In this article, international score and re-recording mixer Roger Guerin explores ways of remixing music for Atmos using a collection of useful tools from Nugen Audio. Over to Roger…

There hasn’t been a better time to distribute your music or reinvigorate your stereo catalogue to make it available in immersive sound, although I can hear some of you reacting to the challenge of having to remix from scratch that album you took forever to mix… Thankfully, you will only need a couple of tools to bring your project into immersive reality.

If with all the buzz around immersive audio, you convinced yourself that you were going to remix your songs in Dolby Atmos and you decided to get an interface with at least ten (10) outputs giving you a 7.1.2 set up just to see how you like it. Trust me, you will like it!

First, good news: you don’t have to remix everything from scratch, you can get fantastic results with the stems of your song. You just need to output some stereo stems like your drums, the guitars, the keys, the backups singers, your voice, and maybe some extras you might want to fly around. Then import these stems in a fresh session and go to town on it.

First You Will Need An Upmixer

In looking around you will find a number of offerings from different brands, but surprisingly Nugen Audio is the only one that can supply a plethora of tools. Not to be overwhelming, I will start with three basic tools you will need.

The first and essential plugin on the list is Nugen’s Halo Upmix with its optional 3D Immersive Extension. It uses sophisticated algorithms that analyses the incoming stereo sound source. It breaks it down into different components what’s in the centre, the left and right, the extreme left and right, simultaneously measuring the phase relationship and the frequency content. Then depending on the chosen preset, it spreads out the incoming sound while giving you control of what and by how much you want to spread to the front, the sides, to the back and to the upper tier, etc.

See how it works below:

A – The content that was centre panned now has the capability to spread over in the front (LCR).

B – The stereo content of the original mix can now be spread between the Left-Right to the sides (Ls-Rs).

C – The “extreme” stereo can now be spread to the back loudspeakers (Lrs-Rrs).

D – These two cursors are very particular; they are called the Vertical Distributor. On the left is the % of “on phase”, and to the right the % of “off phase” both going to the upper tier, making for some very interesting effects. One thing to watch out for is its ability to automate individual solos. Strange, but dramatic if used correctly.

To start off, you must insert an instance of Halo Upmix per stem, naturally you don’t want to upmix all your stems in the same static way, and to help you out they have a number of presets you can choose from.

For the different stems, you might want to start with these presets:

As you can see, there is a wide range of readings for different applications, so it stands to reason you wouldn’t want to put a centre-centric preset on anything, but the vocals, let’s say. To customise even further the Diffusion control affects the “focus” of the audio, but be careful because at high values it introduces a slap, and depending on the preset, the frequency response is also affected. Use it wisely.

Quick note: not all presets are created equal, so the differences in volume might be considered overpowering, especially for the LFEs. Strangely, the LFEs’ frequency seems to vary per preset when it should be established at 80 Hz. A word from the wise, customise those presets as soon as you can.

Thankfully, there is also the possibility to fine-tune the volumes independently, they are even automatable.

As you may know, the biggest width Dolby Atmos makes available right now is 7.1.2. So the next comment would be… but it has a 7.1.4 preset! The work around to make use of it is to insert what Nugen calls the Receive plugin. You just insert an instance on an Auxiliary track and assign it to a pair of Objects, giving you the freedom to pan independently for a glorious 7.1.4 auditory experience.

Then There’s Reverb

The next plugin to investigate is Nugen’s convolution reverb: Paragon. I am sure you have wonderful reverbs in your plugins folder, but do you have an immersive one?

The Paragon convolution reverb comes in two flavours: stereo (ST) and multi-format immersive (up to 7.1.4). It follows a similar GUI as their upmixer with, understandably, a couple of adapted differences.

As with any reverb, you will see: the Mix-Blend and the Trim in cursors (A), the Size and Decay multipliers (B), etc. But what you don’t often see is having the pre-delay sync to the Tempo of the song (C), or a Crosstalk cursor assignable from/to the Centre, the Top and/or the LFE (D), a welcome innovation when you want to create an original immersive environment. And you have the ability to vary the mic distance to 11, (200%).

Contrary to regular convolution reverb that time stretches the IR when you change the reverb time from the original, Paragon resynthesizes the IR.

As mentioned previously, the Paragon plugin has a lot of features you need but never thought to ask. Such as a sound source that triggers the reverb so that you can audition and choose the appropriate preset (A). Or being able to trigger the original IR (B), very revealing. Of course, you can EQ the reverb, but the clincher is its ability to add or subtract time at any frequency just like an EQ (C). This is nothing short of amazing!

How Does It Sound You May Ask?

It comes with twenty IRs, and looking at their names, you would think that it’s curated towards post production. I suspect that they are purists and only sampled actual spaces, the one that you might recognise is the Chamber, but no pictures, no Plates, no vintage reverb hardware, and no way to add your own. But the ones that are there are remarkable, you can customise them like never before and when you’re in an immersive environment, reverb is a very powerful tool.

A word of caution: the presets are not volume matched, so watch out for this when switching to a preset with a different IR. Customise them as soon as you can.

The Third But Not The Least

Knowing that upmixers and immersive reverbs make use of phase and frequency manipulations, it would be a good idea to be able to monitor “electrically” what is going on. In stereo, it’s easy to figure out what instrument/sound is out of phase, but when you’re in an immersive environment, not so easy. Thankfully, Nugen has a solution! In fact, it’s a seven module solution: Halo Vision

To be fair, you will not be needing all seven modules at the same time, and you can customise what you want to see. Yes, this meter has presets. You want to make sure you’re not peaking? Make the Meters full screen because you can resize any of its windows. You want to see the overall dispersion of your immersive mix? Customise a preset with Frequency Haze and the Location Haze. Or maybe you need to EQ out that offending ring in the drum, call up the RTA. Admittedly, the one that saves my life on a regular basis is the Correlation Matrix as opposed to their Correlation Web. With the matrix you know right away where the conflicts can arise.

So There You Have It

A good starting point for your journey into the magnificent world of immersive mixing. Your next logical step would be to write your songs knowing the benefits of Immersive Audio and how it can bring your music to another level.

The products are compatible with Windows Vista and above, and Mac OSX 10.7 and above. Most of their products are available in VST2, VST3, RTAS, AU, AAX and AudioSuite format. A 15-day free trial is available on their website.

Regarding your first step in immersive mixing, I am reminded of the last words of a famous character in Casablanca “[…] I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship”, and who knows you might like it better than the original!

As usual, leave your comments below. I can’t wait to listen to what you will come up with.

Nugen have a Happy Halo-ween Flash Sale running until November 1st 2023. Get 30% OFF Surround Suite plug-ins AND Halo Vision using the button below.