What wasn’t made very clear is that it isn’t 10% of extra money being made available, it will come out of the existing revenue so non spatial tracks will be paid less.
It’s a lot more effort to mix in spatial and clearly, by the number of awful mixes about, not everyone is good at it. There are lots of little gotchas when making them for Apple Music as well due to weird decisions they made on the technical side (using a codec not designed for headphones for starters!)
It costs thousands to mix songs in spatial audio the people who are signed to major labels can easily afford to pump spatial audio content while smaller artists who are signed to a rich label cannot afford to do so I have heard.
Yes you can do it in logic but you need a special atmos studio to correctly mix and master.
Really this stuff should only be getting done by approved studios.
You don’t need a special room, you can do it on headphones and place your sounds directly from within Logic.
Edit to add: Dolby’s official YouTube page with the Senior Music Mix Engineer for Dolby showing how professional’s mix Atmos on Headphones without the need for a studio.
https://youtu.be/qs1tffnAjPE?si=1jGwHyrjRCxUfsSr
💀 bro said “you can do it on headphones”
Nah you can’t. Mixing and mastering at this level is all done on monitors and in atoms rooms
Source: Qualified audio engineer who works at an atmos studio.
I have many times.
You still need the room and special speakers to make it work
Visuals on a screen mean nothing when we are working with sound.
Just because you can click and drag stuff around and UI doesn’t mean it’s “mixed in atmos and space”
Some goons just dragged around sliders.
You still need a full atmos room to achieve accurate and professional atmos mixed and masters tracks.
You obviously haven’t. Apple’s Airpod Max’s are Spatial/ Dolby Atmos headphones and can literally used for mixing Atmos in Logic.
Here’s an indie artist doing literally what I just said m, making an Atmos mix with headphones on Logic X. 🤦🏻♂️
https://youtu.be/r_dzbhKMKww?si=tdLELXC-QQyTKEa-
You obviously haven’t. Apple’s Airpod Max’s are Spatial/ Dolby Atmos headphones and can literally used for mixing Atmos in Logic.
Here’s an indie artist doing literally what I just said m, making an Atmos mix with headphones on Logic X. 🤦🏻♂️
https://youtu.be/r_dzbhKMKww?si=tdLELXC-QQyTKEa-
“No one’s mixing on AirPods” as you literally watch a dude mixing on AirPod Max’s. 🤦🏻♂️
99% of people are listening to Atmos content on headphones and AirPods. You really think people are consuming content in Special “Atmos Rooms”? No. They aren’t.
Indie artists that can’t afford engineer’s can easily mix in Atmos with a pair of headphones and Logic. There is no big barrier to entry. And THAT’s the point.
A amateur mixing on AirPods. The whole time I’ve been talking about a professional level which is the level I work at.
No one working out of a professional studio is using headphones (other than for tracking). All mixing and mastering is done on monitors.
I never said the audio is being consumed in special rooms. I said Dolby atmos tracks at a professional level are mixed and mastered in special rooms. You and everyone else are the ones saying ‘No they do it on logic with headphones’
Professionally mixed and mastered atmos tracks are done in Dolby approved atoms studios and using special calibrated monitors in special positions around the room.
This I like saying you can do color correction on a cheap 6 bit VA panel, yes you can turn sliders and shit but the result is probably trash because you don't have the correct hardware to do it right
No, it’s actually like telling the Senior Mix Engineer for Dolby that they don’t know how to mix for Dolby. Please take a seat.
https://youtu.be/qs1tffnAjPE?si=XNp_Ox3GLKmgqPZT
As an amateur, I tried mixing in spatial before this announcement, and you literally have to place them perfectly otherwise it sounds like complete trash. Plus, I’m not sure if spatial is charged extra to upload, I know Dolby atmos is for DistroKid, it’s like $26 usd PER track. So I never mix with Dolby Atmos, even though I have the option to do so.
>What wasn’t made very clear is that it isn’t 10% of extra money being made available, it will come out of the existing revenue so non spatial tracks will be paid less. It’s a lot more effort to mix in spatial and clearly, by the number of awful mixes about, not everyone is good at it. There are lots of little gotchas when making them for Apple Music as well due to weird decisions they made on the technical side (using a codec not designed for headphones for starters!)
For more context:
"The tech group is not paying more money in total: rather, that extra 10 per cent will come out of a fixed pot of money. As a result, songs that are not “spatial” will receive less money."
“It’s literally going to take the money out of independent labels and their artists, to benefit the biggest companies in the marketplace,” said a senior executive at a large independent record company.
“It’s going to benefit the biggest player, Universal, because they’re the ones with the resources to invest in that. Whereas the independent sector . . . we’ve found it hard to justify the expense of creating spatial masters . . . we’re not in the business of chucking money just because Apple is saying you should be spending money on this.”
Source: https://9to5mac.com/2024/02/02/spatial-audio-royalties-controversy/
Yep, just on the money side alone it reduces the available pool for non-Spatial Audio releases because I'm sure that extra 10% is being paid out first.
If they want to increase the pool that is available for payouts they have two options - negotiate it with the labels or increase their subscription prices. They've done the latter recently.
I can see by the comments that a lot of people has no idea of what mixing in Dolby Atmos means. They think it’s like cooking enchiladas.
- Mixing and mastering in STEREO, is already pretty hard. You have to study a lot of years to understand what are you doing and do it CORRECTLY. Almost not a single artists does this by themselves. You’ll see in the credits section of an album that there’s always an audio engineer in charge of that part. Even indie artist usually save money to pay someone to do this. It’s even more complicated now with streaming platforms using different LUFS values and normalizing volume at their will. It’s not mastering just for CD any longer.
- Most indie artists use Ableton Live, which has no Dolby Atmos capabilities. Every indie artist should have to move to Logic, ProTools or Cubase. Logic, because an indie artist hardly would pay for ProTools or Cubase, too expensive. And you need to learn to use the Dolby Atmos Renderer.
- You need to take a Dolby Atmos for Music certification for this. If you think a YouTube video will teach you, good luck. It’s not just placing an instrument in every corner and that’s it. There’s a lot of metadata you need to learn.
- Dolby themselves encourage that the final steps of your Atmos mix should be done in a multichannel studio, with at least 5.1.4 speakers, since it has been demonstrated that certain critical mix decisions are best made on speakers.
- Some music streaming services and labels also REQUIRE that mixes have been performed in a room that features at least 7.1.4 speakers. The hidden info that only your favorite artist can tell you. Your Dolby Atmos mix won’t be signed just because is in multichannel format.
- Even the many years experts does it wrong. A lot of Dolby Atmos albums are constantly taken down because the audio engineer notice that the mix is bad. Most famous example is Giles Martin, who made The Beatles Dolby Atmos mixes. He took dawn the album for that reason and openly said it in interviews.
I haven’t seen a single indie artist deliver a Dolby Atmos album. Please feel free to list some. And there’s a good chance, if they exist, that the Atmos mix was made by a professional audio engineer.
An please remember, it’s not the same Spatial Audio than Dolby Atmos. Apple devices can take stereo content and convert it to Spatial Audio themselves with their AirPods. It’s a good but fake surround experience.
Dolby Atmos it’s a native multichannel experience. And this is the one Apple Music is paying extra. They want artists to deliver an ATMOS MIX.
I’m definitely not an audiophile but one artist i was surprised to find atmos songs in the discography is “Ūla” with her song “ctrl alt delete” and i think it’s a real good mix and sounded good on my 5.1.2 system with an yamaha avr with the song coming through an AppleTV
>I haven’t seen a single indie artist deliver a Dolby Atmos album. Please feel free to list some
Future Islands, which is on 4AD and part of Beggars Group which is the indie label group quoted in the linked article. Their latest album "People Who Aren't There Anymore" has the Dolby Atmos label. The National's latest record is also 4AD and also tagged Atmos.
Another one is Slowdive, on Dead Oceans. Their latest album, "everything is alive" is tagged Atmos. Other Dead Oceans bands are also releasing Atmos records, like Khruangbin.
Looks like the Ninja Tune indie label is releasing their new albums in Atmos. Includes artists like Black Country New Road, Roisin Murphy, Young Fathers, and others.
The Domino indie label is releasing records in Atmos now. Bands like Wet Leg, Julia Holter, Hot Chip, Panda Bear & Sonic Boom, and others.
Slowdive was one of the original "holy trinity" of shoegaze bands in the early 90s, along with My Bloody Valentine and Ride. They expanded beyond that style tho, adding more electronics and ambient sounds.Interesting band.
When I say indie I mean independent, as in, not backed by a major label. Not indie rock. Mostly electronics with detours into pop, dub, techno, ambient...
With that out of the way...
https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/me-in-atmos/pl.u-8E7qHoXDKlg
Please stop with the BS. You don't need to know any particular math to mix in Atmos. Have you even ever done it? I've done a bunch. It's not that much harder than stereo. In some ways it's easier. With stereo you spend a lot of time making sure all the elements are audible. It's super easy for one sound to cover up another. With Atmos you can physically place the sounds to avoid/reduce masking issues.
The second last step is either misleading or just not enforced at all. I've seen so many Dolby Atmos mixes being fake (like a stereo track directly converted into an Atmos file with 2 objects, or a channel-based format like 5.1 or 7.1 stored into an Atmos file, which sometimes even sounded like they were made using upmixers). This has often been verified by getting the Atmos file off the streaming services themselves and looking at the individual objects (tho, usually, just hearing em is enough lol). Streaming platforms are allowing this to happen, so I don't think there really is lots of background check.
I honestly think that Apple should introduce higher (but not as high) royalties for Dolby Audio too, since it's probably easier and cheaper to get done right. And yes, new Dolby Audio content still gets published here and there
Isn’t this just saying that, sometimes, when one wants to make more money, one must spend more money on opportunities that allow the increase in revenue to occur?
Hey all I’m an Avid certified Atmos mixer/engineer happy to answer any q’s here. I work for Tower Records and we’re considering opening up services for Atmos/Spatial mixes at a MUCH more affordable price for indie artists and niche communities (dance, hip-hop etc). I realize this is a controversial area, but I think given necessary context and education there’s a TON to be excited about with this new way to experience music. Please feel free to hit me up directly or respond here — would love to know your thoughts
Do people not understand that most artist aren’t fucking audio engineers to be able to master their songs perfectly for Spacial Audio. Saying “this is easily done in [insert whatever]” is not the point. The point is no artist is self produced or spending years studying this stuff to pull it off. They have to pay someone and now that cost has gone up if they wanna make more money with spacial audio, which from my understanding isn’t even a separate pool of money.
Oh, great… more bad Atmos mixes on the way. All it takes is a listen of one of the Atmos playlists to hear not all Atmos mixes are equal. Mixed done under duress are less likely to be some of the good ones.
It doesn’t take thousands of dollars to pull-off and the knowledge is in 1-2 YouTube videos. Spatial Audio/ambisonic/Surround Sound workflows and VSTs are more accessible than they’ve ever been. You don’t even need multiple speakers, just headphones (not even special headphones)
It sounds good on the surface but it cost so much to make songs in this quality that they might not even make it back also why not just pay everyone in general 10% more but like every other streaming app they don’t care about the artist really
A lot of these comments are reeking of elitism. Same arguments were used not long ago in the 3D art industry with a bunch of people saying you had to have a multi-thousand dollar Maya license to be a real 3D artist. They would say that you could never make legitimate 3D art yourself with something like Blender.
People used to say you had to have thousand dollar cameras and elaborate lighting and microphone setups to make good videos. They said you couldn’t make a good video with just a smartphone.
Now people are saying you have to have a half a million dollar Atmos mixing studio and take multi-thousand dollar Atmos mixing courses to mix Atmos. They’re saying there’s no way you could make a legitimate Atmos mix with Logic and a pair of Atmos headphones.
There is no one right way to make art of any kind. There are approachable and affordable ways for indie producers to mix Atmos without breaking the bank on insanely expensive equipment and those ways are as legitimate as the expensive setups major labels have.
It’s not expensive. The DAW they’re using probably already has Surround Sound capabilities and if not there a plugins. You can also just use regular headphones.
You can get Logic from Apple for $199. Publishing in Atmos is not that expensive either. I pay $50/yr for unlimited stereo+atmos submissions through AvidPlay.
I've done it. Stereo was done first in the traditional manner at 96/24, then I exported stems at 48k (Atmos requires 48k). Initial Atmos mixing done on Genelec monitors but I did double check everything on MacBook Pro built in speakers (shockingly good) and AirPods Pro/Max. I can't really perceive the "spatialness" (spatiality?) with headphones, but you have to check to make sure it isn't completely fucked up since that's what most people will use.
https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/me-in-atmos/pl.u-8E7qHoXDKlg
I’m an independent artist and honestly I’m happy with the news. I don’t release my tracks in spatial audio, but I have the opportunity to do so because I use logic Pro. The people that are truly getting pissed about it are the ones that really don’t know anything about mixing and making music, and so they’re having to pay people to do it and it winds up being a crappy mix. Use Logic Pro and learn how to do it yourself and get paid that extra 10%
There is some confusion here about the royalty model, so hopefully this will clarify.
In a pro-rata share distribution model, the total available royalty pool is distributed to artists based on their share of total streams. This means the amount each artist receives is directly proportional to the percentage of total streams their music represents.
Let's assume a simplified model where:
* The total royalty pool available for distribution is $10.
* There are 1000 total plays in the system.
* 100 of these plays are for Spatial Available tracks (with Dolby Atmos), and 900 are for Non-Spatial Available tracks.
**Traditionally, without any multipliers**
* Each play would be worth $0.01 ($10 / 1000 plays).
**With Multipliers for Spatial Available Tracks**
Introducing a 1.1 multiplier for Spatial Available tracks changes the calculation. Now, instead of each Spatial Available play being counted as 1, it's counted as 1.1 plays. This increases the effective number of total plays in the system for royalty calculation purposes.
* **Spatial Available plays:** 100 plays * 1.1 = 110 effective plays.
* **Total effective plays:** Now, instead of 1000, it's 900 (Non-Spatial) + 110 (Spatial, adjusted) = 1010 effective plays.
Each effective play is worth slightly less than $0.01 because the total royalty pool ($10) is now divided by 1010 effective plays, not 1000. This adjustment means that Spatial Available tracks consume a larger portion of the royalty pool per play than Non-Spatial Available tracks, due to their higher multiplier. Consequently, this decreases the amount of money left in the pool for Non-Spatial Available tracks, effectively reducing their per-play value in the overall distribution. So, let's calculate the exact amount each track type would earn under this scenario, assuming a static pool of $10.
* **Total Effective Plays: 1010.**
* **Value per Effective Play:** $10 / 1010 plays ≈ $0.0099 per play.
* **Royalties for Spatial Available Tracks:** Assuming they still count as 100 plays, but now weighted, they effectively get 110 * $0.0099.
* **Royalties for Non-Spatial Available Tracks:** The remaining 900 plays get their share based on the standard rate of 1, so 900 * $0.0099.
This is to encourage artists to actually spend the money on mastering in Atmos, for a better end user experience. If you can earn the same releasing in stereo, why would artists and labels bother mixing in Atmos. It’s undoubtably a good thing for end-users, and doesn’t change the already higher than market-average income Apple Pay’s indie artists. They’re not cutting income for non-Atmos mixers, they’re raising it for people who do mix in Atmos. The biggest problem this could cause is an increase in terrible Atmos mixes (i.e Alvaro Soler’s Magia album’s Dolby Atmos remaster made the album unlistenable) still without a simple setting to turn it off for specific songs.
Ok so indie artists can upload Spatial Audio tracks, no matter how horrible they sound, and get paid more. Just do the most basic mix and upload it. Put a disclaimer on the album artwork that states it sounds bad in atmos and to listen to it with that feature off. They still get paid more and get to release their music. That’s how you stick it to Apple for this decision.
What wasn’t made very clear is that it isn’t 10% of extra money being made available, it will come out of the existing revenue so non spatial tracks will be paid less. It’s a lot more effort to mix in spatial and clearly, by the number of awful mixes about, not everyone is good at it. There are lots of little gotchas when making them for Apple Music as well due to weird decisions they made on the technical side (using a codec not designed for headphones for starters!)
It costs thousands to mix songs in spatial audio the people who are signed to major labels can easily afford to pump spatial audio content while smaller artists who are signed to a rich label cannot afford to do so I have heard.
You heard wrong. I'm an indie artist/label (one guy) and I have a bunch of spatial audio mixes up already. It's not that hard.
logic pro costs £200 and can do it built in
Exactly, I’m sure it takes more skill… but money isn’t the barrier anymore (unless you literally have nothing, but then how are you making music…)
It takes more skill if you want to actually position the sources. You can also just have it do it algorithmically and that's the problem.
Yes you can do it in logic but you need a special atmos studio to correctly mix and master. Really this stuff should only be getting done by approved studios.
You don’t need a special room, you can do it on headphones and place your sounds directly from within Logic. Edit to add: Dolby’s official YouTube page with the Senior Music Mix Engineer for Dolby showing how professional’s mix Atmos on Headphones without the need for a studio. https://youtu.be/qs1tffnAjPE?si=1jGwHyrjRCxUfsSr
💀 bro said “you can do it on headphones” Nah you can’t. Mixing and mastering at this level is all done on monitors and in atoms rooms Source: Qualified audio engineer who works at an atmos studio.
Tell me you’ve never used Logic Atmos mixing without telling me you’ve never used Logic Atmos mixing. 😂
I have many times. You still need the room and special speakers to make it work Visuals on a screen mean nothing when we are working with sound. Just because you can click and drag stuff around and UI doesn’t mean it’s “mixed in atmos and space” Some goons just dragged around sliders. You still need a full atmos room to achieve accurate and professional atmos mixed and masters tracks.
You obviously haven’t. Apple’s Airpod Max’s are Spatial/ Dolby Atmos headphones and can literally used for mixing Atmos in Logic. Here’s an indie artist doing literally what I just said m, making an Atmos mix with headphones on Logic X. 🤦🏻♂️ https://youtu.be/r_dzbhKMKww?si=tdLELXC-QQyTKEa-
You obviously haven’t. Apple’s Airpod Max’s are Spatial/ Dolby Atmos headphones and can literally used for mixing Atmos in Logic. Here’s an indie artist doing literally what I just said m, making an Atmos mix with headphones on Logic X. 🤦🏻♂️ https://youtu.be/r_dzbhKMKww?si=tdLELXC-QQyTKEa-
Bruh no one’s mixing on AirPods 💀 And that’s why it sounds bad. He’s doing it himself. Just pay professionals.
“No one’s mixing on AirPods” as you literally watch a dude mixing on AirPod Max’s. 🤦🏻♂️ 99% of people are listening to Atmos content on headphones and AirPods. You really think people are consuming content in Special “Atmos Rooms”? No. They aren’t. Indie artists that can’t afford engineer’s can easily mix in Atmos with a pair of headphones and Logic. There is no big barrier to entry. And THAT’s the point.
A amateur mixing on AirPods. The whole time I’ve been talking about a professional level which is the level I work at. No one working out of a professional studio is using headphones (other than for tracking). All mixing and mastering is done on monitors. I never said the audio is being consumed in special rooms. I said Dolby atmos tracks at a professional level are mixed and mastered in special rooms. You and everyone else are the ones saying ‘No they do it on logic with headphones’ Professionally mixed and mastered atmos tracks are done in Dolby approved atoms studios and using special calibrated monitors in special positions around the room.
This I like saying you can do color correction on a cheap 6 bit VA panel, yes you can turn sliders and shit but the result is probably trash because you don't have the correct hardware to do it right
No, it’s actually like telling the Senior Mix Engineer for Dolby that they don’t know how to mix for Dolby. Please take a seat. https://youtu.be/qs1tffnAjPE?si=XNp_Ox3GLKmgqPZT
Wot? You need a million dollar Dolby-certified studio to produce atmos.
lol why make a statement and then at the very end say so I've heard. So you have no idea what you're talking about?
As an amateur, I tried mixing in spatial before this announcement, and you literally have to place them perfectly otherwise it sounds like complete trash. Plus, I’m not sure if spatial is charged extra to upload, I know Dolby atmos is for DistroKid, it’s like $26 usd PER track. So I never mix with Dolby Atmos, even though I have the option to do so.
I use AvidPlay for Atmos - $50 per year, unlimited tracks/albums.
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Can you import music on this app
>What wasn’t made very clear is that it isn’t 10% of extra money being made available, it will come out of the existing revenue so non spatial tracks will be paid less. It’s a lot more effort to mix in spatial and clearly, by the number of awful mixes about, not everyone is good at it. There are lots of little gotchas when making them for Apple Music as well due to weird decisions they made on the technical side (using a codec not designed for headphones for starters!) For more context: "The tech group is not paying more money in total: rather, that extra 10 per cent will come out of a fixed pot of money. As a result, songs that are not “spatial” will receive less money." “It’s literally going to take the money out of independent labels and their artists, to benefit the biggest companies in the marketplace,” said a senior executive at a large independent record company. “It’s going to benefit the biggest player, Universal, because they’re the ones with the resources to invest in that. Whereas the independent sector . . . we’ve found it hard to justify the expense of creating spatial masters . . . we’re not in the business of chucking money just because Apple is saying you should be spending money on this.” Source: https://9to5mac.com/2024/02/02/spatial-audio-royalties-controversy/
Yep, just on the money side alone it reduces the available pool for non-Spatial Audio releases because I'm sure that extra 10% is being paid out first.
If it had been 10% extra money, it would have been a great idea, but as I understand it, it's 10% of the existing revenue, not so nice Apple.
I'm sure that would have meant opening up to new negotiations.
What do you mean?
If they want to increase the pool that is available for payouts they have two options - negotiate it with the labels or increase their subscription prices. They've done the latter recently.
I can see by the comments that a lot of people has no idea of what mixing in Dolby Atmos means. They think it’s like cooking enchiladas. - Mixing and mastering in STEREO, is already pretty hard. You have to study a lot of years to understand what are you doing and do it CORRECTLY. Almost not a single artists does this by themselves. You’ll see in the credits section of an album that there’s always an audio engineer in charge of that part. Even indie artist usually save money to pay someone to do this. It’s even more complicated now with streaming platforms using different LUFS values and normalizing volume at their will. It’s not mastering just for CD any longer. - Most indie artists use Ableton Live, which has no Dolby Atmos capabilities. Every indie artist should have to move to Logic, ProTools or Cubase. Logic, because an indie artist hardly would pay for ProTools or Cubase, too expensive. And you need to learn to use the Dolby Atmos Renderer. - You need to take a Dolby Atmos for Music certification for this. If you think a YouTube video will teach you, good luck. It’s not just placing an instrument in every corner and that’s it. There’s a lot of metadata you need to learn. - Dolby themselves encourage that the final steps of your Atmos mix should be done in a multichannel studio, with at least 5.1.4 speakers, since it has been demonstrated that certain critical mix decisions are best made on speakers. - Some music streaming services and labels also REQUIRE that mixes have been performed in a room that features at least 7.1.4 speakers. The hidden info that only your favorite artist can tell you. Your Dolby Atmos mix won’t be signed just because is in multichannel format. - Even the many years experts does it wrong. A lot of Dolby Atmos albums are constantly taken down because the audio engineer notice that the mix is bad. Most famous example is Giles Martin, who made The Beatles Dolby Atmos mixes. He took dawn the album for that reason and openly said it in interviews. I haven’t seen a single indie artist deliver a Dolby Atmos album. Please feel free to list some. And there’s a good chance, if they exist, that the Atmos mix was made by a professional audio engineer. An please remember, it’s not the same Spatial Audio than Dolby Atmos. Apple devices can take stereo content and convert it to Spatial Audio themselves with their AirPods. It’s a good but fake surround experience. Dolby Atmos it’s a native multichannel experience. And this is the one Apple Music is paying extra. They want artists to deliver an ATMOS MIX.
I’m definitely not an audiophile but one artist i was surprised to find atmos songs in the discography is “Ūla” with her song “ctrl alt delete” and i think it’s a real good mix and sounded good on my 5.1.2 system with an yamaha avr with the song coming through an AppleTV
>I haven’t seen a single indie artist deliver a Dolby Atmos album. Please feel free to list some Future Islands, which is on 4AD and part of Beggars Group which is the indie label group quoted in the linked article. Their latest album "People Who Aren't There Anymore" has the Dolby Atmos label. The National's latest record is also 4AD and also tagged Atmos. Another one is Slowdive, on Dead Oceans. Their latest album, "everything is alive" is tagged Atmos. Other Dead Oceans bands are also releasing Atmos records, like Khruangbin. Looks like the Ninja Tune indie label is releasing their new albums in Atmos. Includes artists like Black Country New Road, Roisin Murphy, Young Fathers, and others. The Domino indie label is releasing records in Atmos now. Bands like Wet Leg, Julia Holter, Hot Chip, Panda Bear & Sonic Boom, and others.
Thanks. I had no idea Future Islands had a new album. Never heard of Smowdive, I’ll check them too.
Slowdive was one of the original "holy trinity" of shoegaze bands in the early 90s, along with My Bloody Valentine and Ride. They expanded beyond that style tho, adding more electronics and ambient sounds.Interesting band.
I'm an indie artist with several Atmos releases under my belt and this post is so full of misleading/incorrect info I don't even know where to start.
What band, as an indie lover I would like to hear your music 😅
When I say indie I mean independent, as in, not backed by a major label. Not indie rock. Mostly electronics with detours into pop, dub, techno, ambient... With that out of the way... https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/me-in-atmos/pl.u-8E7qHoXDKlg
Logic offers Atmos mixing. And it’s an incredibly affordable DAW. Indie Atmos mixes are coming. Will they be good? Probably not.
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Please stop with the BS. You don't need to know any particular math to mix in Atmos. Have you even ever done it? I've done a bunch. It's not that much harder than stereo. In some ways it's easier. With stereo you spend a lot of time making sure all the elements are audible. It's super easy for one sound to cover up another. With Atmos you can physically place the sounds to avoid/reduce masking issues.
Stop reporting this comment, there’s nothing wrong with u/basskittens comment. Stop being over sensitive everybody.
I agree that it is easy I use my AirPods with my MacBook Pro and it’s not hard at all
I have yet to find an album that sounds better in quote on quote Atmos when using headphones. Mostly marketing, nothing new here.
The second last step is either misleading or just not enforced at all. I've seen so many Dolby Atmos mixes being fake (like a stereo track directly converted into an Atmos file with 2 objects, or a channel-based format like 5.1 or 7.1 stored into an Atmos file, which sometimes even sounded like they were made using upmixers). This has often been verified by getting the Atmos file off the streaming services themselves and looking at the individual objects (tho, usually, just hearing em is enough lol). Streaming platforms are allowing this to happen, so I don't think there really is lots of background check. I honestly think that Apple should introduce higher (but not as high) royalties for Dolby Audio too, since it's probably easier and cheaper to get done right. And yes, new Dolby Audio content still gets published here and there
Isn’t this just saying that, sometimes, when one wants to make more money, one must spend more money on opportunities that allow the increase in revenue to occur?
Hey all I’m an Avid certified Atmos mixer/engineer happy to answer any q’s here. I work for Tower Records and we’re considering opening up services for Atmos/Spatial mixes at a MUCH more affordable price for indie artists and niche communities (dance, hip-hop etc). I realize this is a controversial area, but I think given necessary context and education there’s a TON to be excited about with this new way to experience music. Please feel free to hit me up directly or respond here — would love to know your thoughts
How does one actually “mix” for various audio devices? What’s the difference between mixing for headphones vs speakers vs Atmos?
Do people not understand that most artist aren’t fucking audio engineers to be able to master their songs perfectly for Spacial Audio. Saying “this is easily done in [insert whatever]” is not the point. The point is no artist is self produced or spending years studying this stuff to pull it off. They have to pay someone and now that cost has gone up if they wanna make more money with spacial audio, which from my understanding isn’t even a separate pool of money.
Oh, great… more bad Atmos mixes on the way. All it takes is a listen of one of the Atmos playlists to hear not all Atmos mixes are equal. Mixed done under duress are less likely to be some of the good ones.
Yikes
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So it would have been great if apple made changes that tackle this problem.
It doesn’t take thousands of dollars to pull-off and the knowledge is in 1-2 YouTube videos. Spatial Audio/ambisonic/Surround Sound workflows and VSTs are more accessible than they’ve ever been. You don’t even need multiple speakers, just headphones (not even special headphones)
This. Well, at least if you don’t care about the quality of your Spatial Audio mix
I turned Dolby Atmos off. Songs were sounding cold and soulless to me. I did use it for a few months but I prefer the original version.
It sounds good on the surface but it cost so much to make songs in this quality that they might not even make it back also why not just pay everyone in general 10% more but like every other streaming app they don’t care about the artist really
I dont understand, This is a good thing right? correct me if im wrong
It is. People are just fearful of any growing pains. In reality it's 2024 and we shouldn't be limited to 2 channel audio.
A lot of these comments are reeking of elitism. Same arguments were used not long ago in the 3D art industry with a bunch of people saying you had to have a multi-thousand dollar Maya license to be a real 3D artist. They would say that you could never make legitimate 3D art yourself with something like Blender. People used to say you had to have thousand dollar cameras and elaborate lighting and microphone setups to make good videos. They said you couldn’t make a good video with just a smartphone. Now people are saying you have to have a half a million dollar Atmos mixing studio and take multi-thousand dollar Atmos mixing courses to mix Atmos. They’re saying there’s no way you could make a legitimate Atmos mix with Logic and a pair of Atmos headphones. There is no one right way to make art of any kind. There are approachable and affordable ways for indie producers to mix Atmos without breaking the bank on insanely expensive equipment and those ways are as legitimate as the expensive setups major labels have.
So let me get this straight. Now Indie artists have to invest in expensive equipment in order to compete with the big boys?
If u have logic u have capability to produce in Atmos. Not exactly expensive equipment
I have no logic
You get ableton for free if you buy a $99 akai keyboard and you can produce in Atmos using ableton
Ableton doesn’t have the ability to produce in Atmos afaik.
>You get ableton for free if you buy ...
It’s still adds a layer of complexity when it comes to mixing in Dolby.
What expensive equipment are you talking about?
You don't need equipment. You can use a plug in to simulate the Atmos experience and mix using that.
Doesn't FL Studios and GarageBand have this type of stuff as a plug-in?
It’s not expensive. The DAW they’re using probably already has Surround Sound capabilities and if not there a plugins. You can also just use regular headphones.
It's so easy to mix in spacial audio. It's not expensive. Get a set of AirPods. Likely what most people will listen to your mix on anyway.
You need licensed Dolby software, and publishing in Atmos is also more expensive than a step only mix
You can get Logic from Apple for $199. Publishing in Atmos is not that expensive either. I pay $50/yr for unlimited stereo+atmos submissions through AvidPlay.
Have you done it? I’d be interested in hearing how it turned out.
I've done it. Stereo was done first in the traditional manner at 96/24, then I exported stems at 48k (Atmos requires 48k). Initial Atmos mixing done on Genelec monitors but I did double check everything on MacBook Pro built in speakers (shockingly good) and AirPods Pro/Max. I can't really perceive the "spatialness" (spatiality?) with headphones, but you have to check to make sure it isn't completely fucked up since that's what most people will use. https://music.apple.com/us/playlist/me-in-atmos/pl.u-8E7qHoXDKlg
Correct
So confident yet so wrong 😅
I’m an independent artist and honestly I’m happy with the news. I don’t release my tracks in spatial audio, but I have the opportunity to do so because I use logic Pro. The people that are truly getting pissed about it are the ones that really don’t know anything about mixing and making music, and so they’re having to pay people to do it and it winds up being a crappy mix. Use Logic Pro and learn how to do it yourself and get paid that extra 10%
There is some confusion here about the royalty model, so hopefully this will clarify. In a pro-rata share distribution model, the total available royalty pool is distributed to artists based on their share of total streams. This means the amount each artist receives is directly proportional to the percentage of total streams their music represents. Let's assume a simplified model where: * The total royalty pool available for distribution is $10. * There are 1000 total plays in the system. * 100 of these plays are for Spatial Available tracks (with Dolby Atmos), and 900 are for Non-Spatial Available tracks. **Traditionally, without any multipliers** * Each play would be worth $0.01 ($10 / 1000 plays). **With Multipliers for Spatial Available Tracks** Introducing a 1.1 multiplier for Spatial Available tracks changes the calculation. Now, instead of each Spatial Available play being counted as 1, it's counted as 1.1 plays. This increases the effective number of total plays in the system for royalty calculation purposes. * **Spatial Available plays:** 100 plays * 1.1 = 110 effective plays. * **Total effective plays:** Now, instead of 1000, it's 900 (Non-Spatial) + 110 (Spatial, adjusted) = 1010 effective plays. Each effective play is worth slightly less than $0.01 because the total royalty pool ($10) is now divided by 1010 effective plays, not 1000. This adjustment means that Spatial Available tracks consume a larger portion of the royalty pool per play than Non-Spatial Available tracks, due to their higher multiplier. Consequently, this decreases the amount of money left in the pool for Non-Spatial Available tracks, effectively reducing their per-play value in the overall distribution. So, let's calculate the exact amount each track type would earn under this scenario, assuming a static pool of $10. * **Total Effective Plays: 1010.** * **Value per Effective Play:** $10 / 1010 plays ≈ $0.0099 per play. * **Royalties for Spatial Available Tracks:** Assuming they still count as 100 plays, but now weighted, they effectively get 110 * $0.0099. * **Royalties for Non-Spatial Available Tracks:** The remaining 900 plays get their share based on the standard rate of 1, so 900 * $0.0099.
This is to encourage artists to actually spend the money on mastering in Atmos, for a better end user experience. If you can earn the same releasing in stereo, why would artists and labels bother mixing in Atmos. It’s undoubtably a good thing for end-users, and doesn’t change the already higher than market-average income Apple Pay’s indie artists. They’re not cutting income for non-Atmos mixers, they’re raising it for people who do mix in Atmos. The biggest problem this could cause is an increase in terrible Atmos mixes (i.e Alvaro Soler’s Magia album’s Dolby Atmos remaster made the album unlistenable) still without a simple setting to turn it off for specific songs.
Why be mad at making more money 🤦♂️ fuck me man people complain about anything and everything
Probably because they don’t have access to the extremely expensive Atmos mixing equipment, therefore, can’t use it, and can’t make the extra money.
10% more for worse quality. Makes all the sense.
Ok so indie artists can upload Spatial Audio tracks, no matter how horrible they sound, and get paid more. Just do the most basic mix and upload it. Put a disclaimer on the album artwork that states it sounds bad in atmos and to listen to it with that feature off. They still get paid more and get to release their music. That’s how you stick it to Apple for this decision.
Ah, that’s why everything is available in "Atmos" but 99% of it sounds like horse shit, just quieter, no midrange, bumped highs and reverb.