Nuendo - Ambisonic to Binaural and Dolby Atmos

Nuendo
1

Hello,

I have received the 25 year offer for Nuendo, and just wanted confirmation of some of the capabilities of Nuendo before deciding to make a purchase.

I understand that Nuendo you can handle Ambisonics up to 4th Order. I presume that this includes manipulation of the file, but does it include other editing such as ‘beam’ forming, or gating?

More importantly I am interested in Ambisonics to Binaural and Dolby Atmos. Am I correct that the DAW can be used to convert Ambisonics to Dolby Atmos Beds, that additional editing can then be performed of the beds (if required) and that the final distributable Dolby Atmos file(s) can be produced without the additional purchase of plugins such as Dolby’s Atmos Renderer?

Finally, I think I understand that Ambisonics can be rendered to Binaural using bespoke HRTFm by

  1. Directly using a Steinberg AI function which produces a BHRTF from a photograph of the ear, or
  2. Indirectly via Dolby Atmos, uploading a BHRTF created using their tool.

Is this correct?

I am very new to all this and I am a bit puzzled by BHRTF. Particularly as Dolby Atmos certified headphones seem to offer ear measurement through an app, but this would presumably mean that ‘final rendering’ of streaming audio has to then be done locally (presumably by the mobile phone). If so, what should the output from Nuendo be? - A Dolby Atmos 7.1.2 file for local re-rendering to binaural?

2

Unless things have changed drastically without official statements, then Ambisonics is basically considered an “unsupported feature” by Steinberg:

… therefore I wouldn’t expect too many built-in features that cover serious ground in that respect (much to my regret).

3

Is the ticket out of date?

looking at the virtual reality Nuendo features it shows

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4

Well - yes and no. The basics are there, but there is so much more to Ambisonics. You will most certainly need 3rd party tools to exploit the format to its full extent, eg.:

1 Like
5

Thanks for the advice.

I have been speaking to Audio Brewers about their plugins. Interestingly, from Ambisonics you can create Atmos beds, but you cannot do the final render to a Dolby Atmos file. For this you need to use Dolby Atmos Renderer or a third party plug-in. This is one reason that I thought Nuendo may be a better one stop solution.

Audio Brewers proposed workflow was

1 > A to B format using the mic manufacturers plug-in

2 > Upscale the B format to 7OA using the Advanced Decoder and manipulate the file as you see fit.

3 > Use Fiedler or the Dolby Atmos Render to produce the Dolby Atmos file (or files) for listening/distribution.

I am not sure how this upscaling to 7OA would work with Nuendo, which only does 4OA - although Audio Brewers state that their plug-ins work with Nuendo.

I don’t think Audio Brewers do Ambisonic to Binaural (although the ATK plugin that I have used with Reaper does this for free). I am probably overthinking things, but selecting the right HRTF seems guesswork with ATK. This is why I quite liked the fact that Nuendo seems to have a personalised HRTF function - this is mentioned under Ambisonic Monitoring, but I presume that you can also use this for a personalised binaural render.

Ideally, it would be great to ‘get to’ binaural without creating a file that is only optimised for people with similar ears and head dimensions. This is why producing something for listening on Dolby Atmos certified headphones sounds promising - but I have no idea how and when this personalised render is produced. If it is part of a streaming app or done by a streaming server, then of course this is a dead end.

The options for Ambisonics to Binaural seem to be

1/ Stick with the ATK plug-in, trialing various available (not personalised) HRTFs.

2/ Use Nuendo (on the basis that the PHRTF used for monitoring can also be used for rendering)

3/ Use another Ambisonics to Binaural plug-in - e.g Blue Ripple, although only their expensize Rapture 3D Advanced seems to allow venturing away from their Amber HRTF - a kind of average blend of HRTFs

4/ Use the workflow discussed with Audio Brewers, but use Fiedler or Dolby Atmos Renderer to render to Dolby Atmos Binaural. But I need to determine if Fiedler or Dolby Atmos Renderer can utilise the PHRTF which can be provided by Dolby Atmos - I would very much hope Dolby Atmos Renderer can.

If 4 is the best option, then perhaps venturing to use a new DAW is not the solution, and I am best with Reaper plus purchases of Audio Brewers Advanced Decoder and Dolby Atmos Renderer?

6

from Ambisonics you can create Atmos beds, but you cannot do the final render to a Dolby Atmos file.

You should absolutely be able to render Ambisonics to Dolby ADM BWFs natively in Nuendo with no third parties. Built-in VST AmbiDecoder would decode for 7.1.2 Atmos bed (AmbiDecoder decodes for channel surround up to 7.1.4). I’ve also rendered Ambisonics for Atmos 7.1.4 (AmbiDecoder) or even to 9.1.6 using third-party AllRAD decoders (route to a 7.1.2 bed plus some fixed objects as virtual speakers [in 9.1.6 MultiPanner there was an art to panning the wide objects to snap to the wides without bleed, which interestingly involved turning off speaker snap]).

For binaural monitoring of Ambisonics, Steinberg has that relationship to Embody Immerse with VST AmbiDecoder, and it does support headtracking, but I’m not sure how highly I recommend it. Photos of your ear pinna do not capture the geometry of your head, so it may simulate some of the convolutions of the higher frequencies, but without a full head scan the ITD for mids to lows would not translate, which I feel is more important. And Embody in general is pretty cagey about encryption and limiting the number of scans. And if you have a way to generate a custom HRTF, there are lots of free plugins from IEM and AALTO (SPARTA) that fill these gaps quite well, including with headtracking.

As for binaural monitoring of Atmos, there’s a surprising gap in Nuendo. You could always bus your multichannel Dolby back to an Ambisonics bus to re-encode to a soundfield, and then monitor (with headtracking) using AmbiDecoder, or employ an awesome third-party solution like APL Virtuoso.

Note on Dolby PHRTFs, also photo-generated, only from one ear: If I recall (not in front of my Mac) this is not supported by the built-in Steinberg Dolby Renderer, but is (was?) supported by the standalone Dolby Renderer with headtracking and (was?) Fielder Atmos Composer without headtracking. However, PHRTFs are being discontinued by Dolby, so they’re going away anyway.

7

Thanks for the response.

You are right about the BHRTF. I emailed Fieldler and was advised that they can be used in the current version of the software, but as they have been discontinued, Dolby have asked that this feature is withdrawn from the next version of Fieldler’s software.

I think I am definitely running before I can walk. Particularly, as I do not really understand how Dolby Atmos files can be played by the end user. If the prime means is through a streaming service, then just being able to play my own recordings through my Dolby Atmos surround sound TV seems out of reach.

8

If you are actually planning to create immersive audio in general and not necessarily Dolby Atmos per se, you have plenty of options. Atmos is useful as an “umbrella” for delivery, but many mistakenly believe this proprietary format to be the only tool for the job – which it’s definitely not. Quite contrary, you can comfortably produce immersive audio without even coming close to anything wearing the Dolby logo.

… you seem to be knowledgeable about Ambisonics, so do your things in this powerful format and encode your chosen output to a Atmos “bed + fixed Objects”-setting in a final step. This is my chosen workflow since many years, and none of my clients complained about it (… well, with the exception of that certain Sony product "specialist” who insisted that my mix wasn’t Atmos as there were no moving Objects … ok … :smiley: ….). Or you just render discrete multichannel files, like we did back in the ancient 5.1 surround days. Most modern home cinema systems will be able to reproduce those, just investigate the capabilities of yours.