Audient ORIA

Audient bring immersive audio a little closer to home with a dedicated USB audio interface/monitor controller.

Time was, not long ago, when considering a DAW interface it was the number of Inputs that caught the eye: does it have enough mic inputs to record a band with a drum kit? Now though, it’s beginning to be the case that Outputs are king. It’s not about, ‘can I record a band’, it’s more about, ‘can I do an Atmos mix?’ (Other multi‑channel immersive formats are, of course, available.)

Philosophy

Up in the world of high‑end professional Thunderbolt, HDX and Dante‑connected interfaces, typical output count has long been more than sufficient for the 10 minimum required for Atmos monitoring (5.1.4 or 7.1.2), but down in the world of USB interfaces, where most of us reside, finding affordable hardware with enough outputs for Atmos, especially beyond 7.1.2 or 5.1.4, is a much bigger ask. And that’s where the subject of this review, the Audient ORIA, comes in. The ORIA is a relatively affordable USB DAW interface designed specifically for Atmos mix duties. ORIA provides 16 surround monitor outputs (both analogue and AES digital) along with two independent stereo outputs and two stereo headphone outputs. In fact, the ORIA is so far away from a traditional USB interface and incorporates so many functions and facilities aimed at the mix, rather than the recording business of an interface, Audient cover it in the Monitor Controllers section of their website.

A good reason for this is that, while it can function as a traditional interface (which, for what it’s worth, is how I think it will most commonly be used), it can also work in combination with another interface in a monitor control mode. In this mode, the ORIA is connected via ADAT to an existing interface to provide up to 20 monitor outputs (and two headphone outputs) with all its monitor control functionality. If you’re particularly wedded to using an existing interface, this is a perfectly practical option, but it seems to me that a better solution would be to use the ORIA as the DAW interface and then connect its ADAT input to a mic preamp/DAC ADAT output, or even an interface working in standalone mode. My Focusrite interface, for example, can be configured to function as a standalone mic preamp with an ADAT output, and that’s what I’d use if I needed some more ORIA inputs.

Functionality

I’ll begin by describing what the ORIA presents on its 1U rackmount front panel. Going from let to right, things kick off with a couple of combi XLR/Jack sockets that offer mic/line‑level inputs. Alongside the input sockets are four configuration push‑buttons that enable selection of 48V phantom power, input level and instrument impedance/sensitivity, independently for each input. Pressing one of the input selection buttons brings up its settings in the ORIA display, which coincidentally is the next feature along on the front panel. The display is both unusually generous in size for a 1U interface and usefully informative. The display reconfigures to show the information relevant to whatever is being adjusted (either from the front‑panel controls or the associated ORIA macOS or Windows control app that I’ll get to in a moment). To the right of the display is a large‑ish rotary controller that, like the display, reconfigures depending on what’s being adjusted or configured. Its default action is volume control of the ORIA surround outputs (by which I mean the 16 ‘Atmos’ outputs) but if, for example, one of the two headphone outputs is selected, the rotary encoder switches to control that output’s volume. Pushing and holding the encoder provides access to a settings menu with items and parameters selected by encoder rotation and confirmed through the push‑button action. One small frustration I found with the encoder is that if the ORIA is placed directly on a desk rather than in a rack, it is a little too generous in its diameter to operate comfortably — the bottom edge comes too close to the desk surface. Maybe I just have thick fingers? The solution was simply to raise the ORIA up off the desk a little (which also coincidentally provided me with a convenient ‘store and forget’ slot underneath. Perfect for desk‑cluttering paperwork...).

To the right of the rotary encoder is a square array of four configuration push‑buttons. The top‑left button is labelled Volume and it both selects volume control mode on the rotary encoder and provides a press‑and‑hold mute/unmute function. Alongside the Volume button is the Profile button. One major facility provided by the ORIA is the ability to import Sonarworks SoundID Reference For Multichannel speaker/room optimisation data. I’ll describe how ORIA/Sonarworks integration works later in the review, but the action of the front‑panel Profile button is to enable the selection of preset ORIA profiles that can include uploaded Sonarworks SoundID (or native ORIA EQ) data and ORIA output configurations. An example of the value of profiles arose pretty much straight away on installing the ORIA in my studio. My 5.1.4 Atmos monitoring comprises nine Dynaudio BM5 MkIIIs and one Dynaudio 18S subwoofer, while my stereo monitoring is via a pair of Neumann KH 150s. The Dynaudio Atmos system is optimised for the room using Sonarworks SoundID Reference For Multichannel, but the Neumann monitors are optimised using Neumann’s MA 1 system, with optimisation parameters uploaded to the monitors. So switching from Atmos to stereo monitoring required the ORIA Sonarworks SoundID optimisation to be disabled, otherwise it would be applied to the Neumann monitors. ORIA profiles handled this perfectly. A press of the ORIA Profile button switched between the Atmos profile, including the Sonarworks optimisation, and a ‘Stereo Flat’ profile, while at the same time switching the ORIA output from multichannel to stereo. It was so neat I kept switching it just for fun, in a Homer Simpson kind of manner.

Bottom left on the push‑button array is the ORIA Down Mix button. When the ORIA is used in conjunction with Dolby’s external Atmos Renderer app, the Down Mix button is able to select between the downmix options configured in the Atmos workflow. Atmos downmix options might be 2.0 (conventional stereo) or 2.0 binaural, or any other multi‑speaker format that needs checking. Perhaps, for example, you want to hear what your Atmos mix sounds like in Dolby ProLogic 5.1 format. At present, the ORIA Down Mix button can only be used with the external Dolby Atmos Renderer app and not with Atmos rendering integrated internally within a DAW. So, for example, it doesn’t work with the relatively recently introduced Pro Tools integrated renderer, although Audient say they hope this will be able to change in the not too distant future. However, the lack of integration between the ORIA Down Mix button in internal Atmos renderers is in practice only a very minor detail. All the downmix functionality is still available within the internal renderer, it just can’t yet be switched via the ORIA Down Mix button.

Last on the front‑panel buttons is a Function button that can be configured to provide quick access to one of four ORIA output functions: Dim (default ‑10dB, but adjustable), Mono, Polarity and Reference Volume. The Mono and Polarity (reverses left channel and mixes to mono) work only on the ORIA stereo outputs, and the Reference Volume setting is fixed at ‑20dB although scheduled to become adjustable in a future version of the ORIA Control app. A talkback function that routes an ORIA mic input directly to a headphone output is also, say Audient, planned for the not too distant future.

Finally on the front panel are a couple of quarter‑inch headphone outputs with a push‑button above each one that switches the display content and rotary encoder action appropriately. The signal fed to the two headphone sockets can be configured in the ORIA control app to pick up channels in the Atmos Renderer. So for example, if you have binaural and 2.0 stereo downmixes bussed back to your mix session from the Atmos Renderer (this is what is meant by the term ‘re‑render’), they can be assigned independently to the ORIA headphone outputs. This is incredibly useful because it means you can always check how an Atmos mix is working out when downmixed to binaural or plain stereo simply by slipping on a pair of headphones.

Round The Back

Introducing the subject of headphone channel assignments brings me neatly to the ORIA’s connectivity on the rear panel. Starting on the right, the rear is dominated by 16 balanced jack monitor outputs. Rather than being labelled numerically, the monitor outputs are labelled with the acronyms for Atmos channel identification, so for example, the Left Rear Surround output is labelled LRS and the Front Right Top output is labelled RTF. This is of immense help in terms of getting each monitor connected to the appropriate output, but it might cause a moment’s head‑scratching initially if an Atmos monitoring system is already in place — well it did for me. My existing 5.1.4 monitoring, based on a Focusrite interface with 10 line outputs, is connected following this scheme:

• Output 1 > Left
• Output 2 > Right
• Output 3 > Centre
• Output 4 > LFE (Subwoofer)
• Output 5 > Left Surround (Ls)
• Output 6 > Right Surround (Rs)
• Output 7 > Left Top Front (LTF)
• Output 8 > Right Top Front (RTF)
• Output 9 > Left Top Rear (LTR)
• Output 10 > Right Top Rear (RTR)

The ORIA’s back panel features an IEC connector for the built‑in power supply, a USB‑C port, word‑clock input and output connectors, an AES DB25 connector, twin ADAT Input ports, 16 surround outputs and four stereo outputs.

So the monitoring output channel routing defined in the I/O setup of my DAW reflects that scheme. However, with the ORIA providing 16 outputs (for 9.1.6), the channel numbers that the DAW sees (higher than channel 6) are not the same as my Focusrite scheme. This means that Atmos mix sessions that started with the Focusrite as the playback device have to have their output channels re‑mapped for the ORIA. For example, the DAW output 7 (Left Top Front) has to become output 11 to feed the correct ORIA output. This isn’t by any means a criticism of the ORIA, not least because once the session routing is mapped to the interface (and you’ve created an Atmos mix template with the appropriate output routing), you don’t have to think about it again, but part of me would have liked channel number labels as well as channel acronyms printed on the ORIA rear panel.

Next along the ORIA rear panel are a pair of ADAT Input ports I’ve already referred to, and above them is a multi‑pin AES DB25 connector that provides 16 AES digital outputs for monitors with digital inputs. One of the bugbears of employing AES digital monitors in Atmos systems is that the paired daisy‑chain cabling of the AES standard complicates studio cable runs. For example, the two numerically adjacent channels of one cable will, in an Atmos system, potentially be required to connect to monitors located a significant physical distance apart. However, the ORIA provides the functionality in its control app to redefine the AES channel assignments with regard to Atmos channel identification. This potentially makes cable routing in AES digital‑based Atmos monitoring far more straightforward than otherwise might be the case. Just along from the AES connector is the ORIA’s USB‑C connection socket, a blanked Dante AoIP socket (Dante integration is scheduled, say Audient, for the end of June 2024) and, finally, BNC word‑clock input and output sockets for clock sync use if peripheral digital hardware, such as an ADAT‑connected mic preamp, is employed.

...ORIA works perfectly and intuitively. But more than that, it brings some much needed order to the Wild West world of Atmos mix routing and workflow.

Control & Integration

So the ORIA is very well equipped with the connectivity required for both interface duties and Atmos monitoring, but it’s perhaps the control app and integrated Sonarworks SoundID Reference For Multichannel that lifts it into a whole new category of relevance for Atmos mix work. I’ll begin with Sonarworks integration.

If Sonarworks SoundID Reference For Multichannel is new to you, it’s a hardware and software package comprising three elements: a calibrated measurement microphone, a room/monitor acoustic measurement/analysis app, and a front‑end app that enables the results of the measurement and analysis to be applied to a monitoring system via either a DAW plug‑in or through upload to monitoring hardware (either the monitors themselves or the monitor‑driving interface). A Sonarworks SoundID Reference measurement microphone is packaged with the ORIA and it also comes with a 60‑day Sonarworks SoundID Reference For Multichannel software licence. I fully described and reviewed Sonarworks SoundID Reference or Multichannel in a back in the April 2023 edition of the magazine, so I’ll limit myself here to a recap.

The Sonarworks SoundID measurement app provides tools and procedures that enable a multi‑channel monitoring system installed in a studio space to be acoustically measured. The measurement process is driven by the measurement app through on‑screen prompts that make the process, despite the complexity that results from multiple monitors, reasonably fool‑proof. The process does take a while, though, as Sonarworks SoundID requires measurements to be taken at 37 mic positions, with data taken at each one for every monitor individually. About 50 minutes is typical if you’re practised at it, but the first time it’ll probably take an hour at least from beginning to end. The result of the monitor and room measurement process is the creation of delay and frequency response optimisation parameters for each monitor that can then, via the Sonarworks SoundID front‑end app, be either used in a monitor output bus plug‑in or, with compatible monitoring hardware (such as the ORIA), uploaded and applied to the monitors directly. Uploading the SoundID parameters to hardware has significant advantages over their use in a bus plug‑in: firstly, a plug‑in that applies multiple EQ filters to up to 16 channels naturally demands a significant slug of processing power, and secondly, with the optimisation parameters located in the monitoring hardware, everything that leaves the DAW host computer can be optimised.

Uploading Sonarworks SoundID optimisation parameters to the ORIA is managed through pleasingly tight integration between the two apps. The Sonarworks SoundID measurement app checks at the commencement of the measurement process if the final destination for the optimisation data is an ORIA interface, and confirmation of that automatically creates a new blank profile in the ORIA app. Then, at the end of the measurement process, when it’s time to upload the Sonarworks SoundID data set to the ORIA, that too happens with just a couple of mouse clicks. It’s all very slick and well sorted.

Speaking of slick and well sorted, this brings me to the ORIA Control app itself. As well as duplicating all the front‑panel functionality of the ORIA, the Control app offers access to a 10‑band EQ (eight parametric, two shelf) for each output channel, a global delay function for lip‑sync correction in AV mix environments, channel‑specific delay adjustment, mute/solo functionality for both individual channels and groups (front channels, side channels, top channels, etc), and the previously mentioned profiles that enable groups of settings to be applied. Along with the Stereo and Surround profiles I described earlier, the combination of Sonarworks SoundID and ORIA profiles enables different Sonarworks target responses (Flat, Dolby, custom, etc) to be assigned and then easily compared. Finally on profiles, they are stored within the ORIA rather than the host computer, so once they are configured the ORIA can be disconnected from the host and the profiles selected from the ORIA front panel. This means that if an ORIA is used in monitor control mode, without a USB connection, previously configured profiles will still be available.

Screen 1: The ORIA Control app setup screen with a Flat Stereo profile selected. Stereo output and no EQ.

To illustrate some elements of the ORIA Control app functionality I’ve included a few screenshots. Screen 1 shows the Setup display with my ‘Flat Stereo’ profile loaded. The ORIA output defined at the top left is Stereo 1 (the ST1 rear‑panel sockets) and neither Sonarworks SoundID data nor any user EQ is applied. Screen 2 shows the same Setup display, but this time my Atmos monitoring Sonarworks SoundID optimisation data is applied and the ORIA surround outputs are selected. It also shows the Sonarworks SoundID response optimisation applied to the currently selected (front right) output channel.

Screen 2: The ORIA Control app setup screen with a 5.1.4 Surround profile selected. Multi‑channel output with Sonarworks SoundID Reference EQ applied.

Screen 3 shows the ORIA Control app’s System screen, which enables a few preferences to be set. Perhaps the most interesting options here are the headphone routing options. I have Headphone Socket 1 picking up the stereo Left and Right channels while Headphone Socket 2 picks up channels 17 and 18 — these are the channels where the binaural re‑render is routed in my DAW Atmos template.

Screen 3: The system settings screen. One headphone output is routed from the L+R channels and one from the binaural re‑render channels (17+18).

Finally, I’ve included Screen 4 for those who might want to use AES digital monitoring with ORIA. The screenshot illustrates the AES digital signal routing options I mentioned a few paragraphs up. A drop‑down menu adjacent to the channel icons allows a specific AES channel to be assigned to each one.

Screen 4: The ORIA Control app’s AES routing setup screen, showing channel assignment drop‑down menus for each monitor role.

Conclusion

In use, the ORIA is a delight. Bar one very small (and not particularly significant) bug in Sonarworks SoundID integration that I’m pretty confident will be fixed by the time anybody gets to read this, the ORIA works perfectly and intuitively. But more than that, it brings some much needed order to the Wild West world of Atmos mix routing and workflow — especially at the more cost‑effective end of the Atmos universe. And as I sit here in my studio with an ORIA on the desk next to me, I can’t currently come up with anything else I’d like it to do, or a manner in which I’d rather it behaved. I’m not quite sure how I’ll go back to my previous Atmos interface solution.

It’s genuinely exciting and inspiring in the way it dovetails so well with the creative opportunities and challenges that Atmos presents.

I never usually get particularly excited about DAW interfaces. They’ve always seemed to me to constitute somewhat dry and functional chunks of hardware that have little bearing on the creative process. Nothing particularly to get the juices flowing. The ORIA, though, is different. It’s genuinely exciting and inspiring in the way it dovetails so well with the creative opportunities and challenges that Atmos presents. Audient have absolutely nailed it with the ORIA.

Information

£2520 including VAT.

www.audient.com

$2699.99

www.audient.com

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