Spatial Immersive 3D Atmos!

“A strong stereo mix is often an integral component of a great immersive mix” – Sylvia Massy

Immersive sound is a great advance in the enjoyment of music. Dolby Labs, pioneer in multi-channel film sound, has built a platform for music mixers to create “3D” mixes, placing instruments and voices in a 3-dimensional sphere. Atmos immersive mixes are now being streamed on major music platforms. There is a demand for new immersive music titles, either catalog or new releases. It is an exciting time for musical-artists – their palette just got much bigger!

There are few multi-speaker rooms available for this new medium and few mixers who can integrate the new technology into their workflow. Sylvia and the team took 2 years to meet and train with Dolby and assemble the equipment for the Oddio Shop room build. The installation of Antelope’s Galaxy 64 interface is the keystone of the system, using Dante protocol to render mixes to a dedicated second computer.

Apple Music and Tidal are leading the charge as easy ways to listen to the new immersive music formats.  The promise of “Apple Spatial” is that as the public adopts the new platform, there will be many ways to listen besides headphones. Auto sound is a prime place for immersive music listening, clubs can be wired for multi-channel systems, multi-speaker home theater systems can be adapted for immersive music listening too. 

Oddio Shop’s Elaborate Dolby Atmos Monitoring System by Genelec

The 9.1.4 Dolby Atmos mix system has L-C-R in front, a pair of wides, a pair of sides, a pair of backs, four elevated speakers, two subwoofers and a pair of Genelec W371 woofer stands for extending low end in the front wall, all cabled with German-made Cordial cable.

We Mix Powerful Stereo and it Makes for Better Atmos Mixes

To demonstrate the difference between stereo and Atmos, we have uploaded Mp3 versions and Atmos Mp4 versions of four songs. Feel free to download the Mp4s to your desktop or phone. They are slightly larger than a typical Mp3 file. You should be able to hear a very marked difference between the two versions.

When we mix your song in Atmos, we deliver a package with three items: the finished ADM files for the DSP (digital streaming platform), an Mp4 re-render file for reference and a B-Wav re-render file for reference. You will listen to reference files to make your approvals. Please contact the studio for more information about using B-Wav files for approvals.

The beauty of the Dolby Atmos mixes is that they adapt any configuration of speakers, so if you like stereo and dammit you’re not gonna change, you can still listen to the same immersive mix in two speakers. Ba-boom.