OBAM – Immersive capabilites for audio plug-ins
OBAM stands for “Object Based Audio Module” and is the new plug-in standard on the block, specialized for immersive audio production using the object based production workflow. This next generation plug-in format goes beyond the limitations of the traditional formats by enabling metadata communication between plug-in and host.
That means that every incoming and every outgoing audio signal is received and sent together with metadata describing it, among other things, the position of that signal in space. But also other metadata is communicated describing the audio signal semantically. That opens up totally new ways of presenting audio to the user, be it for routing or processing. Also, channel order confusion is a thing of the past because each object brings it’s defined position in space with it.
But this is just the beginning. Since the position of an object can change over time, that position can become a source and a destination for processing as well, just like audio itself. Just imagine a delay which changes it’s delay time depending on the position of the incoming object or an envelope follower generating position metadata from audio which is then used for modulating the position of another audio object. The possibilities are basically endless and since we treat audio as objects, it all remains understandable for us humans.
The status quo
Traditional DAWs and plug-ins are channel based. That means that all their exchange of audio happens in form of fixed channel layouts, such as mono, stereo, 5.1, 9.1.6, etc. On one side this is a severe limitation as it is inflexible and does not reflect the actual production goal, which in many cases is an object based audio format such as Dolby Atmos or MPEG-H with moving objects in space. Second, the channel based approach to immersive audio is error prone and cumbersome because there are so many different formats and the different DAWs and plug-in formats also provide different channel orders, all of which regularly confuses even professionals. And third, the channel based approach is not future proof since you are forced to decide for a fixed format during production, while object based audio can be rendered to any reproduction format, even to those which have not yet been invented.
All that leads to an obvious conclusion. An object based production workflow is needed.
Access and availability
The first OBAM host is the Dolby Atmos Composer which can host OBAM plug-ins in it’s Master Channel. That allows thousands of Composer users to process their entire Dolby Atmos mix or just a part of it with these new capabilities. And this is just the beginning.
All third party plug-in developers are invited to adapt their existing and develop new plug-ins for this new format. The license for the OBAM SDK for plug-in development is free of charge. For obtaining the SDK please contact us through our contact form.
A list of available OBAM plug-ins:
Fiedler Audio gravitas MDS: A sophisticated mastering dynamics processor for any format. https://fiedler-audio.com/gravitas/
Toneboosters Equalizer Pro: An extremely versatile high end EQ. https://www.toneboosters.com/tb_equalizer_pro.html
(OBAM version currently available as public beta: https://www.toneboosters.com/beta.html)