Urban Atmos

Immersive sound libraries have been around for a while now. Nevertheless, the vast majority of what is being offered out there is based upon coincident or near-coincident techniques (Ambisonics, ORTF 3D…). Here at HAL, we were never truly satisfied with these options as we thought they lacked the sense of width and the feeling of envelopment we all craved. What to do then ? Working mainly for cinema, the inspiration was in fact right in front of  us. Why not create a spaced array that would replicate the main immersive format used in film? The seed for our Atmos Tree was then planted.

From its humble beginnings, it grew into what it is today : a 7.0.2 recording rig capable of rendering a lush sound experience, one that is perfectly suited for DOLBY ATMOS. With 9 microphones (Sennheiser’s MKH 8020s and 8040s) set largely apart from one another, our tree has a clear advantage over coincident techniques since it uses time arrival differences that give a much greater sense of spaciousness. The feeling of immersion is absolute as if the listener had been put right inside a broad and deep soundscape.

The sounds from this library were conceived mainly as organic background beds. For the most part, they are very neutral in nature in order to allow further sweetening by the user. Typical urban sound events such as horns and pass bys are indicated with markers visible in database programs such as Soundminer or Basehead, so you can easily choose between using a particular occurrence or simply avoid it. We have also eliminated any elements that could be considered too distracting : the listener shouldn’t be turning his head around because something is popping up in the rear speakers for instance. We strongly believe that immersion is not a gimmick but a powerful storytelling tool.

Whenever it was possible (and logical), instantly loopable versions of the audio files were provided as well. No need for crossfades! Just drop one of the sounds on your timeline and duplicate it as many times as you want.

Urban Atmos sounds are fully embedded with UCS compliant extensive metadata. File names are concise and consistent in order to improve the user’s experience to the max. For Soundminer users, we came up with an extra treat by using the powerful, yet often neglected, Open Tier field as a way to help navigate the library in an easy and intuitive fashion. This short video explains what is Open Tier and how to use it with our library.