The new SoundID Tools app uses your phone's camera to create a personalised Dolby Atmos headphone profile, giving creators more accurate spatial audio monitoring wherever they work.
Mixing Dolby Atmos on headphones has always come with an asterisk. Our ears are physically unique, which means the way we perceive a spatial soundstage largely differs, and standard headphone monitoring doesn’t account for that. Sonarworks and Dolby have teamed up to solve exactly that problem, and the result is now available for free on iOS and Android.
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The SoundID Tools app, developed jointly by Sonarworks and Dolby uses your phone’s camera to scan your head and ears to generate a personalised Dolby Headphone Personalisation profile – a calibration file built around how you specifically perceive spatial audio. That profile then integrates with the Dolby Atmos Renderer standalone app and native Dolby Atmos rendering in supported DAWs, with DaVinci Resolve among the first supported and further DAW compatibility on the way.
The practical upshot is headphone monitoring that more accurately reflects direction, distance and height in a mix, which for anyone working in immersive audio, is a significant quality-of-life improvement, particularly when working outside a properly treated room.
David Gould, Sr. Director of Content Creation and Distribution at Dolby Laboratories, explained the thinking behind the collaboration, stating, “Every creator’s physical characteristics are unique, which affects how they experience immersive audio over headphones. By combining Dolby’s technology with Sonarworks’ calibration expertise, the app enables more accurate Dolby Atmos monitoring. We are excited to work with them, and our DAW partners, to bring advanced headphone experiences to Dolby Atmos creators everywhere.”
Sonarworks brings serious credibility to the project. Their SoundID Reference calibration software is already used by more than 300,000 studios and over 100 Grammy-winning creators worldwide.
“At Sonarworks, our mission has always been to help creators hear their mixes accurately and with confidence, no matter where they work. We are thrilled to partner with Dolby to help Dolby Atmos creators make great-sounding immersive mixes on headphones,” says Martins Popelis, CPO and Co-Founder of Sonarworks.
Setup takes just a few minutes – all you need to do is download the app, scan your head and ears, load the profile into your supported DAW, and you’re done.
The SoundID Tools app is available now on the App Store and Google Play.
To learn more, head to Sonarworks.
