Spatial Audio/Atmos for music?

[dave_bass5]

Thoughts?

A surprise move for Apple, but I’m not convinced its going to be the huge music industry shake up the YouTube posters are making out. 

Ok, its a great effect to have for films, i love it, although it was a bit disconcerting at first, but i cant see how its going to work with mainstream music. We have had 3D audio before and it never took off. I know there are some Dolby 5.1 audio discs, but they don’t seem to be very popular or forthcoming. 

I like that it will be there, and i cant wait to hear it, but with it being limited to Apple Music and Apple head/earphones i dont see it making much of a change to how things are at the moment. I guess change takes time so lets see how popular it becomes. 

Not bothered too much about the lossless side of the new service as i use wireless headphones/earphones all the time, so wont benefit. 

Nice we get all this for no extra cost……for now. 

[SumOne]

I don't have Apple music but the BBC have been doing a fair bit of spatial audio stuff. The best things I've heard it used so far are things like documentaries with background street noise, and when voices move around,  stuff like this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p06w66lm   I expect it will work well with atmospheric/ambient music and electronic stuff, probably doesn't suit all types of music though. 

This hour of electronic music spatial mixes is good: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000tljv ...only available for 3 more days though. Machinedrum's mix from 35 minutes is excellent but I'm not convinced from those mixes that I could tell it was binaural recording rather than just stereo recording with a lot of panning. 

 

 

Edited May 19, 2021 by SumOne

[dave_bass5]

That stuff’s cool, especially the second link. I agree it sounds like a lot of panning but i guess some will hear it as whizzing around the room. I quite like all that sort of stuff. 

The Apple thing is using Dolby Atmos on music, so its going to be a lot more defined and precise, the same as films are already using, but with Apples hardware the headphones decode it.