What is spatial audio?
For decades, technological advances in audio had stagnated. At the beginning of the last century, music was heard in bun. Later, in the 1960s, it began to be mixed in stereo. It was almost 50 years later that a new technology for mixing music was developed, called Dolby Atmos.
This is a technology developed by Dolby Laboratories and began to become popular with the cinema. Movies like the Oscar-winning “Everything Everywhere at the Same Time”; “Avengers: Infinity War”, or “The Whale” were mixed in Dolby Atmos.
spatial audio is actually a term he coined Apple Music and Jennifer D’Cunha, director of services for Apple Latin America, shared that they chose these words to make it easier for users to understand what the experience is about.
On June 7, 2021, they made the official launch on their platform, in which they mixed hundreds of songs in Dolby Atmos in a wide variety of genres. Artists like Billie Eilish, Pink Floyd, León Larregui and Silvana Estrada find themselves in spatial audio.
The Cupertino company was followed by Tidal and Amazon Prime Music, which also offer music mixed in Dolby Atmos.
While this means new technology for mixing music, Giles Martin, Grammy Award winner and son of acclaimed musician Georges Martin, thinks the biggest change is “in the way we listen. So what happens is that now you want to change things and that’s what changes the way you make music.”
How is music made in Dolby Atmos?
“It is the first time that you can see the music: they are large, small dots, creative elements that, as an engineer, you can see and move and create endless possibilities”, shared Carolina Anton, Mexican audio engineer, specialist in Dolby Atmos.
To do this mix, engineers can use traditional audio editing programs, such as ProTools either Ableton. But, additionally, they use the software Dolby Atmos Renderermade specifically by Dolby where you can visually see all the panning and movement of the instruments and literally see where they want the music to feel.
On the other hand, Apple seeks to facilitate mixing in Dolby Atmos by including Dolby software in its audio editing program, Logic Pro.
“The idea of mixing in Dolby is also to understand the song, the concept and make it big and involving. This is the part that I love nowadays. Mixing in stereo has always been cool, but Dolby opens up the possibility of creativity,” Anton shared.
How to listen to music in Dolby Atmos?
Music in Dolby Atmos is more about the mix than the device. If it’s mixed well, you’ll be able to hear it through virtually any type of headphones or speakers.
However, if you are a music lover or music lover and want to enjoy this experience to the fullest, these are some headphones and speakers specialized in playing music in Dolby:
- It was 300 (SONOS)
- Apple AirPods Pro 2nd Generation
- Apple AirPods Max
- Apple HomePod
- amazon echo studio
- Beats Fit Pro
