Dolby Atmos

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mindstuff
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Dolby Atmos

Post by mindstuff »

I see a number of people in the music industry pushing hard on to the new direction of spatial audio mixing and mastering.
What does that mean for low budget producers? Is this the de-democratization of music production? Thoughts?

youtu.be/XsRAhCgEzjk

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subvers^v
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Re: Dolby Atmos

Post by subvers^v »

mindstuff wrote:
Wed Mar 22, 2023 11:33 pm
I see a number of people in the music industry pushing hard on to the new direction of spatial audio mixing and mastering.
What does that mean for low budget producers? Is this the de-democratization of music production? Thoughts?

youtu.be/XsRAhCgEzjk
Just looks like a lot of speakers to me, and some software that links in to it. The fundamentals can't really change...
The 2 subs (?) sums it up...

Hate that word "game-changing".

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Re: Dolby Atmos

Post by Barfunkel »

Surround sound is great for movie theaters, but for music it's a doomed attempt really. Most people listen to music with either cheap headphones or some small, portable mono speaker. Very few (normal people, not music producers) have even a proper stereo speaker setup anymore. I really don't see a future where a large portion of the population would buy an expensive setup which requires about 10 speakers, just to listen to the latest Lil Pump banger.
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Re: Dolby Atmos

Post by subvers^v »

Lil Pump?
I must be getting old, never heard of her! :lol:
Good point though, kids are happy listening on a Bluetooth speaker, as long as it's loud enough...

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Re: Dolby Atmos

Post by Amøbe »

Is this the sort of thing that Guns 'N' Roses almost jumped on in the 90s, but would have demanded a crazy setup with like 6 speakers to be played back properly?

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mindstuff
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Re: Dolby Atmos

Post by mindstuff »

Barfunkel wrote:
Thu Mar 23, 2023 4:42 am
Surround sound is great for movie theaters, but for music it's a doomed attempt really. Most people listen to music with either cheap headphones or some small, portable mono speaker. Very few (normal people, not music producers) have even a proper stereo speaker setup anymore. I really don't see a future where a large portion of the population would buy an expensive setup which requires about 10 speakers, just to listen to the latest Lil Pump banger.
I don't think they have to. Many bluetooth speakers are atmos ready as well as airpods.

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Re: Dolby Atmos

Post by Amøbe »

mindstuff wrote:
Fri Mar 24, 2023 4:42 am
Barfunkel wrote:
Thu Mar 23, 2023 4:42 am
Surround sound is great for movie theaters, but for music it's a doomed attempt really. Most people listen to music with either cheap headphones or some small, portable mono speaker. Very few (normal people, not music producers) have even a proper stereo speaker setup anymore. I really don't see a future where a large portion of the population would buy an expensive setup which requires about 10 speakers, just to listen to the latest Lil Pump banger.
I don't think they have to. Many bluetooth speakers are atmos ready as well as airpods.
what really? That's really amazing if they can make that work

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Lost to the Void
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Re: Dolby Atmos

Post by Lost to the Void »

mindstuff wrote:
Wed Mar 22, 2023 11:33 pm
I see a number of people in the music industry pushing hard on to the new direction of spatial audio mixing and mastering.
What does that mean for low budget producers? Is this the de-democratization of music production? Thoughts?

youtu.be/XsRAhCgEzjk
When music is mostly listened to on shitty phone speakers and earbuds?
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Re: Dolby Atmos

Post by Lost to the Void »

mindstuff wrote:
Wed Mar 22, 2023 11:33 pm
I see a number of people in the music industry pushing hard on to the new direction of spatial audio mixing and mastering.
What does that mean for low budget producers? Is this the de-democratization of music production? Thoughts?

youtu.be/XsRAhCgEzjk

I guess on a more serious note.
Music is shite in surround.

When we go to see a band, they don`t sit around us, we sit around them. We place the stage speakers on the same plane as them so it appears the music is coming from "them".

I`ve seen live music in surround. Front 242 did a gig in london in quadraphonic sound at the end of the 90`s. It was fucking awful. It disconnected the music from the stage, and the massive sound separation made it sound like you were in a live recording studio with all the members separated by screens.

Years later I saw Henke playing as Monolake doing Ghosts album in surround sound. Again it was a failure, not as a technological achievement but as a coherent music experience. Again the sounds were separated, the speakers were flown around the main dance floor, so the hats would be in one corner, and the drums spread over a few, with pads and sounds zipping around. It was a "oooh" moment for the technology. But musically everything sounded separated and incoherent. Hard to "gel" a surround mis together when elements are separated.

It can be a great experience for film, for art and installations, but for music it just doesn`t work, it ruins coherence.
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mindstuff
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Re: Dolby Atmos

Post by mindstuff »

Lost to the Void wrote:
Wed Mar 29, 2023 4:21 pm
mindstuff wrote:
Wed Mar 22, 2023 11:33 pm
I see a number of people in the music industry pushing hard on to the new direction of spatial audio mixing and mastering.
What does that mean for low budget producers? Is this the de-democratization of music production? Thoughts?

youtu.be/XsRAhCgEzjk

I guess on a more serious note.
Music is shite in surround.

When we go to see a band, they don`t sit around us, we sit around them. We place the stage speakers on the same plane as them so it appears the music is coming from "them".

I`ve seen live music in surround. Front 242 did a gig in london in quadraphonic sound at the end of the 90`s. It was fucking awful. It disconnected the music from the stage, and the massive sound separation made it sound like you were in a live recording studio with all the members separated by screens.

Years later I saw Henke playing as Monolake doing Ghosts album in surround sound. Again it was a failure, not as a technological achievement but as a coherent music experience. Again the sounds were separated, the speakers were flown around the main dance floor, so the hats would be in one corner, and the drums spread over a few, with pads and sounds zipping around. It was a "oooh" moment for the technology. But musically everything sounded separated and incoherent. Hard to "gel" a surround mis together when elements are separated.

It can be a great experience for film, for art and installations, but for music it just doesn`t work, it ruins coherence.
Great insights here.

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Re: Dolby Atmos

Post by Amøbe »

mindstuff wrote:
Wed Mar 29, 2023 10:42 pm
Lost to the Void wrote:
Wed Mar 29, 2023 4:21 pm
mindstuff wrote:
Wed Mar 22, 2023 11:33 pm
I see a number of people in the music industry pushing hard on to the new direction of spatial audio mixing and mastering.
What does that mean for low budget producers? Is this the de-democratization of music production? Thoughts?

youtu.be/XsRAhCgEzjk

I guess on a more serious note.
Music is shite in surround.

When we go to see a band, they don`t sit around us, we sit around them. We place the stage speakers on the same plane as them so it appears the music is coming from "them".

I`ve seen live music in surround. Front 242 did a gig in london in quadraphonic sound at the end of the 90`s. It was fucking awful. It disconnected the music from the stage, and the massive sound separation made it sound like you were in a live recording studio with all the members separated by screens.

Years later I saw Henke playing as Monolake doing Ghosts album in surround sound. Again it was a failure, not as a technological achievement but as a coherent music experience. Again the sounds were separated, the speakers were flown around the main dance floor, so the hats would be in one corner, and the drums spread over a few, with pads and sounds zipping around. It was a "oooh" moment for the technology. But musically everything sounded separated and incoherent. Hard to "gel" a surround mis together when elements are separated.

It can be a great experience for film, for art and installations, but for music it just doesn`t work, it ruins coherence.
Great insights here.
I just want to chime in and say I've experienced music that was great in quadrophonic setups - but it demands someone who's trained to compose for it. I think it was Surgeon who once made an ambient set in Copenhagen with a quadrophonic setup, and that was absolutely horrible. Someone like SØS Gunver Ryberg (who has a degree in electronic compositional music from the conservatory) has done some beautiful stuff in these setups. (at least I think it was her - the group of folks doing that stuff is rather small here in Denmark, and I tend to mix them up)

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Re: Dolby Atmos

Post by Lost to the Void »

Amøbe wrote:
Thu Mar 30, 2023 9:51 pm
mindstuff wrote:
Wed Mar 29, 2023 10:42 pm
Lost to the Void wrote:
Wed Mar 29, 2023 4:21 pm



I guess on a more serious note.
Music is shite in surround.

When we go to see a band, they don`t sit around us, we sit around them. We place the stage speakers on the same plane as them so it appears the music is coming from "them".

I`ve seen live music in surround. Front 242 did a gig in london in quadraphonic sound at the end of the 90`s. It was fucking awful. It disconnected the music from the stage, and the massive sound separation made it sound like you were in a live recording studio with all the members separated by screens.

Years later I saw Henke playing as Monolake doing Ghosts album in surround sound. Again it was a failure, not as a technological achievement but as a coherent music experience. Again the sounds were separated, the speakers were flown around the main dance floor, so the hats would be in one corner, and the drums spread over a few, with pads and sounds zipping around. It was a "oooh" moment for the technology. But musically everything sounded separated and incoherent. Hard to "gel" a surround mis together when elements are separated.

It can be a great experience for film, for art and installations, but for music it just doesn`t work, it ruins coherence.
Great insights here.
I just want to chime in and say I've experienced music that was great in quadrophonic setups - but it demands someone who's trained to compose for it. I think it was Surgeon who once made an ambient set in Copenhagen with a quadrophonic setup, and that was absolutely horrible. Someone like SØS Gunver Ryberg (who has a degree in electronic compositional music from the conservatory) has done some beautiful stuff in these setups. (at least I think it was her - the group of folks doing that stuff is rather small here in Denmark, and I tend to mix them up)
Like I said, great for art and installations.
I think training is irrelevant, henke knows what he is doing, he`s a professor, if that means anything, it still remains an incoherent experience, at least for music.

( I don`t consider a degree or any qualification in art or music a mark of credibility or talent, but that is an aside).
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Re: Dolby Atmos

Post by Amøbe »

Lost to the Void wrote:
Thu Mar 30, 2023 11:37 pm
Amøbe wrote:
Thu Mar 30, 2023 9:51 pm
mindstuff wrote:
Wed Mar 29, 2023 10:42 pm


Great insights here.
I just want to chime in and say I've experienced music that was great in quadrophonic setups - but it demands someone who's trained to compose for it. I think it was Surgeon who once made an ambient set in Copenhagen with a quadrophonic setup, and that was absolutely horrible. Someone like SØS Gunver Ryberg (who has a degree in electronic compositional music from the conservatory) has done some beautiful stuff in these setups. (at least I think it was her - the group of folks doing that stuff is rather small here in Denmark, and I tend to mix them up)
Like I said, great for art and installations.
I think training is irrelevant, henke knows what he is doing, he`s a professor, if that means anything, it still remains an incoherent experience, at least for music.

( I don`t consider a degree or any qualification in art or music a mark of credibility or talent, but that is an aside).
Well that's on you to not recognize it. One thing that's different between Henke and others is not the ability to control the system. But it is a training in composing with it, which is vastly different from just putting sounds in different places.

With all that said, I generally agree with you that it's not the ideal setup for music (but some people can make it work)

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Re: Dolby Atmos

Post by Mslwte »

You only really need a strobe , laser, (and maybe a red light in the room somewhere) to listen to music properly. I think they have missed the mark here.











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Re: Dolby Atmos

Post by timc3 »

I agree with what others have said here, I have spent some time with Apple Music playing Dolby Atmos music on a Dolby Atmos system and it adds nothing good to the experience. Novelty records aimed at 10 year olds where the sound spins around and up and down are just annoying but they enjoy it. I usually set that system to just play back in Stereo for music.

Movies ( and I suspect games, I don't have a game system that supports Dolby Atmos) is a much better experience and I enjoy having Dolby Atmos for films at home because I hate going to the cinema. It does add something but I would also say that putting in extra cabling, speakers and the cost of having 11 channel amps is probably not worth it to most.

Dolby Atmos as a technology is something I can get behind though, it's not the same as just have more channels - it's an object orientated system, that when listened back to takes into account the number and location of the speakers in the system to render the playback of those objects in a physical space.

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Re: Dolby Atmos

Post by Amøbe »

I just want to also be on record to say that 99 % of the times, I prefer mslwte's setup :lol:

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Re: Dolby Atmos

Post by Lost to the Void »

Amøbe wrote:
Fri Mar 31, 2023 7:26 am
Lost to the Void wrote:
Thu Mar 30, 2023 11:37 pm
Amøbe wrote:
Thu Mar 30, 2023 9:51 pm


I just want to chime in and say I've experienced music that was great in quadrophonic setups - but it demands someone who's trained to compose for it. I think it was Surgeon who once made an ambient set in Copenhagen with a quadrophonic setup, and that was absolutely horrible. Someone like SØS Gunver Ryberg (who has a degree in electronic compositional music from the conservatory) has done some beautiful stuff in these setups. (at least I think it was her - the group of folks doing that stuff is rather small here in Denmark, and I tend to mix them up)
Like I said, great for art and installations.
I think training is irrelevant, henke knows what he is doing, he`s a professor, if that means anything, it still remains an incoherent experience, at least for music.

( I don`t consider a degree or any qualification in art or music a mark of credibility or talent, but that is an aside).
Well that's on you to not recognize it. One thing that's different between Henke and others is not the ability to control the system. But it is a training in composing with it, which is vastly different from just putting sounds in different places.

With all that said, I generally agree with you that it's not the ideal setup for music (but some people can make it work)
WTF are you on about?
Henke is a professor of music at the Berlin University for the arts, lectures at Stanford and Studio National des Arts Contemporains in France, regularly touring galleries around the world. Did a performance at the Barbican a last year. I mean, I don't care about academic arts, I think it's bullshit, but he's not just some drug monkey making beats.

He doesn't just throw his shit into a 5.1 system, he designs the fucking systems he composes for.
Currently touring a sound and light performance extravaganza.

He knows what he is doing, it's just that surround sound sucks ass when you deal with beat based stuff.
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Re: Dolby Atmos

Post by Amøbe »

Lost to the Void wrote:
Sat Apr 01, 2023 11:54 pm
Amøbe wrote:
Fri Mar 31, 2023 7:26 am
Lost to the Void wrote:
Thu Mar 30, 2023 11:37 pm


Like I said, great for art and installations.
I think training is irrelevant, henke knows what he is doing, he`s a professor, if that means anything, it still remains an incoherent experience, at least for music.

( I don`t consider a degree or any qualification in art or music a mark of credibility or talent, but that is an aside).
Well that's on you to not recognize it. One thing that's different between Henke and others is not the ability to control the system. But it is a training in composing with it, which is vastly different from just putting sounds in different places.

With all that said, I generally agree with you that it's not the ideal setup for music (but some people can make it work)
WTF are you on about?
Henke is a professor of music at the Berlin University for the arts, lectures at Stanford and Studio National des Arts Contemporains in France, regularly touring galleries around the world. Did a performance at the Barbican a last year. I mean, I don't care about academic arts, I think it's bullshit, but he's not just some drug monkey making beats.

He doesn't just throw his shit into a 5.1 system, he designs the fucking systems he composes for.
Currently touring a sound and light performance extravaganza.

He knows what he is doing, it's just that surround sound sucks ass when you deal with beat based stuff.
I'm well aware of Henke's work and has interacted quite extensively with a lot of his concepts academically. The fuck I'm on about is that there's a school.of music which is a tradition of compositional music. While some of Henke's work definitely belong and outshines plenty in that area, I'd still argue that his finest moments is not in that tradition of compositional music.

Not trying to put Henke down at all, but there are others out there

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Re: Dolby Atmos

Post by Amøbe »

And just a quick add. I'm not talking about sound art or installations

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Re: Dolby Atmos

Post by Amøbe »

Expanding a bit (Amøbe as a critic of modernist music):

Henke is first and foremost a master of techniques. His best composition also has partly a wow-effect in the way he tames techniques and sculpts sounds.

I think some of his most interesting pieces has been his archaeological approach in the last couple of years. The way he revives highly limited technologies, and is capable of creating atmosphere and especially textures out of them is a great example of all of Henke's approaches coming together in some very unique pieces. They somehow go from engineering to engineering-as-art, where the sensual work comes to the foreground. I have a deep amount of respect for that! And I think all his accolades are very deserving.

But when it comes to composing with an overarching movement and getting into some sort of post-symphonical strain, where movements grab onto other movements and making every little thing play its role, is not where his strong forces are. I'm not saying he's amateurish in this regard, it's just not where he shines. There is quite a lot of artists working in this field, and I think there's quite a few that does this specific part better than him. It's not unusual for them to work in quadrophonic setups, and some of them are very good at composing in this setup in a way that uses it to its advantages.


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