Music is life! But what is Dolby Atmos?
Audio is Spatial by default
When I was growing up music was part of my life without ever being conscious about it. Some of my earliest memories tied to music was to do with my family members. My Grandfather was a music teacher and every time we visited him I would hide under his piano while he played for us. To this day the piano is my favorite instrument, most probably because of these unconventional yet very intimate encounters at an early age. Mind you I never really learned to play properly, but that’s a different story.
He also liked listening to music a lot and showing it off to us when we visited. I remember his cassette deck that was shaped like a spaceship (this was like 40 years ago, so no streaming at the time) and was probably what started my lust for audio gear. He would put on music that was out of the ordinary which also helped shape my taste for a wide variety of music. An album I vividly remember him playing multiple times was Holst: The Planets rearranged by Isao Tomita, one of the pioneers of electronic music. It was classical music and science fiction at the same time.
For most of my childhood I shared a bedroom with my two elder brothers and because of the greater age difference between us (6 and 8 years) I was always subjected to a lot of music of their taste, mostly my eldest brother’s. Mike Oldfield was one of the artists he liked to listen to and also became one of my favorites as I became a teenager. It was a natural part of my life, that music was always playing in the background while I did my homework or played with my toys.
In my early teens I would listen to ambient recordings such as the waking hours of a jungle village, that helped me teleport to and understand a remote location and the people within it, that I have never actually seen or have been to.
At around the age of 16–18 my best friend and I would often just sit in his car and listen to albums that told a story. Listening to Progressive Rock artists’ records such as Frank Zappa was more of a journey we went on than just casual listening. We would also record the sound of our favorite movie to a cassette and “watched” the movie by just listening to it. Hearing only the dialogue, atmosphere and foley created by the sound engineers felt like we were inside the movie as a our brain filled in the missing visuals.
I guess the point I’m trying to make besides being a little nostalgic is that I liked music not only because of the usual means of rebelling as youth do, but because music was something that surrounded me while I was growing up. As a child I rarely sat down in front of speakers to specifically listen to music, but was simply in the same space as music was performed or played back in. This inspired me to experience music and sound in general as an insider (even though I never became a musician my self) rather than just an “outside” listener.
By changing perspective, like sitting under the piano or listening to a movie inside a car made me appreciate more the acoustics and atmosphere where sounds and instruments were placed in rather than concentrating just on the melody or the lyrics.
Another important factor to developing a career in sound was listening to a lot of live music and visiting as many different venues as possible. From the tiniest jazz clubs to the largest open air music festivals, each space adds to the actual experience of music, that is way more than just listening to your favorite band. The atmosphere of the venue and being surrounded by people enjoying the music with you also create an emotional state, that you can not faithfully reproduce by listening to stereo mixes.
What’s Dolby Atmos got to do with it?
You are probably wondering what the hell all this has to do with Dolby Atmos and I am getting there I promise. I first wanted to help paint a mental image of what it’s like to be surrounded by sound rather then sitting in front of it as an “outsider”, an audience.
Dolby Atmos is the technology, that reminded me once again what it’s like to experience music rather than just listening to it. It provides the tools for artists to create more than just a 2D representation of a wall of sound in front of their audience. It helps involve the listener on a much more emotional level by being encapsulated in a space created by the artist. Stereo or Mono just simply isn’t capable of delivering this added dimension.
Here is a simple technical explanation:
Dolby Atmos is an advanced, object-based surround sound technology developed by Dolby Laboratories. It is designed to provide a more immersive audio experience by adding height channels to traditional surround sound setups. This allows sound to be placed and moved in a three-dimensional space, all around the listener, creating a more realistic and engaging listening experience for music, movies, TV shows, video games and XR devices. You can listen to Dolby Atmos on mobile devices, headphones, smart speakers, soundbars, TVs and home theatre systems, inside cars and movie theatres as well as select music venues. Music Streaming Services such as Apple Music, Tidal and Amazon Music already provide Dolby Atmos for no additional fees.
Listening to Dolby Atmos for the fist time or indeed every time I listen to something new in this format simply gives me shivers and a sense of exploration into not just the music, but the intent of the artists, producers and mixing engineers, that created it.
I believe Dolby Atmos is the next generation format for producing and listening to Music. It’s as big a step up (if not bigger) than Mono to Stereo was. It will most likely co-exist with Stereo for several years before completely taking over as all consumer devices and professional gear will be made compatible. There are already affordable consumer offerings from Apple, Sonos, Samsung and Soundcore to name a few brands.
No, we don’t hear in stereo
It is a common misconception, that our hearing is stereo and therefore stereo playback is the most natural way of reproducing sounds. Humans actually have what’s called Binaural hearing because we have two ears.
Stereo on the other hand is the simplest way of creating a sound stage in front of us that simulates width and depth. With some mixing techniques we can even trick our brains into thinking we are hearing something from behind us, but it’s far from perfect or natural.
Sounds in nature are never stereo, but are actually always emanated from a single (mono) point in space from mechanical disturbance and vibration (a source) and it is the way these vibrations (sound waves) are reflected or carried by solid, liquid or gaseous materials (transmission), that we can hear them from all around us. Our two ears serve as a way to differentiate these sources in space form one another as there will be a delay between the timing a sound reaches our left and right ears, unless the sound is emitted from right in front of us and there is nothing to amplify or attenuate it on either side. We can localize sounds by analyzing the time difference (among many other attributes) between the arrival of the sound at each ear. Because of the shape of our ears and head we can hear things better coming from in front of us. We can still localize sounds coming from above, below or behind us, but to varying degree.
The fact is unless we are in an anechoic chamber sounds will always come from all around us. Our hearing is binaural, therefore spatial by default and it’s the natural way of experiencing the world around us, including music. Even if the whole band is on a stage and we are standing further away we are still going to hear reflections and reverberations from all around us as part of the overall sound that reaches our ears. Because of this a 360 degree sound stage is more natural and therefore capable of creating a lot more emotions wether it be surprise, anticipation, joy, fear or annoyance to name just a few.
Atmos is (not) surround
On a more technical note Dolby Atmos is not like previous channel-based Surround Sound formats. Discreet channel-based 5.1 and 7.1 Surround Sound is mixed to the exact number of channels and can only be reproduced if a playback system with the same number of channels (speakers) is present. This made the acceptance of these formats limited to music lovers willing to set up such a system. High costs and the lack of availability of most music in this format were prohibiting factors. I tried to dabble in 5.1 surround myself, but lost interest as there was not enough music to produce and therefore listen to.
Dolby Atmos does not suffer from either of these limitations. It is an adaptive format. Since it is decoded on the end user’s device it will make the most of the number of speakers available. If the listener is using ordinary headphones then a Binaural mix will be played. Headphones capable of head-tracking will provide an approximation of being surrounded by speakers (emulation). The Stereo version is always available when the device is not Dolby Atmos enabled or if the function is turned off. Because of this, the uninterrupted listening experience is guaranteed for anyone no matter the device they are listening on. You get to choose how you listen, but the options are there for further exploration. At the moment the level of immersion is different for headphones and speaker based devices, but spatialization technology is constantly evolving and head-tracking is also an important factor in making the listener feel like they are actually surrounded by sound sources.
The Space to Grow
Stereo is here to stay for some time with everything we already know and like about it as well as all of it’s limitations, but from now on it will just be one way to listen rather than the only way to share music with fans.
Dolby Atmos has the potential to be a new Master file format and as the technology and our techniques to mix spatial audio evolve it will soon be enough to create a single ADM BWF file, that can be decoded on any system of the listener’s choice. Artists and engineers need to experience Spatial Audio first hand to understand the added emotional impact it can add to their music or any other audio if done right.
It’s time to give music the space it deserves and the way it’s meant to be heard, because music has an important part in all of our lives.
If you are producer, musician or label and would like to have your music mixed in Dolby Atmos please visit dolbyatmosmusicmixing.com. Our introductory prices are up to 50% off for a limited time.
I am also available for one-on-one consultations to anyone interested in learning to produce and mix Dolby Atmos Music.
Our beginner and intermediate courses will be available soon. Look out for our low prices before they go up in September.
