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Tag Archives: Dolby Digital 5.1

Snapsound Takes Its Shot with Atmos

Snapsound's Dolby Atmos-capable mixing room
Snapsound recently upgraded one of its four rooms for mixing in Dolby Atmos, outfitting it with Meyer Sound speakers, an Avid S6 M10 controller and more.

North Hollywood, CA—Zach Seivers went to school to pursue his dream of telling stories through film but found that sound was his true calling. In 2006, straight out of film school, he started his own audio post company, growing the business from one to four rooms before recently adding to his storytelling tools with an upgrade to Dolby Atmos mixing capabilities.

Seivers set up Snapsound in an office tower in North Hollywood in a deal with a documentary filmmaking client. “I was able to bring equipment into a room that they traded with me. I said, ‘I’ll be an in-house guy for you guys, but I want to be able to pursue my own clients.’ And they were cool with that.”

He still maintains a working relationship with the company but has since leased his own space in the building, initially focusing on non-theatrical content, primarily for broadcast. “We built three 5.1 nearfield rooms and a voiceover/ADR recording space. Eventually I stopped recording dialogue and repurposed that room as a fourth nearfield room. If I was doing any projects with a theatrical destination, I partnered with a facility like Deluxe” in Hollywood, he said.

Working with an acoustical designer, Seivers value-engineered the rooms to get good, basic acoustic treatment and isolation in the studios at minimal expense. “I didn’t know how long I would be in the space,” he explained. “Now it’s been over 10 years, but I knew I would never be able to take those physical investments with me if I had to leave the building.”

Instead, he said, “I decided to put the emphasis on digital tools to account for any acoustical issues. We worked with Trinnov and brought the DMON [monitoring processor] into all of the studios. That was a game-changer.”

The layout and equipment complement, including JBL 4328 speakers, was designed to be identical in every room: “The DMON allowed us to fix the more complex problems and matched the sound of each of the rooms so much more closely than we were able to do without it.”

The monitors have since been upgraded to JBL 708s. All four rooms have also transitioned from Digidesign Control 24 surfaces to C24 desks over the years.

As the momentum behind Dolby Atmos built in recent years and the essential tools became more readily available to independent facilities, Seivers decided it was time to take the plunge. “Netflix embraced and pushed delivery in Atmos. That was the catalyst for me as a business owner,” he said.

Related: Netflix Unveils Audio Streaming Improvements, by Steve Harvey, May 2, 2019

 

He contacted Chris Bolitho, sales director at Vintage King Audio in Los Angeles, about upgrading Snapsound’s Studio A. “I’ve known Chris for a long time,” said Seivers. “He quickly connected me with Miles [Rogers, cinema/studio development manager] at Meyer and introduced me to Jose Castellon [senior studio and cinema design engineer] at Dolby. VK is very hands-on and has a very personalized service. And they have a wonderful guy on their staff, audio consultant and technician Frank Verschuuren. It’s nice to have that level of support.”

Snapsound's Dolby Atmos-capable mixing room

Seivers had heard Meyer Sound’s Acheron Designer cinema speakers in sound designer and re-recording mixer Will Files’ room at Sony Pictures in Culver City, CA. “It’s a relatively small room, but they had such a huge, theatrical sound, and resolution, detail and color,” he recalled.

With the Acherons, “You can emulate a theatrical sound, and I’ve increasingly been moving into more theatrical work,” he said—a move that led to installing three Acherons for LCR coverage in Studio A. “The way the sound moves in the room is so much more dynamic that I’m able to make choices that I have found translate better from a small to a big room. If I’m going to another facility and four-walling a large stage, I want to minimize the amount of time I spend translating the work to that room.”

Meyer’s UP-4slim speakers support the Dolby Atmos side and overhead zones. “I like that they have more than enough power, the resolution is fantastic, and they have a really interesting look. I also like that they’re extremely modular and easy to install—and remove. And we didn’t have to deal with cutting holes in the ceiling.”

Related: COVID-19 Can’t Stop Pro Audio Retail, by Steve Harvey, June 25, 2020

Studio A’s spec was barely compliant with Dolby’s criteria for Atmos Home Entertainment Studio certification, he said. The room just squeaked through. “Because our room has a sloped ceiling, the rear overheads were right on the edge of what Dolby considers their minimum spec. They’re very careful with when and how they make concessions, since the point of the certification is that it is a standard. But we were so on the edge that they were willing to be flexible. They balanced that with the other aspects of the room.”

Signal transport between the Pro Tools system and the Dolby Atmos RMU—both running on Mac minis—and the Avid MTRX controller is via Dante. To continue taking advantage of Trinnov’s optimization technology, Seivers also upgraded Studio A’s DMON to a Dante-enabled version capable of handling the new 7.1.4 speaker configuration and communicating with the MTRX.

He also swapped out Studio A’s C24 for an Avid S6 desk. “I love the reaction of the faders,” he said. “As simple as that sounds, that was the biggest reason I wanted to invest in it.” The S6 is popular for mix-to-picture rooms, but Seivers initially resisted the upgrade because of the expense. “But there’s a little bit of a future-proofing aspect because the S6 is built with Atmos in mind,” he said.

As it turns out, there’s an active used console market through online portals such as UK-based Resurface, including for the component parts of Avid’s M10 version of the S6, which doesn’t include the display screens. That’s fine by him, said Seivers, who finds the displays distracting. “I’m looking at the image on the screen and not Pro Tools or the board displays. You can get an M10 at a fraction of the price of a new M40 system, so I ended up buying the S6 used.”

Now, like everyone else, Snapsound is facing an unpredictable future in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. “It’s super strange, but we’re creative people and we can be creative in ways beyond our craft,” said Seivers. “I’m confident that people are going to find ways to tell stories no matter what.”

Snapsound • www.snapsound.com
See Snapsound’s portfolio of work: www.snapsound.com/portfolio

Vintage King Audio • www.vintageking.com

Missed Opportunity Returns to Rob Burrell

Grammy-winning mix engineer Rob Burrell recently converted a space in his Nashville-area home studio into a Dolby Atmos mix room.
Rob Burrell set up his mix room with four Avid S1s and a Dock, all fitted with Amazon Fire HD10s, along with Focusrite’s RedNet 16Line as the brain and backbone of his Dolby Atmos setup.

Spring Hill, TN—Early in his career, Rob Burrell had to decide between making records and making movies. Fast-forward a couple of decades and Burrell can now indulge his twin passions under one roof following an upgrade of his home studio to an 11.1.4 Dolby Atmos mix environment.

Not that Burrell was unable to mix both sound-to-picture and music projects during the intervening years. In fact, he said, he became the go-to guy in Nashville for 5.1 projects almost as soon as the technology allowed. “As soon as surround was possible on the Mackie Digital 8-Bus, I set up five speakers and went for it,” he said.

Having chosen to move to Nashville, which he and his wife felt was preferable to Los Angeles for the large family they planned to raise, Burrell thought he’d scotched any chances of getting his foot in the Hollywood door: “I was mad because I didn’t want to have to pick. I’ve always been a big fan of both—I grew up a musician and a lover of film and storytelling.”

He lost no time in establishing a reputation in Music City, working with the likes of Carrie Underwood, Little Big Town, Michael W. Smith and Michael McDonald. Since 1994, he’s engineered and/or mixed a host of Grammy-nominated and Grammy- and Dove Award-winning albums, bestsellers and Billboard 200-charting projects.

Burrell Builds for Dolby Atmos, April 21, 2020: Grammy-winning mix engineer Rob Burrell recently converted a space in his Nashville-area home studio into a Dolby Atmos mix room.

“By the late ’90s, I had an opportunity with some of the artists I was doing records with to do their live DVDs in 5.1,” he reports. That was soon followed by a slew of 5.1 remixes of studio recordings for Sony, he said.

As a result, Burrell’s studio has been able to handle 5.1 projects since the ’90s and 7.1 projects for the last several years. Because he had been keeping an eye on Dolby Atmos since its introduction in 2014, he was ready to pull the trigger on an upgrade when the tools became available for independent and home studios last year, he said. “As soon as Pro Tools and the Dolby renderer software happened, I knew it was going to be a piece of my future.”

Rob Burrell on the Focusrite Pro Podcast
Click image to listen to Rob Burrell on the Focusrite Pro Podcast Focusrite

Burrell installed eight JBL 306P MkII speakers for the surround and overhead zones around his room, which is 16 feet wide and 22 feet deep. A pair of ATC SCM50ASL speakers sit at left and right, while an ATC SCM20ASL supports the center channel. “The 20 is an incredible match to the 50s. The front speakers also use a dual Bag End subwoofer setup, so I have accurate, distortion-free extension,” he said.

Since the studio is in his basement, he couldn’t raise the 9-foot ceiling, but that’s plenty of height, he said. “Dolby has a lot of tolerances in their math for placement options, so I experimented for a long time before I chose my final angles and positions. I wanted translation to headphones in music, and the music mix experience and the film and TV experience to all work in my room.”

He did all the integration work himself, getting to grips with Dante networking and optimizing Pro Tools. “I’m a fanatic for workflow. It has always been crucial that whatever tech I choose can melt away once it’s set up and just become an extension to making music.”

Because mixing has been Burrell’s main occupation for the past 15 years, he has never needed to upgrade Pro Tools beyond HD Native, he said. Indeed, when he upgraded from his TDM rig, HDX had a reputation for “voice-stealing,” limiting the number of voices available when jumping between DSP and Native plug-ins, he said—a problem that was magnified when working with surround buses. “HD Native didn’t have that problem. I knew my 256 voices would be a true 256 voices.”

Then, having added Focusrite’s RedNet 16Line as the brain and backbone of his new Dolby Atmos setup, he reported, “One day I went into lab coat mode and ran it in Thunderbolt 3 mode. When I ditched the HD Native card and went to Thunderbolt 3, my CPU headroom had a 25 percent gain. Once I realized the stability of the system and the headroom, I sold the HD Native card.”

Valencia Builds Largest Educational RedNet Installation, May 14, 2018: Facilities for Valencia College’s Sound & Music Technology program are connected via Focusrite RedNet.

Now, he added, “I’m doing everything with a Focusrite interface via Thunderbolt 3 on a 2018 Mac mini. It’s Pro Tools Ultimate with the Atmos renderer on the same rig.”

Down the road he may need more horsepower for object-heavy Dolby Atmos mixes, but that will mean forking out for a costly new Mac Pro. “Until I see if the Atmos investments that I’ve made are going to pay off, I’m not going to make that decision—it’s another $10,000 or $11,000.” But for the moment, he said, “I freeze this track or commit that track to free up processing. It hasn’t become prohibitive yet.”

Burrell’s 40-channel D-Command surface served him well for years, but now he has four Avid S1s and a Dock, all fitted with Amazon Fire HD10s instead of iPads. He’s a tactile mixer, he said, after years of working on 80-fader SSL desks. “I really play a mix like an instrument. I love rolling up and down the console and tweaking balances.”

After years of having the Pro Tools monitor out of his field of view, he now has it center-front, but down low. “I ‘see’ the height and depth of my mix; I visualize it floating in the air. My brain has a finite amount of CPU power and my eyes will take more CPU power than my ears if I engage my eyes, and I don’t want my eyes stealing from my ears,” he explained.

Over the past 15 years, while Burrell has been focused on mixing, he has also seen some film projects roll in. “About 2005, indie filmmakers started contacting me. My first few clients, I said, ‘I don’t do film, but I’m a film junkie and I think I know what I’m doing with audio. If you want to learn with me, let’s do it together.’”

To date, he said, “I’ve done four full-length features and close to 30 or 40 shorts and documentaries, all indie and local.” A few have been released on Netflix, he said.

“So I’ve been able to have my cake and eat it, and be able to make records and make movies. I don’t have to choose!”

Focusrite • pro.focusrite.com

Rob Burrell • www.robburrellmix.comSoundcloud link • Twitter @robburrellmix

Dolby • professional.dolby.com

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