Is Apple Accidentally Ruining Dolby Atmos Music?

Apple has issued a bounty to bolster its Dolby Atmos music catalog. More Dolby Atmos music for everyone to enjoy sounds awesome right? .Maybe. Or maybe …. It could cause a catastrophe?

As a music fan, and a spatial audio fan, I want to be excited that Apple is incentivizing record labels and artists to get busy making Dolby Atmos music mixes, but I’m worried, and for good reason.

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VIDEO CHAPTERS
00:00 Intro
01:00 Sponsor: KTC G27P6 Gaming Monitor
02:41 Why Apple's Atmos Music Could Turn Into a Mess
06:19 Channa De Silva (Techno Dad) Interview
17:06 Final Thoughts

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[Caleb_Denison]

Hi everyone! Thanks for taking the time to watch this one! A lot of facets to Atmos in general, and I think anytime Apple gets involved, it’s worth paying attention to what comes from that. Thanks for being part of the conversation! And I look forward to the next few videos coming out as we prep for CES! See y’all soon!

[matthewweflen]

There is a massive opportunity in classical music recorded natively in Atmos. There are a lot of enthusiasts who want to hear an orchestra sound just like it does for the conductor, and who would rebuy all manner of repertoire if it were recorded by a top shelf orchestra with state of the art sound. I'm one of them.

[Mr.Grimble]

Apple Music should give us the ability to rate the mixes. That way the users will have a scale for what people think is a good mix or not and uploaders will be incentivized to correct their mixes.

[Jayj]

Highly recommend the Spatial Audio toolkit for anyone dialing in their home theater setup. Great collaboration guys!

[joeMW]

I'm an audio engineer and I've opted out of mixing music in Atmos. It's not even just that I'd have to invest at least $20 grand on a speaker array.. the fact that Apple Music doesn't even use the Dolby decoder is total insanity. I have no interest in switching to Logic... how do I know how the Apple decoder is going to interpret my mix if I'm mixing the track using the Dolby encoder? Most "spacial audio" tracks on AM sound like they're being played through PA speakers in an empty club and SERIOUSLY lack the energy of the stereo mix. When normal people on the AM reddit are asking why their music sounds bad when playing from their iPhone, but sounds fine when playing from their Mac and it's because spacial audio is on by default on the iPhone, I think it safe to say there's a very big problem. On top of that, artists themselves seem generally pretty apathetic about Atmos and spacial audio. The whole thing is a mess.

[MaZEEZaM]

Ha, Techno Dad, Great to see him. I've been a subscriber to his channel for years.

[beamboy]

I noticed the volume reduced massively in songs with Dolby atmos while listening to Apple Music.

I turned it off and it is much better experience.

[LeezahB]

Billie Eilish was my first experience with Spatial Audio on Apple and I was floored!! Otherwise, it’s a “mixed” bag (sorry couldn’t resist😂)! There is definitely a difference between Spatial and merely spacious, or worse. Also I don’t find listening to Spatial on my new AirPods Pro nearly as mind boggling as on my speakers on both my systems (when done right) and don’t think much of the head-turning thing. So glad you brought this up!! I have always considered myself an audio purist, but when done well Spatial is amazing!!

[alecpulianas]

Great video. I’ve been an avid surround mix collector for over a decade and was thrilled to hear about Spacial audio coming to streaming. I agree some of the tracks particularly in the early days were awful. It seems like now things are fine to exceptional. I wish the experience was more accessible to home listeners without having to make a large investment.

[LeezahB]

Techno Dad!!! This part was great!😀 I would absolutely love to have a choice of which type of Atmos file to listen to!

[fallende]

What a great video this was. I feel like Caleb has more creative space now? Idk, but between this video and the you asked series, what a joy it is to watch this channel! (Keep the fun little bits :D!!)

[noelcrowder]

I’ve been mixing in Atmos for almost a year . The speaker mix is the best experience, however, the vast majority of music fans will probably never hear a properly calibrated speaker system, if any at all . I have heard many disastrous Atmos mixes, binaurally and speaker wise . Who, at these labels are checking these mixes, at all ?

[birdman]

I would love a breakdown between mixing songs for Sony's 360 Reality Audio and Dolby Atmos. I have heard some Sony mixes and they are hit or miss. When they are good they are fantastic. I just wish there were easier and more ways to get spacial audio in a home theater setup since the focus has been headphones.

[TheWolfCub]

Caleb, I am a fan. Especially since I too live in the Portland area. I have been listening to surround mixes since SACD DSD and DVD Audio with Advanced Resolution, then BluRay Audio, and now of course Dolby Atmos. I was very excited for Apple’s roll out and was extremely disappointed at first. I knew that there was a push to get people to remix huge albums in Atmos and it was a rush job. There were a few gems like Kraftwerk who had already put out their album in a 5.1 mix. But then I started hearing some better mixes, and finally Tears for Fear’s album The Tipping Point was a masterpiece in Atmos. That was mixed by Steven Wilson who also had been working in the 5.1 surround format for years. I loath that most people’s experience with Atmos music will be in headphones. I have AirPods Pro and it does very little especially compared to my 7.1.2 home theater. The mixes are getting better as producers are learning the new format, and we have had some amazing 2 channel mixes and absolutely terrible 2 channel mixes since the beginning of stereophonic music. We will come to recognize and praise brilliance in Atmos mixing and I hope we get Grammy Awards for best Atmos mix so there’s recognition and benchmarks to try and rise to for budding mixers out there.
One last thing, your last three seconds of the video got me to hit the LIKE button! Cracked me up!

[querty]

There’s good and bad mixes in Mono, Stereo and now there will be in Atmos too.

[TheBeagle]

Tech Dad is correct, A lot of music does sound horrible when using Apple's Spatial or Dolby sound enhancements. it works for movie type environment, for music, not so much. be it on headphones (Nura over the ear I have) or the surround in the car, it just doesn't work for all types of music. i keep it off now. it ruins many classic rock, R&B or disco tracks.

[bizzfo]

The playback device should be able to tell what it will be playing over before the audio starts and then playback the “version” that’s suited for the device.

[ProfessorHamer]

I think he missed a key point about the renderer, Apple specifically avoided the issue of mixing for a target setup, which is what other streaming platforms are doing by using the atmos headphone mix. Apple takes the 3D mapping and adapts it on the fly, that’s the only way you can have truly personalized Spatial Audio, and still be able to output a 7.1 or 5.1 mix via Apple TV. The whole point is not to mix for a given a setup.

[AaronMcFarland]

Thank for sharing here. I know I have heard some atmos tracks on Apple Music, that really didn't impress me at all. I will note, Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and INXS's Kick were both awesome atmos mixes, that I actually listened to on the blu-ray discs.

[noelsaw]

One example of a bad Atmos mix is Surfacing from Sarah Mchlachlan on Apple Music. I am shocked there’s no QA on it.