Jump to content

Spatial Audio in Logic later this year


ozinga

Recommended Posts

until the if-&-when moment something like this becomes a standard (meaning spotify, tidal, amazon, etc etc), it's just an apple gimmick (no matter how good it is). for those of us who don't live exclusively in the apple walled garden, it's not useful (altho, to be fair, it IS interesting).
Link to comment
Share on other sites

until the if-&-when moment something like this becomes a standard (meaning spotify, tidal, amazon, etc etc), it's just an apple gimmick (no matter how good it is). for those of us who don't live exclusively in the apple walled garden, it's not useful (altho, to be fair, it IS interesting).

 

I don't think its a gimmick, it's Dolby Atmos, a standard which has been used widely in cinemas for I dunno how many years already.

 

It's not a gimmicky technology that Apple developed, its an adoption of Dolby Atmos and Apple just gave it a new name.

 

Dolby Atmos has been used in games, VR, movies, and now in music. I have no doubt we are going in the direction where most consumers would want an immersive experience.

 

Not just apple music, I doubt it very much. The rest of music streaming services will soon follow I hope.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

until the if-&-when moment something like this becomes a standard (meaning spotify, tidal, amazon, etc etc), it's just an apple gimmick (no matter how good it is). for those of us who don't live exclusively in the apple walled garden, it's not useful (altho, to be fair, it IS interesting).

 

I don't think its a gimmick, it's Dolby Atmos, a standard which has been used widely in cinemas for I dunno how many years already.

 

It's not a gimmicky technology that Apple developed, its an adoption of Dolby Atmos and Apple just gave it a new name.

 

Dolby Atmos has been used in games, VR, movies, and now in music. I have no doubt we are going in the direction where most consumers would want an immersive experience.

 

Not just apple music, I doubt it very much. The rest of music streaming services will soon follow I hope.

 

my apologies, i thought it was an apple technology that supported dolby atmos; if it is simply access to the dolby system... that's great (i have dolby atmos on my home cinema setup, i get it). cool that logic support is coming, but we'll see if spotify et al add support for atmos directly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

my apologies, i thought it was an apple technology that supported dolby atmos; if it is simply access to the dolby system... that's great (i have dolby atmos on my home cinema setup, i get it)

 

Lol, no worries. Apple tricked us by calling it Spatial Audio when it really is just Dolby Atmos implementation.

 

.. cool that logic support is coming, but we'll see if spotify et al add support for atmos directly.

 

With the current trend of augmented reality and snapchat filters, it's just a matter of time before even TikTok will adopt Dolby Atmos for an extra immersive experience of teenagers dancing to spacial audio with a unicorn head.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Soo… we're all going to have to get used to mixing in surround then, essentially?

 

I don't think so.

 

I think big music labels gonna use 2 different mixing services and treat it like how the movie industry deals with a movie.

 

A video editing guy is capable to do special effects and color grading himself, but the movie industry often hires separate companies to do the editing, color grading, and special effects - because they aim for the highest quality and only trust people/companies with specific skillset.

 

Plus, there's only a handful of certified Dolby mixing studio in this world (https://professional.dolby.com/cinema/industry/content-services/studios-with-dolby-premier-studio-certification/).

 

But mixing for indie artists with tight budget, maybe that will be a different story.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My understanding is Nuendo is the only DAW currently with Dolby Atmos (licensed) codecs in the box. If you are a film composer doing 5.1, 5.1.4, 7.1, 7.1.4 surround ... etc., then authoring for these multi-channel formats is something you could need. I think Cubase/Nuendo includes multi-channel surround setups via the control room. (BTW - There's a not too bad promotion to cross-grade from Cubase Pro to Nunedo until the end of June). But it will be interesting to see how far Apple goes in providing tools like codecs compared to maybe upmixing into immersive audio and/or advanced surround formats. PA and Waves I think already have plugins for this. It's a bigger investment and I think harder to setup up a room for more than just stereo using subwoofers, overhead speakers etc. Some people build home theaters designed for multichannel sound (especially during the pandemic). I'm not sold immersive or 3D audio created thru stereo playback will become a popular consumer format. You need good phase coherence, monitor alignment etc. between the left and right transducers to reproduce 3D audio effects. Gaming and VR helmets can help with control over where the transducers are w.r.t your ears but the fidelity is not as good compared to external monitors. There's been some success with creating 3D spatial audio from stereo in the past with schemes like Q-Sound - but you needed a very accurate monitoring setup for it. The DSP is better now, but in some ways "everything old is new again". Multi-channel sound is great in well-equipped and calibrated theaters. It's a good source of revenue for the film and audio industry and still gives most consumers an experience they can't get at home. At some point they will run out of overhead and surround channels to add though!
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I listened to several tracks with Spatial Audio using compatible earphones (Beats Flex) and I'm severely unimpressed.

You simply get the illusion of a widened stereo audio field, similar to binaural audio.

 

I have a surround audio system but it isn't Dolby Atmos capable, so I can't test whether or not Apple's tracks output full surround or not.

 

I have been working in surround/quad lately and the experience is WAY superior, for me at least. I'm surprised that Apple has no facility to stream or download actual surround mixes thus far.

 

Does anyone know of somewhere on the Web that sells or streams high quality surround mixes? I haven't found one yet.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I listened to several tracks with Spatial Audio using compatible earphones (Beats Flex) and I'm severely unimpressed.

You simply get the illusion of a widened stereo audio field, similar to binaural audio.

 

I have a surround audio system but it isn't Dolby Atmos capable, so I can't test whether or not Apple's tracks output full surround or not.

 

I have been working in surround/quad lately and the experience is WAY superior, for me at least. I'm surprised that Apple has no facility to stream or download actual surround mixes thus far.

 

Does anyone know of somewhere on the Web that sells or streams high quality surround mixes? I haven't found one yet.

 

youtube has some; search for 'surround', or '5.1', etc... any term you think might work. we listened to pink floyd's 'echoes' in surround recently; amazing stuff.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

youtube has some; search for 'surround', or '5.1', etc... any term you think might work.

@fisherking:

Thanks, but I was thinking more in terms of where I could place my own surround mixes either for sale or streaming.

 

unlisted files on youtube? then only the people you give the link to have access... (or private, where you need to add their email address)...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I listened to a few Apple Music spatial mixes.

what i thought worked well:

Taylor Swift - Folklore

Billie Eilish - No time to die

 

a lot of other just sounded like cheap reverb over everything. yuck.

 

If that was mixed in an Atmos certified studio and not just pulled through some cheap-ass "upmix" plugin i'll eat my M1 macbook

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I listened to a few Apple Music spatial mixes.

what i thought worked well:

Taylor Swift - Folklore

Billie Eilish - No time to die

 

a lot of other just sounded like cheap reverb over everything. yuck.

 

If that was mixed in an Atmos certified studio and not just pulled through some cheap-ass "upmix" plugin i'll eat my M1 macbook

 

what i'm getting from this is: i can just put cheap reverb over everything, & all my new work will be 'spatial audio-ready'.... cool.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks, but still not what I want.

Ideally I'd like Apple Music for Surround files, but that's not likely to happen since they just got married to Atmos and Spatial Audio.

Spotify doesn't offer surround files either.

 

and youtube won't work? i mean, you can get a free account, upload surround files, make them 'unlisted' (so only people with the link can access them... if you want). doesn't this do what you want?

 

doesn't seem to be a lot of other choices, if you want the files streaming...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks, but still not what I want.

Ideally I'd like Apple Music for Surround files, but that's not likely to happen since they just got married to Atmos and Spatial Audio.

Spotify doesn't offer surround files either.

This is exactly what you're looking for.

AWS

732398994_AWSMediaServices.thumb.png.fbe0bd6f3cb207ed70e27ab4b0c4a343.png

726246989_AWSStorage.thumb.png.7b6dc4eb9382bdcd5e81320a82572904.png

Azure

238996406_AzureMedia.thumb.png.edfbfdf3ee9b4a9dab0ad71b8949eb4c.png

1278288438_AzureStorage.thumb.png.09d70906b3b1f1caeb2c36ec6ee3876c.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

and youtube won't work? i mean, you can get a free account, upload surround files, make them 'unlisted' (so only people with the link can access them... if you want). doesn't this do what you want?

 

doesn't seem to be a lot of other choices, if you want the files streaming...

And how does anyone find me and my music on youtube if the files are unlisted?

Even if I have my own channel, it would be lost in the thousand gazillion channels of cute kitten movies and youtube narcissists.

 

I suppose I'm really griping about the fact that Apple Music has made a big deal out of what seems to me to be a somewhat gimmicky uber-stereo product (Spatial Audio) but has ignored true surround.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Restore formatting

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...