Spatial Audio(lefsetz.com)
lefsetz.com
Spatial Audio
https://lefsetz.com/wordpress/2021/06/11/spatial-audio/
137 comments
I'm confused. Did you even read the article? They are not talking about Atmos/spatial audio in general, they are talking about older mixes being "remixed" on mass without any input from the original artists and engineers.
I read the article. Totally different, but extremely entertaining https://www.bratproductions.com/mixes/mashups/brat_everlong_...
The songs are being remixed for Atmos. It's the same as someone remixing old mono songs in stereo, without the author/producer's input.
Presumably with consent from the current rights holders.
> Quite a few parts of it are completely wrong
Well, the whole thing is an anonymous email. And the "remixing by the truckload" doesn't seem in evidence given the low number of tracks released thus far; there are many more available on Tidal in Atmos currently.
> Jazz in Atmos is wonderful.
I've been very impressed by the classical tracks thus far, which have mostly used a hint of surround to let you feel as though you're at the front of a concert, with the players in a crescnt moon; and a bit of a delay in the rears to create the sensation of space echoing behind.
Some of the rock/pop mixes have been very interesting; the Linkin Park mixes use the surround/rear to create a "voices inside my head" effect where it makes sense on with the lyrics. Robert Palmer actually sounds like a much better singer on the remixes than the originals, with the guitars pushed out to the side rather than stomping all over the singer (whether they applied a little autotune as well, who knows?). I don't much like The Doors, but the use of surround in Riders on the Storm is remarkable.
There are some very poor remixes too, but that's the case for any re-engineering. As for the idea that only the original engineer or producer can make something work, well, that's just idiotic on a number of levels.
Well, the whole thing is an anonymous email. And the "remixing by the truckload" doesn't seem in evidence given the low number of tracks released thus far; there are many more available on Tidal in Atmos currently.
> Jazz in Atmos is wonderful.
I've been very impressed by the classical tracks thus far, which have mostly used a hint of surround to let you feel as though you're at the front of a concert, with the players in a crescnt moon; and a bit of a delay in the rears to create the sensation of space echoing behind.
Some of the rock/pop mixes have been very interesting; the Linkin Park mixes use the surround/rear to create a "voices inside my head" effect where it makes sense on with the lyrics. Robert Palmer actually sounds like a much better singer on the remixes than the originals, with the guitars pushed out to the side rather than stomping all over the singer (whether they applied a little autotune as well, who knows?). I don't much like The Doors, but the use of surround in Riders on the Storm is remarkable.
There are some very poor remixes too, but that's the case for any re-engineering. As for the idea that only the original engineer or producer can make something work, well, that's just idiotic on a number of levels.
> Most remixed songs from the 60's aren't the least bit interesting but the possibilities for the future are.
Then why start by screwing up the old music?
Then why start by screwing up the old music?
I totally agree - there are real possibilities to do interesting new creative work afforded by this, particularly if the barriers to entry are kept low/non-proprietary/open-to-all (…as another poster noted, it would have perhaps been nice if an open standard had been used instead…). I would only add that I think there are even more interesting possibilities for using the same technological capabilities with AR. That was the focus of the iPhone app. I wrote, which was more along the lines of Microsoft Soundscape:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/product/soundscape/
(but to be fair, before Microsoft Soundscape was available :)
The main question for me, beyond the rights of the artists is “can I listen to the version I prefer”? Apple Music has been pretty bad about the issue of multiple mixes of a certain track getting attached to the wrong album (or in odd cases subbing in a live version for an album track). If I don’t like what the Atmos mix of [favorite song] sounds like I’ll be unhappy. But most people probably won’t care.
Totally agree but wanted to add a point I found interesting doing some spatial audio work which is synths tend to spatialize poorly compared to more organic instruments. You can dirty them up with additional effects like distortion or an exciter, but I think it’s something to do with the evenness of the waveforms compared to the real world variance of a string or vocal cord vibrating.
Sorry, but I completely disagree. If what you were saying was true, then physical synths would have the same problems in live performances. I think the problem is not the instrument, but rather how people are used to using the instrument. If you're used to mixing synths for stereo, then your ideas for how to make a synth sound good beyond stereo are much weaker.
Also, there's so much you can do to the sound of a synth and so many powerful synths out there. If you're complaining about the sound being too smooth or simple, you just haven't played around with powerful synths often enough.
Also, there's so much you can do to the sound of a synth and so many powerful synths out there. If you're complaining about the sound being too smooth or simple, you just haven't played around with powerful synths often enough.
I was giving an anecdote, yo. Calm down. Synths in the digital environment of a spatial audio engine, which I've done work in both programmatically and as a musician/sound engineer, has problems with spatializing the unnatural waveforms that synths produce. Humans have trouble pinpointing where those sounds are coming from. It's easy to work around, and no one is saying "don't use synths in spatial audio", just that there are considerations to be made to make them work well in that environment. Just like you don't want to pre-apply reverb because that's going to be generated by the spatial engine.
Here's a link with a bit about sine waves, but I've found the same to be true (to a lesser extend) with saw, triangle, and square waves too.
https://developer.oculus.com/learn/audio-intro-sounddesign
Here's a link with a bit about sine waves, but I've found the same to be true (to a lesser extend) with saw, triangle, and square waves too.
https://developer.oculus.com/learn/audio-intro-sounddesign
There is a sixty-year tradition now of pieces for instrumentalists + tape or live electronics, where it is the synthesized material that is spatialized through loudspeakers around the audience.
Completely different context than using a synth in a digital realm. I'm not saying you can't spatialize synths, but that the waveforms are unlike sounds we encounter in the natural world so it takes adding a bit of "naturalness" to them to help our ears understand where they are in the space around us. That's something that's harder to do in a digital environment like a spatial audio engine, but is easy enough to work around. Just an ancedote on spatialized audio in software, which again is different than what you're talking about.
Many people in the audiophile community believe that measurements and bit-perfect are the entire scope of good sound. The author is clearly someone who appreciates good audio, with mid-range headphones.
The smaller part of the community acknowledges that beauty is in the eye/ear of the beholder/listener.
When it comes to headphones, though, audio is to some degree already spatial. Apple does seem to be spreading butter on butter here.
The smaller part of the community acknowledges that beauty is in the eye/ear of the beholder/listener.
When it comes to headphones, though, audio is to some degree already spatial. Apple does seem to be spreading butter on butter here.
> Listening to some modern pop with lots of synths and layers upon layers of backing vocals, the experience is much better.
I've listened to quite a few pop songs I know, and without fail they sound much muddier in Atmos. Vocals are recessed, the bass loses definition. The improvement in sound stage feels better when you switch back and forth, but paradoxically the sound quality is worse.
I've listened to quite a few pop songs I know, and without fail they sound much muddier in Atmos. Vocals are recessed, the bass loses definition. The improvement in sound stage feels better when you switch back and forth, but paradoxically the sound quality is worse.
There's nothing wrong with spatial audio, it's beautiful. There's something terribly wrong with Apple trying to force audio that wasn't meant to be spatial into being spatial.
If the original artist intended the audio to be spatial, it has enormous potential and I'm pretty much sure there will be more and more artists doing that, creating a new category. But taking our good ol' perfectly-sounding stereo songs and turning them into spatial just for the sake of marketing, not good.
If the original artist intended the audio to be spatial, it has enormous potential and I'm pretty much sure there will be more and more artists doing that, creating a new category. But taking our good ol' perfectly-sounding stereo songs and turning them into spatial just for the sake of marketing, not good.
Wait, are artists being forced to do this? Or are you referring to old, dead artists whose music is being converted? If the latter, then it is hard to say they wouldn’t have used spatial Gad the technology existed.
> “Just for the sake of marketing”
This seems to conflict with the first sentence where you admit it’s beautiful.
> “Just for the sake of marketing”
This seems to conflict with the first sentence where you admit it’s beautiful.
In the first sentence I meant spatial audio is good, and what I was referring to was when it was meant to be spatial from beginning, intended by the artists. "Just for the sake of marketing" obviously refers to Apple taking original artist's stereo-intended song and turning it into spatial, which might not necessarily what the artist wants audience to hear under their name.
It's a bit of an insult to the original artist, in my view. When I create something, it's an expression of my personality, and I the choices I make reflect my aesthetic. If you take it and remix it, that's fine, but don't put my name on it, it's "Song X (Apple Atmos Remix)" now.
Presumably all the rights holders have agreed to the “remix” without this demand. Surely if you create your own music you can tell Apple to go to hell and keep it in the version you created. Worst case they drop all non-Atmos files in the future and you become de-platformed. Doubtful that will happen given the size of their library.
Yes, but I have a suspicion the rights holder in this case is the label and not the composer/performer.
That’s almost certainly the case, and something the composer/performer signed up for as part of the deal. So what’s the conflict with someone who owns rights to some thing allowing someone else to do things with that thing?
It just feels like a massive stretch to act like these poor performers are being taken advantage of with Atmos remixing.
It just feels like a massive stretch to act like these poor performers are being taken advantage of with Atmos remixing.
Spatial audio per se is not a scam, but its effective simulation is actually potentially rather complicated and I too worry about its successful implementation by Apple… Funnily enough, I had plans for a system to implement spatial audio using smartphones/headphones originally back in 2006 and more recently wrote an app for iOS trying to implement it (…prototype/demo. that I made worked pretty well - used what I learnt working on games/interactive audio design…) I had toyed with starting a business myself over the years but life got in the way sort of… Before all this was announced I even (naively) wrote to Apple sort of roundabout-ly trying for a job in order to improve their spatial audio offering, believe it or not, but only got a polite sort of: ‘don’t call us we’ll call you’ kind of reply, which was understandable… (…don’t be thinking differently! :) Some students I taught/supervised/wrote a brief for a project of’s up at the university here subsequently started a company making a 3D binaural audio plugin thing - the business was bought by Facebook, whete they were afterwards employed implementing spatial audio into some of their offerings also… Anyhow, don’t want to bore anyone, but happy to answer any questions about it (do actually know what I’m talking about more or less in this area, as opposed to most stuff I read on HN.! :) P.S. Jens Blauert wrote (what used to be, at least) the standard reference on this:
https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/spatial-hearing-revised-editi...
From what I understand, to really get spatial audio from stereo headphones, you need to use a HRTF (head-related transfer function) specific to the person.
There's an open dataset of 50 different HRTFs [1] and a long video to compare them [2]. For me personally, only 2 of those 50 samples actually vaguely sound like audio is ever coming from in front of me. Left, right, and behind mostly works, but for most samples when it should be coming from in front of me it either comes from behind me or from above me.
So it shouldn't be really possible to get good spatial audio without 3d-scanning a persons head or at least making them go through a calibration step where they rate "where is the sound coming from?" . And it definitely shouldn't be possible to get any good results by pre-mixing the audio down to stereo before a user-specific transform is applied.
[1]: http://recherche.ircam.fr/equipes/salles/listen/index.html [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCXQp7swp5k
There's an open dataset of 50 different HRTFs [1] and a long video to compare them [2]. For me personally, only 2 of those 50 samples actually vaguely sound like audio is ever coming from in front of me. Left, right, and behind mostly works, but for most samples when it should be coming from in front of me it either comes from behind me or from above me.
So it shouldn't be really possible to get good spatial audio without 3d-scanning a persons head or at least making them go through a calibration step where they rate "where is the sound coming from?" . And it definitely shouldn't be possible to get any good results by pre-mixing the audio down to stereo before a user-specific transform is applied.
[1]: http://recherche.ircam.fr/equipes/salles/listen/index.html [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCXQp7swp5k
You’re absolutely right that the most effective simulation would use a custom HRTF for each person, as the shape of the head, shoulders, pinnae of the ear etc etc. all play some part... There are some headphones that attempt to go some way towards this by taking pictures of/otherwise ‘scanning’ the users ear (eg. https://electronics.sony.com/360-reality-audio
https://mysofa.audio/
…paper on the subject:
https://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=19855
…interestingly, for Apple’s future plans perhaps, ear canal used for biometric validation:
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3351239 )
The strongest ‘cue’ is probably the ‘interaural time delay’, which is easy enough to fake, but as you say, without fixed sources (imagine the calibration/setup of a VR headset) and subsequently taking into account that people actually turn/tilt their heads to better appreciate the direction a sound is coming from, as apparently Apple
does relative to the device the tracks are playing from:
https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/05/18/apples-spatial-au...
(in order to take best advantage of what you experienced where we can better locate left/right than forward/back...), the efficacy is reduced. Generally we are also much better at localizing sounds in the lateral plane than the vertical one (…evolutionarily perhaps this was more important in order to avoid being eaten by sabre-toothed tigers or something? :)
There are other cues deriving from ‘head-shadow’ (somewhat like an eq.), reflection from shoulders and even reflections from the acoustic environment and so on that are subtler/more complicated…
Traditionally dummy heads with anatomically ‘average’ characteristics and binaural microphones in the ‘ears’ have been used to make binaural recordings, but if you were to venture out with binaural microphones in your ears and then later play back the recordings the effect can be startlingly effective…
[as an aside, when I posted the above comment in this thread a couple of days ago when it was first on HN, the title of the post was ‘Spatial Audio is a Scam’ :) ]
> Generally we are also much better at localizing sounds in the lateral plane than the vertical one
Our ears are separated laterally but not vertically.
Our ears are separated laterally but not vertically.
So they are. We’re better able to localise sounds in the horizontal plane if you prefer, though because of the shape of our ears/pinnae and so on, we can also detect to some extent whether they are above or below/in front of or behind our heads (perhaps there is more accurate terminology for it:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatomical_plane )
This page is really helpful:
https://professional.dolby.com/music/support-faq/
As far as I remember it’s a patent minefield
If you can remember any further info. about this I’d be very interested.
No details, I could look but I presume I wouldn’t be better than yourself
Some mixes are very off, but I’ve loved most of them so far.
In fact I hope that more artists start recording and mastering for this from the start going forward.
That said, as a layman non-audiophile who doesn’t know the technical engineering details, I can’t help but wonder if the biggest win for me is an apparent lack of compression.
I don’t mean “bitrate and file size” compression, but rather the “take the soft stuff and loud stuff and cram them together” compression.
The thing I’ve hated about music from around 2010 onwards is just how much all the instruments and vocals blend together, especially in rock and pop music where all of the drums become as “snappy” as the snare and none of the instruments sound distinct. Everything sounds crisp, to the point that nothing sounds crisp.
At times, and with some albums, it actually becomes exhausting to listen to.
I noticed immediately with Apple’s Atmos mixes I have to crank the volume up a couple extra notches, but when I do I hear everything more distinctly, much like many of the albums from the 70s, 80s and 90s before everything had to be compressed and made louder.
But, like I said, I don’t know what I’m talking about or if there’s anything to this, but I’m so far getting more out of the average Atmos mix than I am of the average stereo mix.
Then the question becomes, if the artist intended for everything to sound one way but I enjoy it more the other way, who’s right?
In fact I hope that more artists start recording and mastering for this from the start going forward.
That said, as a layman non-audiophile who doesn’t know the technical engineering details, I can’t help but wonder if the biggest win for me is an apparent lack of compression.
I don’t mean “bitrate and file size” compression, but rather the “take the soft stuff and loud stuff and cram them together” compression.
The thing I’ve hated about music from around 2010 onwards is just how much all the instruments and vocals blend together, especially in rock and pop music where all of the drums become as “snappy” as the snare and none of the instruments sound distinct. Everything sounds crisp, to the point that nothing sounds crisp.
At times, and with some albums, it actually becomes exhausting to listen to.
I noticed immediately with Apple’s Atmos mixes I have to crank the volume up a couple extra notches, but when I do I hear everything more distinctly, much like many of the albums from the 70s, 80s and 90s before everything had to be compressed and made louder.
But, like I said, I don’t know what I’m talking about or if there’s anything to this, but I’m so far getting more out of the average Atmos mix than I am of the average stereo mix.
Then the question becomes, if the artist intended for everything to sound one way but I enjoy it more the other way, who’s right?
For a similar spatial audio experience I use foobar2000 and this plugin:
https://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_dsp_dolbyhp
It is quite old, but still works perfectly fine with the newest foobar versions.
Download foobar2000. Go to Preferences -> Components -> "Install..." and install the Dolby Plugin.
Then get your "dolbyhph.dll". Unfortunately you need to find it on the internet, as it is technically copyrighted and distribution of that file is probably not allowed. SHA1 for dolbyhph.dll v1.20.0.276 is 819FC1EE87B15996B89328061693F4D37FD7DB39
Then go to Preferences -> Playback -> DSP Manager. Add "Convert stereo to 4 channels" (sounds better and a little closer to the original imo) and "Dolby Headphone" to your active DSPs. Click on the 3 dots next to "Dolby Headphone" to open its configuration. Select your "dolbyhph.dll", Room model "DH2", lower amplification to ~70% (avoids clipping), no dynamic compression.
Apply, and then listen to any stereo song you want. Enjoy! Also try to experiment the DSPs (only Dolby, 4channels+Dolby, Upmix5.1+Dolby, ...) - they change live while you play a song.
Download foobar2000. Go to Preferences -> Components -> "Install..." and install the Dolby Plugin.
Then get your "dolbyhph.dll". Unfortunately you need to find it on the internet, as it is technically copyrighted and distribution of that file is probably not allowed. SHA1 for dolbyhph.dll v1.20.0.276 is 819FC1EE87B15996B89328061693F4D37FD7DB39
Then go to Preferences -> Playback -> DSP Manager. Add "Convert stereo to 4 channels" (sounds better and a little closer to the original imo) and "Dolby Headphone" to your active DSPs. Click on the 3 dots next to "Dolby Headphone" to open its configuration. Select your "dolbyhph.dll", Room model "DH2", lower amplification to ~70% (avoids clipping), no dynamic compression.
Apply, and then listen to any stereo song you want. Enjoy! Also try to experiment the DSPs (only Dolby, 4channels+Dolby, Upmix5.1+Dolby, ...) - they change live while you play a song.
According to Apple, wireless headphones like the AirPods do support spacial audio. No idea where the author got the information they wouldn't.
Apart from that, I get how an audio engineer would think that way, but for me, and I suppose most music listeners, what's important is that the sound is great. And personally I really like spacial audio.
Apart from that, I get how an audio engineer would think that way, but for me, and I suppose most music listeners, what's important is that the sound is great. And personally I really like spacial audio.
> No idea where the author got the information they wouldn't.
Being misinformed.
Apple Lossless HD Audio, which was recently announced, is not currently supported by wireless (read: bluetooth) headphones.
Being misinformed.
Apple Lossless HD Audio, which was recently announced, is not currently supported by wireless (read: bluetooth) headphones.
Apple Lossless HD Audio is not spatial audio. They're two different things.
Lossless HD Audio is uncompressed audio at around 9216 kbps.
Spatial Dolby Atmos audio is compressed audio at between 384 and 768 kbps
Lossless HD Audio is uncompressed audio at around 9216 kbps.
Spatial Dolby Atmos audio is compressed audio at between 384 and 768 kbps
Yes, that was my point--when the author said spatial audio was not bluetooth compatible, they were likely confusing that of Lossless HD Audio.
I don't know how the downmix for headphones is created in this case, but if it spatializes the individual objects correctly, this removes the in-head-localization artifact that unprocessed stereo on headphones suffers from naturally, especially for sounds with a center pan. We have just trained ourselves to accept that headphones make sounds appear inside our heads. And I am pretty certain that the author is mistaking the acceptance of this artifact for a "prominent presence" of the vocals in the demo tracks.
Listening to a track that was intended for a stereo loudspeaker pair on headphones always creates a degraded experience if there is no further processing of the audio signal. Judging spatial audio without consideration of these differences leads to weird (wrong?) conclusions.
And why does it matter how expensive a certain pair of headphones is? If I want to know the price tag I can look it up!
Listening to a track that was intended for a stereo loudspeaker pair on headphones always creates a degraded experience if there is no further processing of the audio signal. Judging spatial audio without consideration of these differences leads to weird (wrong?) conclusions.
And why does it matter how expensive a certain pair of headphones is? If I want to know the price tag I can look it up!
> And why does it matter how expensive a certain pair of headphones is?
“Grown-ups love figures. When you describe a new friend to them, they never ask you about the important things. They never say ‘What's his voice like? What are his favourite games? Does he collect butterflies?’ Instead they demand ‘How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much does he weigh? How much does his father earn?’ Only then do they feel they know him. If you say to the grown-ups: ‘I've seen a lovely house made of pink brick, with geraniums in the windows and doves on the roof’, they are unable to picture such a house. You must say: ‘I saw a house that come a hundred thousand francs.’ Then they cry out: ‘How pretty!’”
“Grown-ups love figures. When you describe a new friend to them, they never ask you about the important things. They never say ‘What's his voice like? What are his favourite games? Does he collect butterflies?’ Instead they demand ‘How old is he? How many brothers has he? How much does he weigh? How much does his father earn?’ Only then do they feel they know him. If you say to the grown-ups: ‘I've seen a lovely house made of pink brick, with geraniums in the windows and doves on the roof’, they are unable to picture such a house. You must say: ‘I saw a house that come a hundred thousand francs.’ Then they cry out: ‘How pretty!’”
…yes, related to ‘crosstalk’:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crosstalk
You probably mean crossfeed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossfeed
yes, apologies - thanks for the correction! :)
For a more balanced perspective, read the Verge's review. [1] My experience so far matches theirs: the impact varies by album/track, and in some cases, the lossless version remains better.
https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/9/22525028/apple-music-spati...
https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/9/22525028/apple-music-spati...
It isn't really that central to TFA's main points, but I find it very disappointing that the audio tech world seems to be settling for Dolby Atmos. Once again the choice is made to use licensable technology in preference over non-licensable, libre technology (Ambisonics). Both have their pros and cons, but only one of them is associated with a licensed-based revenue stream.
Sadly it's probably the patent-pool monopoly using its leverage. No h264/h265 without HDMI, HDCP, and all that crap, probably find Ambisonics is locked out for not being a pool contributer.
Yes - it does seems a shame and potentially a loss to developers/the open source community? Surely an open standard like Ambisonics would have had more of a chance of being widely adopted/supported and therefore perhaps longer-lived anyhow (was just thinking about MIDI)… I guess that’s not the end goal for Apple?
From that post it doesn't sound like Atmos itself is the problem, but either the mixing engineers or the source material.
>I compared Spatial Audio tracks to their HD equivalents on Amazon Music and I found exactly what one writer said: the vocal gets lost. Instead of being up front and in your face, it’s buried more in the mix.
That complaint there sounds more like a mixing problem than a technology problem.
It sounds a lot like the original issues that came up when people first started converting music to from mono to stereo or stereo to surround, it's a new technology that requires some time for people to learn the ins and outs of. The early mixes released using this will likely be a mixed bag. Like pretty much every other time people have tried to take music written with fewer tracks and make it sound like it was recorded with more.
>I compared Spatial Audio tracks to their HD equivalents on Amazon Music and I found exactly what one writer said: the vocal gets lost. Instead of being up front and in your face, it’s buried more in the mix.
That complaint there sounds more like a mixing problem than a technology problem.
It sounds a lot like the original issues that came up when people first started converting music to from mono to stereo or stereo to surround, it's a new technology that requires some time for people to learn the ins and outs of. The early mixes released using this will likely be a mixed bag. Like pretty much every other time people have tried to take music written with fewer tracks and make it sound like it was recorded with more.
Just because of the sheer number of tracks there are in the world it is clear the quality here will vary wildly.
I really want to hear jazz like this. Specifically trios/quartets. Even if it is not the original and I can hear each musician separately I think it would be worth it.
I really want to hear jazz like this. Specifically trios/quartets. Even if it is not the original and I can hear each musician separately I think it would be worth it.
Highly recommend listening to Jazz in spatial. There's such nice separation between the instruments. With the head tracking in iOS 15 you can isolate stuff a little too by turning your ear towards certain sounds (a little gimmicky I'll admit but but it does let you experience parts of the track you may have missed before).
They have Jazz with spatial. Apple Music on android doesn't have spatial audio support annoyingly but Tidal does if your phone supports Dolby Atmos so I've been checking out a trial of that instead.
You can get it with the beta if Apple Music for android
Note that an AppleTV -> multichannel reciever will get you what you want. You don't need either Apple headphones or even a Dolby reciever.
If anyone wants to hear a sample of this, you can find it here:
https://www.dolby.com/technologies/dolby-atmos/
It's pretty impressive with headphones.
https://www.dolby.com/technologies/dolby-atmos/
It's pretty impressive with headphones.
At least the Marvin Gaye track is not a good example of just the Atmos difference. It is a completely remastered version that sounds nothing like the original. It also is 3.5 dB louder, which naturally would make the listener think it sounds better.
Overall, I think the OP was on point. It seemed like the mixing engineers thought that the additional spatialization provided by Atmos gives them the license to crank up the volume of all the supporting instruments (e.g. congas). This indeed drowns out the main vocal and puts it on the listener to focus on it (which is of course now easier due to the spatial separation with the instruments).
Overall, I think the OP was on point. It seemed like the mixing engineers thought that the additional spatialization provided by Atmos gives them the license to crank up the volume of all the supporting instruments (e.g. congas). This indeed drowns out the main vocal and puts it on the listener to focus on it (which is of course now easier due to the spatial separation with the instruments).
Personally, I didn't feel it was particularly great. All the sound seemed to come from in front of me and sounded like the stereo effects occasionally used in music tracks. Perhaps it's due to the shape of my head and ears not matching their model, as suggested in some of the comments above.
I’ve tested a bunch of the spatial audio tracks on Apple Music with multiple high end headphones - you can make it work with any headphone if you set Atmos to “always on” in Apple Music. They sounded alright but I think you’ll need a real Dolby Atmos system with many speakers to really experience it properly. On headphones it just gets rendered via a binaural generic HRTF (with 3dof head tracking on the AirPod pro/Max).
It’s alright but not a game changer for me at least. Not that different to a regular binaural recording on headphones.
Nice to have Dolby Atmos baked into Logic Pro when it arrives, for creating Atmos mixes easily.
It’s alright but not a game changer for me at least. Not that different to a regular binaural recording on headphones.
Nice to have Dolby Atmos baked into Logic Pro when it arrives, for creating Atmos mixes easily.
Slightly related. But I’ve had single-sided deafness all my life (which means all I’ve experienced is mono audio) and now with this shift from stereo to spatial. I was wondering if some kind HN users could fill me in on what I’m missing out. (By listening to stereo tracks in mono and observing how it sounds or anything that could give me a picture of that— is it crowded? Distorted? Etc). The only pertinent study I could find on this is https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28534734/
I assume you have two eyes, right? What happens when you close one eye and only have monocular vision?
Not much, but it's a lot harder to judge distances correctly. You still can, if you use outside knowledge and perspective, but it's less accurate.
Same for stereo hearing. With two ears it's easier to locate where a sound is coming from. With one ear you can tell if something at constant volume is moving away or moving towards you based on loudness. With two ears you can tell if something at constant volume is stationary or circling around you.
Unfortunately I don't think there are words to describe it. You "just know", because it's an unconscious brain thing.
You could sort of simulate it by rotating your head 180 degrees and noticing how the sound changes. People with two working ears can do this without moving their head.
The effect for music is mostly: it's easier to separate instruments even if they are the same volume, if they are in different spatial locations so the brain can filter against it. Stuff can sound less "cluttered, muddy", but it doesn't help as much as you think in recordings because you as a listener can't move the microphone. I think it would be a bigger deal in small live shows, or music performed in virtual reality where a 3D engine can calculate the audio delay appropriately for each ear, and that difference is relevant because you the listener are close to the musician and possibly moving relative to them.
Not much, but it's a lot harder to judge distances correctly. You still can, if you use outside knowledge and perspective, but it's less accurate.
Same for stereo hearing. With two ears it's easier to locate where a sound is coming from. With one ear you can tell if something at constant volume is moving away or moving towards you based on loudness. With two ears you can tell if something at constant volume is stationary or circling around you.
Unfortunately I don't think there are words to describe it. You "just know", because it's an unconscious brain thing.
You could sort of simulate it by rotating your head 180 degrees and noticing how the sound changes. People with two working ears can do this without moving their head.
The effect for music is mostly: it's easier to separate instruments even if they are the same volume, if they are in different spatial locations so the brain can filter against it. Stuff can sound less "cluttered, muddy", but it doesn't help as much as you think in recordings because you as a listener can't move the microphone. I think it would be a bigger deal in small live shows, or music performed in virtual reality where a 3D engine can calculate the audio delay appropriately for each ear, and that difference is relevant because you the listener are close to the musician and possibly moving relative to them.
There’s been some wonderful recordings that were designed solely/primarily for mono playback (early Motown/rock n roll/blues for example) that IMHO actually kind of benefit somehow from lack of stereo separation. If mixed well, the instruments can blend really well and work as one unit and there’s kind of an energy and punch to the speaker/s working as one... Early stereo records often had rather drastic left/right panning (eg. some Beatles stuff) or had to hedge their bets in case they were played back through eg. mono radios/badly set-up stereos and so on… Something similar is still the case when engineers think about what their track might sound like coming through a crappy mono phone speaker with no bass at 128kbps/what have you… The advice I’ve always heard is that you should make sure that your mix would ‘fold down’, so to speak, to mono anyhow… So you should never rely on the listener being in the sweet spot (if you think about eg. a club where an audience member could be stood directly in front of one speaker, but barely hear another, or some listeners weird home setups with one speaker balanced on a bookcase and the other on a table or something). In most environments you get complicated reflections and build ups/absorptions of various frequencies due to the acoustics anyhow… Although with single-sided deafness you won’t get the effect of directionality from the delay between the sound hitting one ear before the other, I imagine you would still experience the attenuation of certain frequencies as the sound moves around your head, the height dependent effects and so on …I suppose it’s not a million miles away from if you were to close one eye - monoscopic as opposed to stereoscopic? Bass frequencies are mostly experienced more or less monophonically, so you’re not missing out there... I wonder if reverb effects/using impulse responses of different environments and volume adjustments might also help give some of the impression?
> Early stereo records often had rather drastic left/right panning (eg. some Beatles stuff) or had to hedge their bets in case they were played back through eg. mono radios/badly set-up stereos and so on…
Many early stereo mixes were so bad because the stereo mix literally just put half the channels into L and the other half into R. For Beatles’ stereo mixes you would lose basically half the song by changing the balance full L or R. This was the case for many other early mono to stereo masters. Capitol Records’ Duphonic process also added a slight delay between the two channels to give a feeling of depth. It almost certainly didn’t reflect what the original producers or engineers would have ever intended.
For many classic albums that got this “fake stereo” treatment if you were lucky you would eventually end up with a proper stereo remaster done decades later. For example, hearing the original the properly remastered stereo version of Pet Sounds released in 1997 is a drastic improvement over the Duophonic stereo mix from 1966.
Many early stereo mixes were so bad because the stereo mix literally just put half the channels into L and the other half into R. For Beatles’ stereo mixes you would lose basically half the song by changing the balance full L or R. This was the case for many other early mono to stereo masters. Capitol Records’ Duphonic process also added a slight delay between the two channels to give a feeling of depth. It almost certainly didn’t reflect what the original producers or engineers would have ever intended.
For many classic albums that got this “fake stereo” treatment if you were lucky you would eventually end up with a proper stereo remaster done decades later. For example, hearing the original the properly remastered stereo version of Pet Sounds released in 1997 is a drastic improvement over the Duophonic stereo mix from 1966.
What the other comments said, but keep in mind that it's not very precise in normal circumstances: you have an extremely rough estimate of direction (along all axis) and distance.
You can increase the accuracy if you are afforded the opportunity to concentrate on the sound.
You can increase the accuracy if you are afforded the opportunity to concentrate on the sound.
I listened to the tracks. I like the spatial versions better. What are you going to do?
Lots of people like gimmicky things better, just like lots of people like to turn up the bass and treble all the way. But lots of us (and I'm a musician and audio engineer) appreciate high quality balanced distortion free audio, and want to hear the music the way the original artist intended. Just because you can make sounds bounce around in space doesn't make the music better, especially if the original recording wasn't conceived that way in the first place. I would always prefer listening to the original intent of the artist.
> I would always prefer listening to the original intent of the artist.
I always prefer listening to the thing that sounds better to me. I don't care about what the artist wants.
I always prefer listening to the thing that sounds better to me. I don't care about what the artist wants.
Chances are the artist has no idea what kind of speakers you are using anyway
You’re downvoted, but enjoyment of music is obviously subjective. There is no “wrong” way to listen to music (or anything really).
Exactly. This thread is mindboggling.
Taste in music is purely subjective. If users enjoy listening to Spatial Audio, who are you to criticize it as a scam?
Taste in music is purely subjective. If users enjoy listening to Spatial Audio, who are you to criticize it as a scam?
Because everyone using Apple music is forced to listen to it. Whether they like the remixes or not.
There’s actually a setting to choose
That just isn’t true.
Settings > Music > Dolby Atmos > Off.
Settings > Music > Dolby Atmos > Off.
> and want to hear the music the way the original artist intended
Curious how you know what the artist intended. Did they intend for the track to sound like you're at a stadium show or sitting in a small music studio with headphones on?
Curious how you know what the artist intended. Did they intend for the track to sound like you're at a stadium show or sitting in a small music studio with headphones on?
There is a notion of ‘reference’ in audio and visual information. You can get reference speakers, headphones, and monitors - their role is to reproduce the information without ‘color’. They present ‘faithfully’. This is what is often meant by ‘listen as X intended,’ although to be honest the interest of many audiophiles is to set up a listening environment that does impart some color while remaining faithful to the artistic choices in the mix of the original music. And mixing _is_ an art.
The article suggests, and I agree, that by making what are in effect unauthorized remixes of these works, Apple are interfering with what the artist intended.
Eddie Cue, Apple SVP of Services (in charge of Apple Music) is quoted in the Verge article [1] on this as saying, “This requires somebody who’s a sound engineer, and the artist to sit back and listen, and really make the right calls and what the right things to do are. It’s a process that takes time, but it’s worth it.” Of course you note he says this requires the artist, not present in Marvin Gaye’s case and likely most others, and time, which it is implied is not being given to this process in the article above.
The visual analogy in the article is apt - imagine Apple were revisiting their movie library - including old classics like The Maltese Falcon - and applying a process that makes them viewable in simulated 3D — but that, even further — if that person tries to view it with equipment that doesn’t support the head-turning 3D effect - they see it in an _altered_ version of 2D from the original. And this now becomes canon for a certain group of people - this version that is a byproduct of an effort to reverse the effect of a series of creative decisions made to make a derivative work of the original, done without, in this analogy, the input of the director or cinematographer.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/9/22525028/apple-music-spati...
The article suggests, and I agree, that by making what are in effect unauthorized remixes of these works, Apple are interfering with what the artist intended.
Eddie Cue, Apple SVP of Services (in charge of Apple Music) is quoted in the Verge article [1] on this as saying, “This requires somebody who’s a sound engineer, and the artist to sit back and listen, and really make the right calls and what the right things to do are. It’s a process that takes time, but it’s worth it.” Of course you note he says this requires the artist, not present in Marvin Gaye’s case and likely most others, and time, which it is implied is not being given to this process in the article above.
The visual analogy in the article is apt - imagine Apple were revisiting their movie library - including old classics like The Maltese Falcon - and applying a process that makes them viewable in simulated 3D — but that, even further — if that person tries to view it with equipment that doesn’t support the head-turning 3D effect - they see it in an _altered_ version of 2D from the original. And this now becomes canon for a certain group of people - this version that is a byproduct of an effort to reverse the effect of a series of creative decisions made to make a derivative work of the original, done without, in this analogy, the input of the director or cinematographer.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/9/22525028/apple-music-spati...
I imagine the artist approved a (stereo) mix they heard on decent studio monitors and maybe stereo headphones too. I’m not sure how they’d feel about someone else then creating an atmos/spacial audio version without their involvement. Mixing is integral to the artistic part of making recorded music.
I’d be interested to know whether the tracks appearing on Apple Music are being created from the original tracks/stems (i.e. properly remixed), or whether an algorithm is being applied to the same stereo mixdown that would have created a standard (stereo) master.
I’d be interested to know whether the tracks appearing on Apple Music are being created from the original tracks/stems (i.e. properly remixed), or whether an algorithm is being applied to the same stereo mixdown that would have created a standard (stereo) master.
They are remixed by the original engineers (or at least, an engineer.) Some of them are mixed better than others.
Or what happens with derived works? When you listen to a Coldplay song... do you follow their intent or Kraftwerk's intent? Oh no!
Or music that was composed before modern audio equipment - "If Bach had known about spatial audio! I know he would have loved it" :D
Or music that was composed before modern audio equipment - "If Bach had known about spatial audio! I know he would have loved it" :D
Stockhausen would have been like: ‘Yo dawg…’ :)
Do you end up in a divide by zero situation when the artist intended you to turn the bass and treble all the way up? :)
I think I remember some tracks where the artist is explicitly instructing me to turn up the bass (and make the speakers pop).
Speaking as a musician, I agree that there is a level of respect required for the original mix. Though, in the case of Spacial Audio, this isn't a matter of "gimmicky" sound, this is headphones reproducing the effect that loudspeakers already have. This isn't new and has been in audio engineering circles for a long while (https://goodhertz.co/canopener-studio/) but Apple has added 6dof head tracking which makes the effect truly awe-inspiring.
I just noticed that the author wasn't using the AirPods Pro / Max which Spacial Audio was designed in tandem with. No wonder they didn't find it impressive and are calling it a scam.
TBH, I'm sad I wasted my time reading such an uninformed opinion piece.
TBH, I'm sad I wasted my time reading such an uninformed opinion piece.
I think you're missing one of the main points, which is someone using other headphones is still getting the atmos version, but in normal stereo - and when that happens, large parts of the balance of the mix are lost as he explains in the section on What's Going On. So it's not the original track as the artist, mix engineer and masterer intended you to hear.
I don't think that's true? There's nothing special about Apple's implementation of Dolby Atmos over headphones besides the head tracking bit (and that's not needed for music) that need their headphones. If you set Dolby Atmos to "Always On" in the settings it will give you the Atmos headphones mix regardless of what headphones being used. Airpods and Beats are still just stereo headphones.
Atmos works pretty well over normal stereo headphones and I've used it for years on PC while watching supported Blu-rays.
I'm kinda peeved at Apple's lazy implementation because it's only supported on Apple devices and not devices that support Atmos and work with Apple music like a PC or Samsung Android phone.
Atmos works pretty well over normal stereo headphones and I've used it for years on PC while watching supported Blu-rays.
I'm kinda peeved at Apple's lazy implementation because it's only supported on Apple devices and not devices that support Atmos and work with Apple music like a PC or Samsung Android phone.
It’s supported in the beta version of Apple Music for Android.
I initially thought the same on another article, however it turns our spatial audio in the apple music sense, is not exclusive to the pros/max - despite sharing the same name as the head tracking-esque feature in those headphones.
Quite disappointed as it is quite obviously confusing
Quite disappointed as it is quite obviously confusing
you're conflating unrelated things
6dof has nothing to do with SpaTial audio and no AirPods Pro/Max weren't designed 'in tandem with' it
you'll get Apple's positional audio (6dof) only with supported hardware - which includes AirPods Pro/Max, iPads and AppleTV - and is designed for positional listening relative to source/device, which has nothing to do w/ Atmos mixed Apple Music spatial tracks discussed here
(and it actually might be 3dof only, not sure since i've never listened to it)
6dof has nothing to do with SpaTial audio and no AirPods Pro/Max weren't designed 'in tandem with' it
you'll get Apple's positional audio (6dof) only with supported hardware - which includes AirPods Pro/Max, iPads and AppleTV - and is designed for positional listening relative to source/device, which has nothing to do w/ Atmos mixed Apple Music spatial tracks discussed here
(and it actually might be 3dof only, not sure since i've never listened to it)
Apple AirPods pro/max headtracking is 3dof not 6dof - it tracks rotation but not location.
It would be fun to be able to walk around a virtual space to get closer to different sound sources/instruments but that’s not what’s on offer here.
It would be fun to be able to walk around a virtual space to get closer to different sound sources/instruments but that’s not what’s on offer here.
I have listened to a lot of the spatial audio songs from AM on my AirPod Pros. It's a mixed bag. Some I think are really good, some not so much. But, the good/great ones are enough to make me excited about the potential. I feel like the bad ones might be from people still figuring out how to best master them.
What speakers did you listen back on?
I don't know anybody with a setup to play these back and I know some crazy audiophiles.
From footnote 8 on https://www.apple.com/apple-music/
> Works with AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, BeatsX, Beats Solo3 Wireless, Beats Studio3, Powerbeats3 Wireless, Beats Flex, Powerbeats Pro, and Beats Solo Pro.
Am I missing something?
> Works with AirPods, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, BeatsX, Beats Solo3 Wireless, Beats Studio3, Powerbeats3 Wireless, Beats Flex, Powerbeats Pro, and Beats Solo Pro.
Am I missing something?
> Am I missing something?
Yes, that's just for the automatic switch to Dolby Atmos. You can set "Dolby Atmos: Always" in Settings → Music.
> When you listen with compatible Apple or Beats headphones,8 Dolby Atmos music plays back automatically when available for a song. For other headphones, go to Settings > Music > Audio and set Dolby Atmos to Always On.
Yes, that's just for the automatic switch to Dolby Atmos. You can set "Dolby Atmos: Always" in Settings → Music.
> When you listen with compatible Apple or Beats headphones,8 Dolby Atmos music plays back automatically when available for a song. For other headphones, go to Settings > Music > Audio and set Dolby Atmos to Always On.
So, works with any headphones, as long as they have an apple brand sticker attached?
There's nothing technologically special about most of these.
There's nothing technologically special about most of these.
I’m assuming they also have some special hardware/firmware for the head tracking feature
Lol, no.
I mean, most headphones don’t have accel/gyro - makes sense for Apple to use proprietary protocols for this, no? Also, see HN guidelines for comments.
Please review the list of supported headphones, and review their features. No, there is nothing special about most of them. If the feature is supported for all of them, then any are headphones/ earphones are capable of supporting it. Anyone with half a clue would see this, so, in not so may words, "Lol, no".
Also, respectfully suggest that you review the HN guidelines WRT your own comment. "I have no idea what I'm talking about, but I'm going to comment anyway" is clearly covered.
Also, respectfully suggest that you review the HN guidelines WRT your own comment. "I have no idea what I'm talking about, but I'm going to comment anyway" is clearly covered.
Maybe I’ve been unclear. Way I see it, Apple’s “spatial audio” branding really means a couple things.
1. Dolby atmos, obviously this is industry standard
2. Head tracking, where sound stays in the same direction despite movement. Introduced last year for the listed headphones, works on some video streaming services. Not supported by Apple Music yet but supposedly coming soon.
I only meant that the head tracking seems specific to apple headphones. If you still feel I’m dull please knock some sense into me.
1. Dolby atmos, obviously this is industry standard
2. Head tracking, where sound stays in the same direction despite movement. Introduced last year for the listed headphones, works on some video streaming services. Not supported by Apple Music yet but supposedly coming soon.
I only meant that the head tracking seems specific to apple headphones. If you still feel I’m dull please knock some sense into me.
If you want Atmos you need either headphones that support the audio, or a multichannel reciever. Which are a dime a dozen. "Crazy audiophiles" won't have one because they spent all their money on $1,000/metre audio cable, CD-colouring pens, and magic rocks to balance their turntable on.
Related question, but does spatial audio actually send Atmos separate audio streams with positioning data to the client? How does this impact data sizes?
I have listened to some of the SA samples and they sound good, but I still don't get the technology. If it's sending separate streams and spatially mixing them at the client, it's still ending up with two channels of audio, so why would it differ from normal stereo audio which can be mixed in such a way? And if it doesn't, then it's just a production process?
Indeed, it reminds me a bit of Q-Sound of the Madonna Immaculate Collection. Still the most impressive stereo headphone experience I've enjoyed.
Dolby Atmos makes loads of sense for oddball speaker arrangements -- you tell it that you have three speakers layered above, five spread out across the back, etc, and it can process to that arrangement optimally (versus say 5.1 that was geared for a very specific arrangement). I don't understand how it is relevant for headphones, which is specifically what it is targeting in this case.
I have listened to some of the SA samples and they sound good, but I still don't get the technology. If it's sending separate streams and spatially mixing them at the client, it's still ending up with two channels of audio, so why would it differ from normal stereo audio which can be mixed in such a way? And if it doesn't, then it's just a production process?
Indeed, it reminds me a bit of Q-Sound of the Madonna Immaculate Collection. Still the most impressive stereo headphone experience I've enjoyed.
Dolby Atmos makes loads of sense for oddball speaker arrangements -- you tell it that you have three speakers layered above, five spread out across the back, etc, and it can process to that arrangement optimally (versus say 5.1 that was geared for a very specific arrangement). I don't understand how it is relevant for headphones, which is specifically what it is targeting in this case.
This article does an okay job of explaining the idea:
https://appleinsider.com/articles/21/05/18/apples-spatial-au...
Apparently the sound source positions will be calculated relative to the position of the iphone/ipad/mac…
..Yes, I’m guessing it will potentially greatly increase the size of audio data downloaded/streamed to the listener, as the spec. for Atmos can have up to 128 different tracks + metadata:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dolby_Atmos
> Yes, I’m guessing it will potentially greatly increase the size of audio data downloaded/streamed to the listener,
Most music only has say 10 instruments, so it's only a 5x worst case blowup.
And many of those instruments will be silent a lot of the time... And even when not silent, there will be a lot of easy to compress repetition. It's simply a matter of having good enough compression algorithms.
Most music only has say 10 instruments, so it's only a 5x worst case blowup.
And many of those instruments will be silent a lot of the time... And even when not silent, there will be a lot of easy to compress repetition. It's simply a matter of having good enough compression algorithms.
Indeed - depends on the material/scope/playback quality of the track/characteristics of the compression method I guess… On the other hand, if you were to record/encode each member of a symphony orchestra separately and place them in a soundfield playing back with lossless quality? …but then you could mix them in sections, or even by rougher positional areas and have far fewer individual tracks… If it’s just one man and his knee/spoon accompaniment then… This article is informative:
https://9to5mac.com/2021/05/30/apple-spatial-audio-indie-art...
…also:
https://professional.dolby.com/create-in-dolby-atmos-music/
from: https://professional.dolby.com/music/support-faq/
“The Renderer can operate at 48 or 96 kHz. Master files can be created at these rates and stored for archive purposes, and are then sample-rate converted to 48 kHz for encoding purposes. Keep in mind that when working at 48 kHz, the Renderer supports 128 input channels (ten bed only and 118 object/bed), whereas at 96 kHz, 64 input channels are available (ten bed only and 54 object/bed).
…If you work with audio in an 88.2, 176.4, or 192 kHz session, you need to create a 48 or 96 kHz version of the session for use with the Renderer.
…For music use cases, we recommend setting trim controls to zero so that your mix is preserved when played back as a 5.1 or 7.1 re-render. Additionally, to hear how encoding your Dolby Atmos mix will sound, set the spatial coding emulation element count to 16…
…Objects can be mono or stereo. The sonic content of the source material and creative considerations about how that content will be reproduced in a 3D soundfield will influence the number of objects used in any given mix.”
It seems weird to me that people would disregard the input of the artist and producer who will have painstakingly mixed the original - surely that is as much a part of the art form as the music in many cases? I'm thinking of records like "Bitches Brew" where you couldn't just go back to the master recordings and recreate them without Miles in the room.
Though I guess the early stereo mixes for e.g. The Beatles were often done without the band's input simply because no one was interested in the stereo mix - it was all about the mono mix. 2nd Engineer Richard Lush said “The only real version of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is the mono version.
https://www.analogplanet.com/content/sgt-peppers-lonely-hear...
The format controversy runs and runs!
Though I guess the early stereo mixes for e.g. The Beatles were often done without the band's input simply because no one was interested in the stereo mix - it was all about the mono mix. 2nd Engineer Richard Lush said “The only real version of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is the mono version.
https://www.analogplanet.com/content/sgt-peppers-lonely-hear...
The format controversy runs and runs!
I guess it's philosophical, but why should the original artist have the any say on how people re-interpret their art?
im not sure what a good analogy might be... a gallery displaying a replica of some famous painting but deciding that part of it needs to be brightened up? i think most people would find that really odd
I like to listen to old live music recordings on archive.org. One thing I’ve grown to love about such recordings is the spatial nature.
Someone is standing in the audience with a stereo recorder and when you close your eyes and listen to the recording, there is the sense that you are located in the venue at that same time and place. You can hear people talk and clap to your left or right. The experience of the music is very close to what someone would have felt if they closed their eyes in the arena. It’s a form of time travel that a video recording just can’t touch because the experience of looking at a screen is so much different from the experience of looking at something in real life. This is much less the case with live audio recordings.
I’m curious if folks will be able to go back to these old recordings to improve the spatial nature of the audio.
Someone is standing in the audience with a stereo recorder and when you close your eyes and listen to the recording, there is the sense that you are located in the venue at that same time and place. You can hear people talk and clap to your left or right. The experience of the music is very close to what someone would have felt if they closed their eyes in the arena. It’s a form of time travel that a video recording just can’t touch because the experience of looking at a screen is so much different from the experience of looking at something in real life. This is much less the case with live audio recordings.
I’m curious if folks will be able to go back to these old recordings to improve the spatial nature of the audio.
On a side note I would much rather see spatial audio applied to resolve the unidirectional audio mess of video-conferencing.
The ability to resolve who is saying what in simultaneous conversation is in my opinion a much bigger problem than trying to get really high resolution video during calls.
The ability to resolve who is saying what in simultaneous conversation is in my opinion a much bigger problem than trying to get really high resolution video during calls.
Apple has done so with FaceTime now. This feature will come in iOS 15 and MacOS Monterey.
From what Apple say about spatial audio, you cannot just run it thru a converter. You need the tracks in their individual original recording before the mixing to be able to do it properly. So I’m not sure how a handful of chop shops are doing all that.
You don't "need" anything to make a track with spatial audio, it's just a format that you can package your sound in. You could feasibly turn a 48khz lossy MP3 into a spatial audio track, but it would probably sound pretty bad. Likewise, the actual stem-separation process that you're describing is similarly dubious: spatial audio can still sound pretty terrible, particularly in cases where it's an afterthought (see: all media).
Yeah you’d need the multitrack original recordings to do a good job I’d say. There are tricks with eg. phase cancellation/spectral filtering and so on I suppose you could use to try and hack something together, but the results would vary greatly depending on the original material/skill of the engineer… A lot of multi-track recordings, especially older ones, have a lot of bleed between tracks which might complicate matters…
Man. I normally don't get into fisking articles, but, yikes.
> There are over a hundred reference points in Dolby Atmos. As in this is far beyond conventional 5.1. Think of a movie theatre, where the sound moves around, now you get the idea.
Okay, this is right. Sort of. Atmos has "audio objects" which are assigned positional metadata in three-dimensional space; at playback, the Atmos "renderer" (Dolby's terminology) knows how many speakers it has and where they are, and sends the sound for each object to a mix of speakers that get the sound as close to the position it's supposed to be in as possible.
> Let’s say you have the equipment and ability to make an Atmos mix. My understanding is right now, you send the end product to Dolby and they use their special sauce to create the final product.
This understanding is wrong. I mean, I guess you can send this out for "special saucing," but recording engineers can use Dolby Atmos tools right in their digital audio workstation program of choice. Instead of panning tracks just from left to right, you're "panning" them in 3-D space.
> Furthermore, they have special sauce to turn the same Atmosfied music into two track stereo.
Again, sort of, but not really? The Atmos renderer basically synthesizes binaural audio for two channels ("binaural render mode"), so it's "special sauce" in that it's Dolby-designed algorithms that are doing that. But it's taking what the recording engineers laid down to do it, and they can even add metadata to the audio objects that help the Atmos renderer convert it to binaural.
> It even bugs me that they’re using remixed tracks from “Abbey Road” to Atmosfy, now you’re multiple steps from the original.
Correct, but let's get some perspective Lefsetz is leaving out. This is the 2019 Abbey Road remix by Giles Martin, which was mixed in Atmos in 2019 by Martin, who also did mixes for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and The White Album.
And this is what Lefsetz's complaint about Atmos elides. When he writes,
> They have neither the equipment nor the skill to mix in Dolby Atmos. As for just sending the file to Dolby to be processed…that’s like finishing a painting and having an amateur come in and completely change it, make it 3-D.
There's a distinct element of "this new thing can be used badly so nobody should use it." There will absolutely be bad Atmos remixes done by people who had nothing to do with the original mixing and engineering, but that's not all the mixes -- and if Atmos music really takes off, the mixes will be done by the same engineers and producers working on the stereo mixes. This is already happening, and it's been happening for a few years now. And when an old album is remixed in surround, it can actually sound pretty good. Abbey Road is an example. So is REM's Automatic for the People. The old SACD surround release of Roxy' Music's Avalon was astounding and I hope it gets revived in Atmos.
> Now the truth is this is a headphone genre.
One, it's not a genre any more than "stereo" and "mono" are genres. Two, it not only isn't just for headphones, it's arguably a little worse on headphones, despite all of Apple's marketing messsaging to the contrary. The more speakers you throw at Atmos the better; a lot of us, including myself, hear binaural stereo mixes as different but not necessarily improved, and -- one thing Lefsetz is correct on -- sometimes worse.
> Which at the moment doesn’t support Bluetooth
As other people have pointed out, this is flat out incorrect.
> Oh, there could be two takes, like with mono and stereo in the sixties, but that's far too confusing, we need one standard, the marketplace needs one standard.
I'm sorry, but that's just "old man yells at cloud" territory. It's not two "takes," it's two mixes, and that may be pedantic of me but it's also pretty important. There's no indication at this point that anyone is rushing to make Atmos-only mixes of anything any more than they're rushing to release digital music in only MQA format. (If you just said "what's MQA": exactly.) Even on Apple Music itself, if you want the stereo version of a recording, there's a secret trick. It's called "go to settings and turn off Atmos".
> There are over a hundred reference points in Dolby Atmos. As in this is far beyond conventional 5.1. Think of a movie theatre, where the sound moves around, now you get the idea.
Okay, this is right. Sort of. Atmos has "audio objects" which are assigned positional metadata in three-dimensional space; at playback, the Atmos "renderer" (Dolby's terminology) knows how many speakers it has and where they are, and sends the sound for each object to a mix of speakers that get the sound as close to the position it's supposed to be in as possible.
> Let’s say you have the equipment and ability to make an Atmos mix. My understanding is right now, you send the end product to Dolby and they use their special sauce to create the final product.
This understanding is wrong. I mean, I guess you can send this out for "special saucing," but recording engineers can use Dolby Atmos tools right in their digital audio workstation program of choice. Instead of panning tracks just from left to right, you're "panning" them in 3-D space.
> Furthermore, they have special sauce to turn the same Atmosfied music into two track stereo.
Again, sort of, but not really? The Atmos renderer basically synthesizes binaural audio for two channels ("binaural render mode"), so it's "special sauce" in that it's Dolby-designed algorithms that are doing that. But it's taking what the recording engineers laid down to do it, and they can even add metadata to the audio objects that help the Atmos renderer convert it to binaural.
> It even bugs me that they’re using remixed tracks from “Abbey Road” to Atmosfy, now you’re multiple steps from the original.
Correct, but let's get some perspective Lefsetz is leaving out. This is the 2019 Abbey Road remix by Giles Martin, which was mixed in Atmos in 2019 by Martin, who also did mixes for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and The White Album.
And this is what Lefsetz's complaint about Atmos elides. When he writes,
> They have neither the equipment nor the skill to mix in Dolby Atmos. As for just sending the file to Dolby to be processed…that’s like finishing a painting and having an amateur come in and completely change it, make it 3-D.
There's a distinct element of "this new thing can be used badly so nobody should use it." There will absolutely be bad Atmos remixes done by people who had nothing to do with the original mixing and engineering, but that's not all the mixes -- and if Atmos music really takes off, the mixes will be done by the same engineers and producers working on the stereo mixes. This is already happening, and it's been happening for a few years now. And when an old album is remixed in surround, it can actually sound pretty good. Abbey Road is an example. So is REM's Automatic for the People. The old SACD surround release of Roxy' Music's Avalon was astounding and I hope it gets revived in Atmos.
> Now the truth is this is a headphone genre.
One, it's not a genre any more than "stereo" and "mono" are genres. Two, it not only isn't just for headphones, it's arguably a little worse on headphones, despite all of Apple's marketing messsaging to the contrary. The more speakers you throw at Atmos the better; a lot of us, including myself, hear binaural stereo mixes as different but not necessarily improved, and -- one thing Lefsetz is correct on -- sometimes worse.
> Which at the moment doesn’t support Bluetooth
As other people have pointed out, this is flat out incorrect.
> Oh, there could be two takes, like with mono and stereo in the sixties, but that's far too confusing, we need one standard, the marketplace needs one standard.
I'm sorry, but that's just "old man yells at cloud" territory. It's not two "takes," it's two mixes, and that may be pedantic of me but it's also pretty important. There's no indication at this point that anyone is rushing to make Atmos-only mixes of anything any more than they're rushing to release digital music in only MQA format. (If you just said "what's MQA": exactly.) Even on Apple Music itself, if you want the stereo version of a recording, there's a secret trick. It's called "go to settings and turn off Atmos".
It is absolutely untrue that the more speakers you throw at Atmos the better, because most rooms are not acoustically treated. As you add more speakers you get more and more complex reflections and room resonances, which conspire to make any attempt at spatialisation - including basic stereo - a hot mess.
Sound travels at around 1ft/ms, so unless your renderer knows where the speakers are in the room and also where your ears are in the room, it's going to be making some very wrong assumptions in its models.
Atmos cinemas actually do this with precise measurements of speaker placing. Even then, you get wildly different experiences depending on where you're sitting.
Atmos mix studios also do it, because they have to.
Home cinemas and home studios - not so much.
If you're among the 1% of people with a high end home cinema room with acoustic treatment, you'll get a passable imitation of the full effect. Everyone else will get some vague sense of some sounds being behind them, and others not.
Headphones are better because the HRTF/binaural effect has no external acoustic space to play into, which makes it far more consistent and predictable. Measured customised HRTFs would be better still.
But that isn't what will kill this. The bigger problem is that good music mix engineers are expensive, and most have no experience with spatial mixing. So far it's been a thing for ad/movie market, and there's less crossover between those markets than most people realise.
If you're producing a stereo mix and a spatial mix your mix budget is going to be between 100% and 500% higher than for stereo alone.
Then you somehow have to do spatial mastering on top of that.
"But I have a DAW" won't do it. Yes, you probably do. But no, you don't have the 7.1.4 (!) speaker configuration needed to mix Atmos properly.
And even if you do, you probably can't mix like a pro. Not even close.
The enhanced budget might be feasible if spatialisation was so much better that it boosted sales to an equivalent extent. But it isn't. It's a nice extra effect - which won't pay its own way, except for special projects with prestige budgets.
And in movies/ads, which are a different market.
Sound travels at around 1ft/ms, so unless your renderer knows where the speakers are in the room and also where your ears are in the room, it's going to be making some very wrong assumptions in its models.
Atmos cinemas actually do this with precise measurements of speaker placing. Even then, you get wildly different experiences depending on where you're sitting.
Atmos mix studios also do it, because they have to.
Home cinemas and home studios - not so much.
If you're among the 1% of people with a high end home cinema room with acoustic treatment, you'll get a passable imitation of the full effect. Everyone else will get some vague sense of some sounds being behind them, and others not.
Headphones are better because the HRTF/binaural effect has no external acoustic space to play into, which makes it far more consistent and predictable. Measured customised HRTFs would be better still.
But that isn't what will kill this. The bigger problem is that good music mix engineers are expensive, and most have no experience with spatial mixing. So far it's been a thing for ad/movie market, and there's less crossover between those markets than most people realise.
If you're producing a stereo mix and a spatial mix your mix budget is going to be between 100% and 500% higher than for stereo alone.
Then you somehow have to do spatial mastering on top of that.
"But I have a DAW" won't do it. Yes, you probably do. But no, you don't have the 7.1.4 (!) speaker configuration needed to mix Atmos properly.
And even if you do, you probably can't mix like a pro. Not even close.
The enhanced budget might be feasible if spatialisation was so much better that it boosted sales to an equivalent extent. But it isn't. It's a nice extra effect - which won't pay its own way, except for special projects with prestige budgets.
And in movies/ads, which are a different market.
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> truth is this is a headphone genre. Which at the moment doesn’t support Bluetooth
I’m not sure I follow this comment because Apple phones don’t have headphone jacks, so the majority will listen to atmos via Bluetooth from Apple Music.
I listened to the track the author mentioned, and it was good, in some ways distracting, but nothing mind blowing. I use Bose NC700s over ear headphones. I was expecting something like the THX experience when visiting an IMAX, but without movement, it sounds like enhanced audio. Definitely more layered
I’m not sure I follow this comment because Apple phones don’t have headphone jacks, so the majority will listen to atmos via Bluetooth from Apple Music.
I listened to the track the author mentioned, and it was good, in some ways distracting, but nothing mind blowing. I use Bose NC700s over ear headphones. I was expecting something like the THX experience when visiting an IMAX, but without movement, it sounds like enhanced audio. Definitely more layered
Is this just the next step after lossless now that everyone supports that (or soon will)? I'd be surprised if this would drive subscriptions but I guess it's still a nice differentiator to have; although I personally have zero interest in it, just as I have zero interest in these lossless quality options.
But my real question for those in the know is: what will be the next after this? Where else can they go with audio (other than make it all work better wirelessly)?
But my real question for those in the know is: what will be the next after this? Where else can they go with audio (other than make it all work better wirelessly)?
just like all DSP, more process = more distortion.
If the original track had spatial in mind, and the artists put thought into it and that's what they want then fine. If we're just reprocessing mono/stereo content into spatial using god knows what settings then that's uh not cool.
It's the same with Dolby Vision, if the creator took the effort then great. If not, then might as well let algorithm takeover from TV's chipset and render every scene with most detail preserved or highest dynamic range achieved. Technically impressive, artistically bankrupt.
It's the same with Dolby Vision, if the creator took the effort then great. If not, then might as well let algorithm takeover from TV's chipset and render every scene with most detail preserved or highest dynamic range achieved. Technically impressive, artistically bankrupt.
I'll say up front that I'm a non-audiophile, and so I'm offering my opinion from that point of view.
I find the Spatial Audio / Dolby Atmos thing weird for a number of reasons.
First, the dual branding seems clunky. "First I listened to music in mono. Then I listened to music in stereo. Then I listened to music in ____" I'd be willing to bet that even amongst people who care a lot about this stuff you'd have a hard time getting consensus about how to fill in the blank.
Second, the fact that there's a brand name attached to it at all feels wrong. One of the great things about music is its accessibility to artists as a medium: lots of great music will come from young folk in their bedrooms with cheap recording rigs. Will they pay a license fee to Dolby? There are many examples of great art that's wrapped up in proprietary technology (video games, for example) but music feels so basic to the human experience that (a) I don't want a brand name attached to it, and (b) it'll never become standard because people are always going to make recorded music without engaging Dolby. An historic example that comes to mind is Technicolor, which feels like something from the olden days. Groundbreaking in its time but no longer culturally relevant.
Third, it does indeed seem weird that this technology would be implemented by a middleman. Sometimes I'll fall in love with a song that has a lot of nuance (like a Bjork song, for example), and I'll tell someone about it, and they'll pull it up on their phone and hold the phone next to their ear, and I'll say, "well, you have to listen to it in headphones." Now I'll say, "well, you have to listen to it in headphones. Actually, this specific make and model of headphones. And also through an Apple Music subscription." (I realize I'm being hyperbolic here, but I think there's a valid point to be made about shared experience where music is concerned.)
And while I’m a fierce advocate of the idea that it’s okay for people bring their own interpretation and meaning to art – I don’t believe the artist should or can have total control over how the art is consumed – the mass remixing of all this music feels more akin to the remixing of the original Star Wars movies than it does to the restoration of a painting.
Finally, I just don’t think very many people will care. I would be willing to bet that a minority of people could pick out a Dolby Atmos song from the original, and of those that could, it seems unclear they would prefer the Atmos version. There are a hundred things I would have chosen to improve about my Apple Music listening experience before sound quality: making the navigation of the music app make any sense whatsoever, and having the AI generated “stations” not be terrible, are two examples. And I know, I know, it’s different groups of people working on different things and it’s not like they can reassign a sound engineer to rewrite the UX of the music app, but it feels like if there was a water leak above my desk in the office and the office manager’s solution was to buy me a nicer chair.
I find the Spatial Audio / Dolby Atmos thing weird for a number of reasons.
First, the dual branding seems clunky. "First I listened to music in mono. Then I listened to music in stereo. Then I listened to music in ____" I'd be willing to bet that even amongst people who care a lot about this stuff you'd have a hard time getting consensus about how to fill in the blank.
Second, the fact that there's a brand name attached to it at all feels wrong. One of the great things about music is its accessibility to artists as a medium: lots of great music will come from young folk in their bedrooms with cheap recording rigs. Will they pay a license fee to Dolby? There are many examples of great art that's wrapped up in proprietary technology (video games, for example) but music feels so basic to the human experience that (a) I don't want a brand name attached to it, and (b) it'll never become standard because people are always going to make recorded music without engaging Dolby. An historic example that comes to mind is Technicolor, which feels like something from the olden days. Groundbreaking in its time but no longer culturally relevant.
Third, it does indeed seem weird that this technology would be implemented by a middleman. Sometimes I'll fall in love with a song that has a lot of nuance (like a Bjork song, for example), and I'll tell someone about it, and they'll pull it up on their phone and hold the phone next to their ear, and I'll say, "well, you have to listen to it in headphones." Now I'll say, "well, you have to listen to it in headphones. Actually, this specific make and model of headphones. And also through an Apple Music subscription." (I realize I'm being hyperbolic here, but I think there's a valid point to be made about shared experience where music is concerned.)
And while I’m a fierce advocate of the idea that it’s okay for people bring their own interpretation and meaning to art – I don’t believe the artist should or can have total control over how the art is consumed – the mass remixing of all this music feels more akin to the remixing of the original Star Wars movies than it does to the restoration of a painting.
Finally, I just don’t think very many people will care. I would be willing to bet that a minority of people could pick out a Dolby Atmos song from the original, and of those that could, it seems unclear they would prefer the Atmos version. There are a hundred things I would have chosen to improve about my Apple Music listening experience before sound quality: making the navigation of the music app make any sense whatsoever, and having the AI generated “stations” not be terrible, are two examples. And I know, I know, it’s different groups of people working on different things and it’s not like they can reassign a sound engineer to rewrite the UX of the music app, but it feels like if there was a water leak above my desk in the office and the office manager’s solution was to buy me a nicer chair.
Doesn't basically every Hollywood movie since DVD pay a licensing fee to Dolby (or DTS) for 5.1 or Atmos (or DTS:X) support? Theaters too even?
And wasn't Dolby B NR insanely widespread on pre-recorded cassettes? Like so common that most albums on cassette from the 80s have the Dolby logo on them?
I don't think its that weird. It's clearly been done in the past. Apple's limitations on what devices works sucks and it'd be nice if we could buy these tracks DRM free to play on an Atmos speaker setup but they aren't the only ones to have this. Tidal has Spatial Audio, Amazon does too. Each does it a little differently as to what is supported annoyingly but hopefully as time goes on those limitations will go away.
And wasn't Dolby B NR insanely widespread on pre-recorded cassettes? Like so common that most albums on cassette from the 80s have the Dolby logo on them?
I don't think its that weird. It's clearly been done in the past. Apple's limitations on what devices works sucks and it'd be nice if we could buy these tracks DRM free to play on an Atmos speaker setup but they aren't the only ones to have this. Tidal has Spatial Audio, Amazon does too. Each does it a little differently as to what is supported annoyingly but hopefully as time goes on those limitations will go away.
Apple doesn't have any limitations to devices. It works fine in normal headphones as well as AirPods.
Yes they do. It doesn't work on PC or Android with any headphones.
> Then I listened to music in ____
Atmos
Atmos
Why would I want this in any situation except VR, where directional audio is actually paramount to my enjoyment of the medium?
Because it adds another dimension to the sound you're experiencing and gives you a whole new appreciation for the medium.
This combined with binaural audio should be the future of audio storytelling.
Give this a try with any normal headphone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUDTlvagjJA
This combined with binaural audio should be the future of audio storytelling.
Give this a try with any normal headphone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUDTlvagjJA
The barber shop is not spatial audio. It's a static stereo mix, and a terrible example of how the medium actually functions. I know what good spatial audio sounds like, too: I've used 6DOF with headphones and fancy Atmos filters, and it works great in VR. Everywhere else though, it's just distracting.
We have lost the stems to probably 95% of all music ever made. If all of our old music sounds bad in spatial audio, how will it ever hope to become the new standard?
We have lost the stems to probably 95% of all music ever made. If all of our old music sounds bad in spatial audio, how will it ever hope to become the new standard?
It literally has invoked a wow from everyone I've shared it with in real life.
I'm glad you've had a much better experience, but lol this doesn't mean this is bad.
The pretentiousness in your comment is outstanding.
I'm glad you've had a much better experience, but lol this doesn't mean this is bad.
The pretentiousness in your comment is outstanding.
smoldesu is pathologically anti-Apple, so the fact that this thread related to Apple instantly guaranteed their pissing and moaning, dismissive response. Don't take it as a sincere argument.
I've never seen someone get so mad about another person's opinion before. You don't have to reply, and HN even lets you downvote my comments if you really think they're that detrimental to the overall narrative. Otherwise though, I don't really know what to tell you. Maybe there's a blocking/filtering extension that could help you if I'm being that disruptive to your daily browsing.
There are many composers out there who work in the electroacoustic and computer music spaces, whose pieces are primarily scored for ambisonic playback systems.
Hearing these works for oneself in a proper listening environment, such as Virginia Tech's The Cube [0], can be a life-changing experience. It certainly was for me.
[0] https://icat.vt.edu/studios/the-cube.html
Hearing these works for oneself in a proper listening environment, such as Virginia Tech's The Cube [0], can be a life-changing experience. It certainly was for me.
[0] https://icat.vt.edu/studios/the-cube.html
That looks like an extremely impressive venue (‘…wavefield synthesis…’ etc.). I’d love to visit! Many years ago I saw a concert featuring acousmatic/spatialized music performed by Dr. Robert Dow (and some other people who I forget the names of) in Edinburgh that blew me away... I’m not sure what the set-up he was using was/whether he was using ambisonics/how he had maybe customized/expanded on that standard (as I remember he had what looked like home-made speaker ‘trees’ set up above the audience’s heads, alongside loads of more conventional speakers…), but it sounded great!
Apple has done quite a poor job showcasing it so far. Some of the tracks they've put in their playlists sound like crap. On the otherhand some of them sound fantastic. Jazz in Atmos is wonderful. It's also important to note that 'head tracking' comes with iOS 15 and in my experience improves spatial further.
A lot of music made for stereo won't remix well. If you listen to most of the rock tracks they don't sound good because they don't have a lot going on. 3 or 4 instruments + 2 or 3 vocals tracks aren't going to take advantage of spatial. Listening to some modern pop with lots of synths and layers upon layers of backing vocals, the experience is much better.
Atmos/spatial is a new tool like any other. People will write and record songs that work for it and take advantage of it. They'll use it creatively. That's what will be interesting. Most remixed songs from the 60's aren't the least bit interesting but the possibilities for the future are.
I could be wrong and it could end up largely ignored, time will tell. But there is the opportunity for a lot of creativity regardless of what cranky old music critics think.