With the immersive audio bandwagon showing no signs of slowing down any time soon, enterprising plugin developers are putting Dolby Atmos compatibility at the top of their effects specification lists. Here are a dozen of our current favourite examples from five such labels, each one empowering you to take your mixes out into the third dimension via its particular sonic process…

Eventide Blackhole and Micropitch Immersive

Upgrading a pair of stone cold classic effects for the surround sound era, Eventide’s Blackhole Immersive and Micropitch Immersive are essentially the plugins of the same first names from their H9 series, plus Atmos capability. They’re available separately and as a bundle, and while fans of the originals might be a little taken aback by the visual makeover that’s come with their internal transformation, the pedal-style skeuomorphism of the H9s would have looked very out of place in this more futuristic and technically diverse context.

Beyond that, though, these are quite literally Atmos-enabled versions of two of the coolest creative effects around, delivering reverbs and ambiences of limitless scale (Blackhole), and beautiful depth-enhancing pitchshifting and delay (Microshift). The Tilt sliders added to various key parameters push them towards the front or back of the ‘room’, while separate EQs and level controls for the Front, Side, Rear, LFE and Top channels make setting up 3D soundscapes easy and intuitive, and the patch-interpolating Morph controller (the Ribbon controller of the stereo versions) introduces a powerful performance angle. Stunning.

Sound Particles Energy Panner and Brightness Panner

Presenting an imaginative take on the auto-panner concept, Nuno Fonseca’s two perky plugins (again, separate or bundled) fling your signals around the stereo, 5.1, 7.1, binaural, Ambisonics or 7.1.2 Dolby Atmos soundstage in response to the ‘intensity’ (Energy Panner) or frequency content (Brightness Panner) of the input signal – that is, amplitude over time, or your choice of ‘spectral centroid calculation’, monophonic pitch or MIDI note input, respectively. Panning trajectories are laid down by the Start and Movement options – from a mono start point to all original speaker positions, for example, or between manually positioned start and end points – and the onset and amount of panning applied are governed by the Threshold and Ratio controls in Energy Panner, mode-specific filtering options in Brightness Panner, and Attack and Release knobs in both. Two Panning Modes – Panning and Sliding – determine whether the signal reverts back to its starting location as the panning ‘trigger’ withdraws, or stays where it is, then progresses further along the path with the next incoming trigger; and Energy Panner’s sidechain input opens up obvious possibilities for panning one sound based on the dynamics of another.

A hugely useful duo of spatial effects for immersive media and music production, for less than the price of a night out.

FabFilter Pro-Q 3, Pro-L 2 and Pro-R 2

Although immersive audio support isn’t a constant across the whole of FabFilter’s legendary line of plugins, it has been very successfully integrated into three of the company’s most popular effects – namely the industry standard Pro-Q 3 equaliser, the brilliant Pro-L 2 limiter, and the innovative Pro-R 2 reverb. Pro-Q 3 supports up to 7.1.2 and Pro-L 2 and Pro-R 2 support surround formats up to Dolby Atmos 9.1.6, with automatic configuration and full channel metering, but differ in functionality after that. Pro-Q 3 simply enables individual EQ filters to be switched in and out of each speaker, while Pro-L 2 extends channel linking to respond across the full Atmos array; and unsurprisingly, Pro-R 2 makes rather more of the immersive soundstage than the other two, with per-channel adjustment of Decay Rate and Post EQ, as well as global crossfeed control, and balancing of discrete reverb parameters between front and back.

The implementation of all this is as elegant and straightforward as you’d expect from the Fabs, and as well as loving what they’ve done in the immersive arena so far, we’ve got our fingers crossed for Timeless 3 to join the party at some point…

Waves Spherix

Comprising two separate plugins – Spherix Compressor and Spherix Limiter – Waves’ immersive offering is geared up specifically for dynamics processing of 7.1.2 and 7.1.4 beds, as is made immediately apparent by its overtly multichannel-orientated GUIs. Both go out of their way to make the potentially hectic application of compression and limiting in a Dolby Atmos mix as fuss-free as possible, with the ability to group channels and ‘zones’ in a variety of ways for collective adjustment, comprehensive sidechain channel, and foolproof visual feedback provided by combination level/gain reduction meters. In terms of the fundamentals, the differences between the two are as expected – Spherix Compressor incorporates Ratio and Attack controls, while Spherix Limiter has Ceiling and Dither options, etc – and the consistent layout and workflow are effortlessly navigable and admirably slick.

It’s a shame that because of how Atmos works it can only be deployed on beds, not objects, but as long as that broad restriction is understood, Spherix is a great choice for multichannel bus compression and limiting.

LiquidSonics Reverbs

As one of the first plugin houses to make the move into immersive audio, reverb specialists LiquidSonics have established multichannel configurations up to Dolby Atmos 9.1.6 as a standard feature over the course of their last four releases. So, whether you favour the Bricasti brilliance of Seventh Heaven Professional, the acoustic realism of Cinematic Rooms, the power and heft of Lustrous Plates Surround, or the exceptional versatility and character of Tai Chi, you can bring any or all of them to your Atmos mixes with zero friction. The developer’s proprietary decorrelation processing eliminates fold-down issues and optimises spatial performance, four crossfeed modes define the way in which ‘bleed’ between left and right channels is handled, and every one of these stellar ’verbs sounds even more incredible in surround than it does in good old fashioned stereo. The only thing you need to decide is which one to buy first!

What are your go-to plugins for immersive mixing and effects processing? Let us know in the comments.