Working in Dolby Atmos reveals additional functionality in the Pro Tools Ultimate panner that you may find useful.

These functions can be found at the bottom of the main panner controls, between the Lrs and Rrs speaker icons:



The additional functionalities are Height Mode, Height Enable, Speaker Snap and Zone Selector.

The panning mode selector behaves as normal, offering the usual XY, 3-knob, Divergence Editing and AutoGlide modes, with the addition of Theatre view, which appears as the default for Dolby Atmos mixing.


Height Mode:

Object height can be automated manually using the Height knob, or, by utilizing one of three pre-defined height pan shapes linked to the F/R pan control. The F/R control’s range is -100 to +100 with 0 being the centre of the room.




Freeform: This is the default panner behaviour, where height is controlled via the Height knob and is independent of F/R panning.



Wedge: In Wedge mode, the Height control is linked to your F/R pan position, automating height in a linear wedge shape from the front to the rear, with the peak of the wedge in the centre of the room where F/R = 0.



Sphere: Similar to Wedge, however the pan shape follows a smooth hemisphere rather than a linear wedge shape.



Ceiling: In Ceiling mode, Height is 0 while on the front wall (F/R = 100), and quickly reaches 100 as F/R passes 60, equating to 20% of the room length.

Right clicking on the Height Mode buttons shows the option ‘Auto-height overrides height automation’. When this is selected, any pre-existing Height automation on the track will be disregarded, and the Height value will be calculated on the fly solely based on the F/R value at any given time.



When not selected, the F/R control will write Height automation to the Height automation lane in the selected shape, overwriting any previously written automation.


Height Enable:

 

Height Enable is a simple on/off toggle which enables and disables the Height control adjustment. This toggle is automatable on and off, however any automation that has already been written will still play back, even when the toggle is set to ‘off’.

In normal operation, clicking on the panner puck will write automation in X, Y and Z dimensions, however if you have already written your height automation and want to adjust the XY panning, you can ‘lock’ the Z axis automation by toggling Height Enable to ‘off’.


Speaker Snap:



When panning objects in Dolby Atmos, their positions are stored as XYZ co-ordinates until the mix reaches the renderer (the Theatrical RMU, the Dolby Atmos Renderer, or an end-user consumer device).

Depending on the room configuration, an object’s position in the mix environment may, for example, be precisely placed to emanate from a single speaker. However, in a different playback environment, the rendered object may instead be positioned between two speaker positions, creating a more diffuse sound rather than point source.

Depending on the sound in question, this may or may not be desirable. If you would prefer the sound to remain as a point source, emanating from a single speaker only, then you may use Speaker Snap to tell the Renderer to always ‘snap’ the panning to the nearest speaker position.

Care should be taken with objects panned near to the screen however, as these may either snap backwards to the side surrounds, or forwards to the screen channels, depending on the room configuration.

Note: Speaker snap to the wides in a 9.1.6 behaves differently in theatrical and home environments. In the theatrical Renderer, when speaker snap is enabled, audio panned to Lw and Rw will snap to Lw1 and Rw1 respectively. In the home Renderer, speaker snap must be disabled and the F/R position set to 68 to hit only Lw and Rw. 

Zones Selector:



With Dolby Atmos, you have the ability to exclude objects from certain zones within the room using the panner. This control is automatable, however care should still be taken. The zone selector may be set to the following configurations:

Front and side: Rear surrounds are excluded.

Front and rear: Side surrounds are excluded.

Front-centre and rear: L/R and Lss/Rss are excluded.

Front: LCR only. All surrounds excluded.

Rear: LCR excluded. Lss/Rss and Lrs/Rrs only.

All: Default mode – all channels are active.

These modes may be useful for certain sounds or groups within your mix. For example, you may want to ensure that Dialogue cannot be played from any speakers other than the screen channels, in which case you could toggle to Front mode.

Note, that using Zones Selector does not change the panner functionality. You can still pan a sound to any position around the room, however it will not replay from any inactive speakers within the Zone Selection. This means that panning a sound away from the screen in Front mode will apply panning attenuation as normal in LCR.