Uptake of and interest in Dolby Atmos has exploded in the last year, helped greatly by the increased interest in Atmos for music as a result of Apple’s Spatial Audio announcement but a 7.1.4 Atmos monitoring system is a significant investment so the existence of built in binaural rendering in the Dolby Atmos renderer has been a very useful accessible route into the world of Dolby Atmos.

Binaural - Atmos Monitoring Solved?

In theory it sounds ideal. If you can monitor an immersive format like Atmos over a pair of headphones then all sorts of possibilities present themselves but if you’ve ever tried binaural you’ll know that the results can be extremely impressive but sometimes aren’t and this variability in the success of the immersion offered by binaural rendering is in part to do with your individual physiology - the shape of your ears, the size of your head, the length of your neck and the shape of your shoulders all combine to create a unique personalised experience of how sounds in the world are heard by you. This ‘Head Related Transfer Function’ colours sounds in a way which provides a bespoke set of timbral changes which provide directional cues which allow us to localise sounds around us. If the colourations introduced by a ‘vanilla’ generic HRTF differ from our own experience of the world the immersive experience collapses and we lose the ability to accurately locate sounds around us in this virtual immersive soundstage.

This is where the newly announced Dolby Atmos Personalised Rendering introduced as a public beta comes in as it addresses this shortcoming with generic binaural renders.

The beta is available from today for free. When it is out of beta it will be an addition to the Dolby Atmos renderer at no additional cost. The creation of a personalised Head Related Transfer Function (PHRTF) is simple, involving use of a modern smartphone camera with the Dolby PHRTF Creator iOS app installed. A guided measurement process captures the data necessary for a 50,000 point analysis of the ears, head and shoulders, thankfully using the front facing camera so the process can be completed on your own.

The data is uploaded to the cloud where the PHRTF is calculated and made available for download. A local copy is stored on the host computer so no internet connection is required in use. The process is fully generative, meaning that there aren’t a set of ‘off the shelf’ HRTFs which the software matches the user’s data with for a ‘best fit’. Each PHRTF is bespoke and unique to the user’s anatomy.

At present Dolby Atmos Personalized Binaural Rendering is only available in the Dolby Atmos Renderer Application meaning that a DAW such as Logic Pro, with its integrated Spatial Audio support can't be used with Dolby PHRTFs.

What Do We Think About Using PHRTFs and Binaural Monitoring When Mixing Dolby Atmos?

Binaural monitoring shouldn’t be seen as a replacement for monitoring over a properly set up Atmos monitoring system but in much the same way as the caveats placed around mixing stereo material over headphones Binaural monitoring is a useful addition which is complementary to mixing over speakers and PHRTFs make these headphone monitoring opportunities more useful because they will translate better and more reliably than using a generic HRTF.

We asked UK Engineer/Producer Emre Ramazonoglu , who has used the new PHRTF feature for his opinion. He said:

“The personalised HRTF option is a significant improvement to the binaural mix workflow. I get significantly improved localisation and a much improved sense of space which makes creating the binaural companion mix much easier and more accurate”

What Dolby Says About Dolby Atmos Personalized Rendering

Dolby Atmos Personalized Rendering provides an accurate, transparent, and efficient headphone monitoring environment that gives creatives and their team the flexibility and confidence to create and deliver high-quality immersive mixes via headphones.

With demand for content in Dolby Atmos and spatial audio growing, Dolby Atmos Personalized Rendering allows creatives to create their best work by delivering a better overall headphone experience when creating spatial audio content. The tool will also make Dolby Atmos accessible to a broader range of creators who don’t readily have access to loudspeaker-equipped mixing rooms. In addition, using a PHRTF enables improved accuracy of translation to loudspeakers, meaning more work can now be done remotely over headphones, which can reduce time spent in the studio. This flexibility is more critical than ever with the increased prevalence of remote work and in industries like gaming where distributed creative teams are working together from all over the world.

Creatives can request access to the beta version of the Dolby PHRTF creator app which is available for iOS and Android to start creating with Dolby Atmos Personalized Rendering. To learn more or request access to the beta program, click the button below. Dolby is inviting a limited number of creatives to the program at first before the app is rolled out widely. Sign up now to reserve your seat.