Apple might soon pay artists more for offering their music in Atmos
https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/11/23996735/apple-music-spatial-audio-atmos-higher-royalties
Apple is determined to make spatial audio ubiquitous.
I have some AirPods that can do spacial audio, and I’ve yet to hear a track where I was like, “oh wow, that added so much!”
I disabled Atmos. Literally every song I tested sounded noticeably better in Stereo. Atmos makes sense for movies, but I’m convinced Atmos music is snake oil.
I use it on my Sonos atmos setup. It really is kinda hit or miss right now. I can see it working in classical music, there’s some excellent recording by the Berlin philharmonic in atmps which gives you the feeling of being in the concert hall.
Dunno about my heavy metal music though.
Oh man, yeah classical would be a much better use of spatial. Maybe live recordings in general, where that matters a bit more than studio recordings
Have you tried Gojira? There’s also a whole playlist of Atmos Metal to try out.
You do need to raise the volume up a bit compared to no Atmost to match the perceived volume.
I also think that Atmos is a tool that will be great once artists design their songs for it. The first 5.1 surround movies were pretty bad. Sound engineers were either pushing it too much for the wow effect or it was barely perceptible because the soundtrack was not designed for it. Now sound is edited with the understanding it will be mixed in multi channels from the start.
Haven’t tried Gojira yet. Thanks for the suggestion. Still waiting for parkway drive to send an atmos album
Some albums work better in Atmosphere than others, some felt quite immersive while others were just weird.
I guess it will take time to figure out the best way to mix recordings for it. Stereo has been the dominant format in music for so long, unlike video (which has its own problems with surround sound now).
I might be a weirdo with faulty ears but spatialized audio makes huge difference to me on AirPods Pro 2. Hand-made Dolby Atmos mixes don't offer much over that though tbh.
Maybe it’s my hardware, too. I have first gen AirPods Pro, and the spacial music simply hasn’t been impressive on them.
Nah, I have the 2nd gen and it just ruins music. The effect is somewhat interesting with some movies, but I mostly just stick with pure stereo.
@tartan @garretble I have the AirPods Max, and it’s really noticeable, but depends on what the sound engineer wanted us to hear, basically.
I use Logic Pro to make music, which allows you to mix in Atmos. Maybe I'll give this a try in one of my future releases. I'm not sure how I can get the atmos format into Apple Music though, since it needs to be uploaded via distributor, and distributors push your music to all platforms at the same time.