Pro Tools 2023.6 now offers support for track bus and IO widths greater than 7.1.2. In this article, we explain these features and ask working atmos mixers what they think of the way these new widths have been implemented.
Enhanced Track Bus and I/O Widths
Pro Tools supports Track Bus and IO widths up to 7.1.6 in Pro Tools Studio and 9.1.6 in Pro Tools Ultimate. These wider track widths and fixed buses can bring several advantages to audio engineers and mixers.
Simplifying Workflows
The expanded track widths make it easier to handle source recordings, premixed material, or monitoring returns from the Dolby Atmos Renderer that are larger than what was previously possible. This simplifies the mixing process, allowing creative freedom with widths larger or different from what the renderer directly supports and the use of these widths with effects such as Liquidsonics Reverbs, which have been supporting widths up to 9.1.6 for some time, and very cool virtual instruments like SkyDust 3D from Sound Particles which allows panning of individual voices in the immersive soundfield. It's important to note that when panning audio dynamically, objects are preferred as they provide the most accurate and clear spatial reproduction of desired pan and position parameters.
Managing Wider Busses in Dolby Atmos
To manage stems larger than the Dolby 7.1.2 format, the extended bus widths offer two options: using multiple static objects or a bed bus plus object channels. By utilizing a series of Aux or Folder Tracks, these extended bus widths can be easily routed to the Dolby Atmos renderer, making the process more streamlined.
Expanded Width Track Presets
The Pro Tools installer now includes variations of expanded width track presets. To ensure smooth operation it is important to have the Dolby Atmos renderer in a default configuration and set it as the default using the Dolby Atmos renderer setting in the Input Configuration menu. In Pro Tools I/O, once the default busses are set to the Renderer’s configuration, users can experiment with different sizes and layouts to achieve larger widths. These track presets combine objects only or audio beds with objects, requiring fewer objects to achieve wider widths.
Flexibility in Mixing and Monitoring
The expanded track widths can be assigned to Audio, Aux or Instrument tracks, providing greater flexibility in directing audio to specific positions. These larger width options can be used with supported plugins and tracks, allowing access to reverbs, delays, and instruments that support these widths for more detailed height positioning. Furthermore, monitoring or outputting larger widths from I/O, such as in commonly used Atmos speaker configurations like 7.1.4 or 9.1.6, becomes simpler as it only requires assigning them to one bus or set of outputs. And when monitoring or capturing renders from the Dolby Atmos renderer, the larger track widths can be helpful.
Watch the video below for an overview of the new features.
So What Do Professionals Think?
Pro Tools' expanded track bus and I/O widths offer valuable enhancements for audio professionals working with Dolby Atmos mixing. The wider track widths simplify workflows, provide creative opportunities, and allow for greater flexibility in routing and monitoring. So what do working atmos mixer think about these new features? We asked Roger Guerin and Nathaniel Reichman.
Nathaniel Reichman
Regarding the new extended track widths in Pro Tools, I would be more impressed by this new feature if there had been a coordinated effort between Avid and Dolby to give the Dolby Atmos Renderer variable bed sizes to match. While this update facilitates audio routing within Pro Tools, it doesn't fundamentally change the way we interact with the renderer. One notable advantage of the extended track widths, such as 7.1.4 or 9.1.6, is the simplification of reverb setup. Previously, using reverbs in a Dolby Atmos workflow involved cumbersome configurations, such as instantiating a reverb on a 7.1 auxiliary track and creating multiple mono object paths to route the reverb to the height channels. The new track widths allow us to instantiate the reverb on a single auxiliary track. Big improvement. But if you want reverbs as a bed, Dolby has the bed width fixed at 7.1.2. Consequently, the combination of "7.1 + height channels" routing must still be managed elsewhere in Pro Tools. While Avid offers useful presets for this purpose, it's fair to acknowledge that these solutions look like a kludge.
An area where this will help quite a bit is loading new sound effects libraries that may have been recorded with wider widths, and also managing wide re-renders coming back into Pro Tools in post workflows. For years, Pro Tools has been criticized for not having extended track widths, but I think that criticism was misguided. When Dolby created the Atmos format, they realized from the start that you couldn’t get pin-point spatial accuracy just by giving a conventional panner more channels, which is why they incorporated object-based panning. I always looked at the simple 7.1.2 bed as a challenge to use more objects. Yes, it would be nice if the renderer had wider beds, but I don’t feel creatively limited by the way the renderer is designed now. Perhaps someone will show me a use case where the new widths are really useful, but until then, I’m not in a rush to update my template.
Roger Guerin
Every time Avid upgrades Pro Tools, it’s a flip of a coin question: Is the upgrade going to favor Music or Post Production? With 2023.6, the answer seems to be... both!
The biggest buzz word seems to be “Markers” for both industries, with their own spin on how they are going to use them. I have been using Markers since day one, not to leave notes, but to manage all my 900+ tracks, one for dialogue, one for ambiance, one for SFX, etc. The good side is having so much emphasis on Markers, maybe communication between departments will be easier. Having Tab-to-Markers is going to be a big-time savior!
The other “buzz phrase” was “Track Width up to 9.1.6” that I had to read over and over several times, knowing full well that Dolby’s widest width was 7.1.2. For a moment, I thought that maybe Dolby expanded their input assignment width or that Avid ingeniously had a work around. The latter is true: Avid has a work around using Beds and Objects, something we have been doing for years. That said, I had to experiment with their way of doing things, and it meant sabotaging my finely tuned template to explore their proposition. As recommended, I set everything to Default in the Dolby Renderer (one 10-input bed, and 118 objects). Then, I deleted all my settings in the I/O window in Pro Tools. In the Bus pane, choosing the UseDolbyAtmosRenderer(Str), and by clicking on the Default button, it gave me the same configuration as the Dolby Renderer (don’t forget they talk to each other). Using their Track Presets in the Workplace, I dragged in their 9.1.6.ptxp under the Dolby Atmos tab, giving me a 9.1.6 Folder, containing a 7.1 Aux. labelled 7.1 Floor, and 8 mono Aux. with 8 different Objects panned to complement the 9.1.6 panorama.
Then, the testing began! I imported our own Eli Krantzberg’s most recent cue and panned like crazy. Even in my 7.1.4 listening environment, the illusion was pretty good! The next step was to try it out with a plugin capable of natively outputting in 9.1.6. Cinematic Rooms Pro came to the rescue. And with all things LiquidSonics it was predictable and professional.
All in all, the ultimate question is “would I make use of these expanded widths?” and truthfully the answer for now is “no.” Avid’s efforts are worth mentioning, but the work around is not for the faint of heart. I would prefer to have more plugin designers revisit their existing offering for an immersive friendly output count and to give us plugin inserts that we can assign to objects.
As for the ability to monitor Dolby’s renderer back into Pro Tools is preposterous. Just leave it in the Renderer, you can output all deliverables from it. Just last week a client asked for a mix minus music from a two years old project. Loaded the project in the Renderer and Re-Rendered what was needed. Took me maybe twenty minutes and I was the hero for the day.
In the meantime, I am going to re-reconfigure my sessions back to my finely tuned workflow. It always takes some time, even when I export-import my settings. Finicky or sophisticated? You tell me…
So if we can extrapolate the opinions of our Atmos mixers more widely it seems that there is a reluctance for busy professionals to make significant changes to they existing workflows for a solution which gets around the 7.1.2 limit. If there was a fundamental change which removed the 7.1.2 limit altogether things might be different but this workaround hasn’t tempted our professionals just yet.