In this article, UK based freelance dubbing mixer Andrew Swallow describes how he upgraded his Norwich based dubbing suite into a facility in which he can now mix Dolby Atmos productions for his clients.

London to Norwich

After leaving full-time employment at Silverglade in London and going freelance, to get me going as a freelancer, I set up a studio in our spare room in West London. Based around an Avid C24, this didn’t leave a lot of space so when we came to move out of London and settle in Norfolk, I decided it was time to take on a commercial property and found myself at Epic Studios (formerly ITV Anglia Studios in Norwich) amongst a lot of broadcast equipment and like-minded people. As I had a fairly constant flow of work I had to get up and running quickly so built a temp setup for 5.1 using the C24.

Early Experiments In Dolby Atmos

After attending several lectures and demo’s by Dolby and HHB/Scrub regarding the new Dolby Atmos Home Theatre Certification I decided I was going to start experimenting with the format and technology, purchased Dolby Atmos Production Suite and set up a 7.1.4 rig using a Focusrite 18i20 and 4i2 together in my temporary studio.

This was a fairly early version and there was a big learning curve as the workflow was still being refined. It was at this point when I started to discover a number of limitations regarding available technology.

The biggest problem was the lack of available monitor controllers. Although the Dolby Atmos software technology was cheap to implement (250GBP) the only monitor controllers available were the likes of DADMon (5000GBP) which was way too much for me to end up with a glorified volume control and mute button.

I couldn’t use the monitor section in my C24 as it only went up to 5.1 and I even looked at ganging two 5.1 SPL wedges together!?! I contacted Focusrite to see if it was possible to implement in their software and use the main o/p knob on 18i20 to control all outputs which apparently is theoretically possible but was told that they had no intention of doing so…..

On Pause

So I downed tools for more than a year and when I came back to it there were a few more options on the market (and more importantly I’d earned a bit more cash). In the meantime, I had been looking into using Dante and learned a lot more about using the renderer whilst mixing a film at VoiceOver Soho who had recently opened their Atmos Theatre (I was mixing 5.1. but they were keen to demonstrate the room’s potential) and I started to get the vibe again…

Back On

A friend of mine who works for Harman pointed me towards the JBL Atmos solutions specifically the Intonato 24. A 24 channel monitor controller with room calibration and built-in talkback featuring Dante (well sort of…), App Control and desktop controller.

Unfortunately, the Genelec SAM calibration wasn’t an option as even though my collection of monitors are all Genelec (1031A LCR and 8030 surrounds) they are all analogue. However, the good news is that the Intonato 24 has both analogue and digital outputs so this would suit my needs very well.

New Interface

My Pro Tools rig is based around a 27” iMac so I replaced the Focusrite 18i20 with a Thunderbolt Red4Pre which has limited IO but does feature Dante. The Intonato24 has it’s own flavour of Dante (aka BluLink), which meant that I needed to put a Bss BluDA translator in between but still with 1 thunderbolt cable and 2 ethernet patch cables I suddenly have 24 monitor paths available!

 Time to build a room for it…..

The Room

Being a former (and indeed current) TV studio, Epic Studios is pretty solidly built out of thick concrete walls/floor/ceiling so soundproofing wasn’t really an issue but I did need to ‘tame the room’ so I opted for a full floor to ceiling open framework with 75mm Rockwool covered with fabric wall covering. It was a lot of cladding but the results were worth it. The room is 3.5m x 4m with a ceiling height of 2.7m so plenty of room to work with within the recommended spec from Dolby.

At this point, it’s worth noting that I had a builder/carpenter on board who had no idea what we were about to build except for a few hand-drawn sketches and what was in my head (thanks Paul……!)

So first we built a baffle wall for my 1031A’s to sit inside (clad to the hilt inside of course) and a 96” perforated screen now hangs in front. It seemed a shame to hide them but the room is a lot ‘tidier’ this way, with no wires or brackets or stands or laying the middle speaker on its side etc.

I then hung the 4 overhead speakers using Scaffold fittings screwed and glued into the concrete ceiling with Genelec 8000-416B Truss Mount brackets for the 8030s height speakers. We then built a suspended ceiling made from a wooden frame with plasterboard and with holes for the Scaffold poles and projector mount to poke through). This also holds the lighting and smoke alarm etc.

At the same time, I had an electrician doing sockets and lighting as well as all of the XLR speaker looms from 3 floorplates in the middle of the room to all of the speaker points, which appear from the wall on brush plates. I had the electrician put in a mains switching system for LCR, Surrounds and overheads so I could turn off the monitors depending what I needed whilst mixing.

Next, we built the VO booth which is based on an ex ITV Anglia custom-built isolation booth and IAC Noise-Lock Studio Mag doors (previously used on Sale Of The Century and The Trisha Show no less…). I had purchased these from Epic Studios 5 years previously so it was a long time in the planning.

Finally we built a plinth for the rear-half of the room to house the floor boxes and wires. This also gives a feel of zoning in the room and the mix position is slightly elevated.

So nearly ready to put the kit in just waiting for carpets and oh no ………. Corona Lockdown!

Equipment

At this stage, I had a choice of doing nothing or do a temporary set up and start testing and that’s what I did.

I built my favourite part of the studio – my Sit Stand Desk! This is a game-changer for middle-aged dubbing mixers who have sat down for the past 20 years. As this was only a base unit, I upcycled my old desk worktop using the same fabric I used on the ceiling. I can now hit a button and stand up and carry on mixing.

I have the Intonato 24, Red4Pre and BluDA in a rack cabinet under the desk along with network switch, power supplies and HDMI switching for the projector and booth. Although this isn’t a silent cabinet it is pretty quiet with the door closed and I don’t have a noisy computer tower to worry about.

I decided a while back that I was either going to flush mount the C24 into the desk or finally say farewell to it and decided it was time to move on as it would be too bulky serving as just a bank of faders since monitoring is only 5.1). I already had a pair of Slate Raven MTi2s, which were an auction bargain but I’d been waiting to give them a go and guess what…….. I like the idea but I do miss the feel and feedback of real faders. To rectify that I bought a pair of Avid S1’s whilst I make my mind up and used the 2nd Raven on my other Pro Tools rig. However, they do also provide a lot of other functionality for Pro Tools so this hybrid setup is growing on me and I’ve heard reports of other studios doing the same.

The S1’s are great though and take up a lot less desk footprint than the C24 did.

 Room Calibration

The Intonato 24 has an optional desktop controller and calibration mic. The mic plugs into the back of the Intonato 24 and in the control app you simply activate Room Calibration and it runs a series of tests and frequency sweeps. Some interaction is needed to move the mic position to calculate Room EQ and Delay from the front. But other than that it’s an automated process ending in a 2-3 minute calculation and finally generating a profile for the current monitor rig. If something changes with your setup you just run the process again.

How Does It Run?

I am running the latest version of Pro Tools Ultimate on macOS Mojave running on a Late 2013 iMac i7 3.5GHz with 32GB RAM and version 3.4 of Dolby Atmos Production Suite.

With a semi-complex Atmos feature film mix setup in Pro Tools with Dolby Audio Bridge fed to the renderer my CPU usage is around 10% during playback, however, to be fair, this film isn’t that object heavy and I’m not running any re-renders. Having watched Alan Sallabank’s excellent Atmos Tutorials on Pro Tools Expert I will be investigating the Source Elements Nexus workflow and report back at some point.

How Does It Sound?

Sound wise, I’m really impressed. I mixed a film last year (A Christmas Carol – Frith Street Films), which I then took to VoiceOver Soho and we lifted it from 5.1 into Atmos with the help and skills of Rolf Martens using their Mastering Suite Renderer and 7.1.4 Genelec 'Ones' Monitoring.

I have since brought this into my setup and using the Dolby Audio Bridge didn’t require any other settings to run on the local renderer in DAPS, other than matching the number of beds in the renderer. The only technical bit I had to adjust was changing the Spatial Coding from 12 up to 16 in DAPS preferences to stop a bit of object bleeding into the surrounds. With that fixed, I hit play on some of the more dynamic scenes and got goosebumps, which is usually a good sign!

Would I Do Anything Differently?

If the Avid MTRX studio had existed when I needed it 2 years before, I might have chosen it as it would replace the combination of Red4Pre, BluDA and Intonato24 but it’s not like Avid to develop a workflow and then build the hardware solution later is it?

Having said that, I am very happy with what I have and it is truly flexible. I’ve even added a Dante Virtual Soundcard to my second Pro Tools rig, which means it can also have access to the Intonato 24 and if necessary I can link to the rest of the Epic Studio facilities such as the TV Gallery and PA System too.