolby hardware. These screenshots show my Pro Tools Native system successfully mastering an 89-minute film into the Dolby Atmos Production Suite, while simultaneously measuring loudness using Nugen VisLM, folding the 5.1 into 2.0, and then also recording the 5,1 and 2.0 versions back into Pro Tools.

Delivery Requirements

Every Atmos production will also be distributed on mediums that do not or cannot support Dolby Atmos. For this reason, as well as the Atmos master mix, you will also have to provide a range of other versions. Here’s a typical delivery requirement list from one worldwide distributor…

• 5.1 Domestic Printmaster (L, R, C, Lfe, Ls, Rs)

• 2.0 Domestic Printmaster (Left-only, Right-only)

• 5.1 Final/Augmented Music & Effects (L, R, C, Lfe, Ls, Rs)

• 2.0 Final/Augmented Music & Effects (Left-only, Right-only)

• 5.1 Optional Stems (if applicable) (L, R, C, Lfe, Ls, Rs)

• 2.0 Optional Stems (if applicable) (Lo, Ro)

• 5.1 Domestic Mix Dialog Stem (L, R, C, Lfe, Ls, Rs)

• 5.1 Domestic Mix Music Stem (L, R, C, Lfe, Ls, Rs)

• 5.1 Domestic Mix Effects Stem (L, R, C, Lfe, Ls, Rs)

• 5.1 Domestic Mix Voiceover Stem (L, R, C, Lfe, Ls, Rs) (if applicable)

• 5.1 Domestic Mix Additional Stem (if applicable)

• 2.0 Domestic Mix Dialog Stem (L, R)

• 2.0 Domestic Mix Music Stem (L, R)

• 2.0 Domestic Mix Effects Stem (L, R)

• 2.0 Domestic Mix Voiceover Stem (L, R) (if applicable)

• 2.0 Domestic Mix Additional Stem (if applicable)

These are usually on top of the main Atmos stream files and ADM exports that are involved when mastering Dolby Atmos.

Glossary

Here’s a useful guide to the terms used above -

Quite an extensive list! The reason they need split stems is so that dialogue (and often music) can be changed for different territories. The stems are also vitally important for the promotions department to be able to produce advertising for the content.

Even if your content is self-funded and distributed, and “unsigned” (you have no distribution deal), it is far easier to set up your session at the beginning of the process, rather than trying to adapt it at the end.

How Do I Create A Dolby Atmos Home Entertainment Master?

Like every process to do with Dolby Atmos, preparation is absolutely the key to successfully achieving your aims. I would absolutely recommend carefully re-watching the previous episodes of this series to ensure that your system is optimally set up and that you have the correct workflow regarding beds and objects to allow you to deliver what is required from you by the distributor.

In this episode, I’m demonstrating mastering and delivery to varying technical requirements, using a short film - “Image Nation”, produced by Angela Sant’Albano and Solia Cates. Although this was a micro-budget production, I felt that the best way to compliment the stunning 4K pictures was with an Atmos mix. The Dolby Atmos Production Suite combined with our exclusively developed workflows, really helped me deliver on time and within a very tight budget.

How Do I Also Deliver “Traditional” Mixes That Comply With Technical Requirements?

Any Questions?

So this concludes our six-part free tutorial series on the Dolby Atmos Home Entertainment workflow, using Pro Tools, the Dolby Audio Bridge and the Dolby Atmos Production Suite.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please post them in the comments section below, and I’ll do my best to answer them.