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How are Dolby Atmos mixes created?

Is it really that fast? I think this is just an example of some investment, no magic at all. Apple Music mostly bans algorithmic content and while some has slipped through, they do remove it as soon as they find it, I've seen it happen. I can't find a recent source on exactly how many Atmos tracks are on Apple Music, but it's definitely in the low to mid single digit thousands of albums, or tens of thousands of songs. How many albums in total are released per year? Hard to be sure, but it's for sure more than 100,000.

So, being conservative, that's only 1% of all music being produced each year that's in Atmos.
And I would say how does that compare with the pre-flood?

You are looking at this wrong. Have you been a consumer of surround mixes previously? Do you have a sense of what the landscape was like for fans of surround music?

The rest of what you wrote is more speculation.
 
Which is rather unlike the cases I'm talking about. And you're apparently talking about a (recent?) live show recording, not, say, an old Donna Summer album. There is nothing to compare it to. Yours is not like the cases I am talking about.




I'd love to compare your 'easy as pie' scenario with, say, Steven Wilson's workflow. I don't see him cranking out a classic album multichannel remix in two hours, though he can probably do an Atmos remix of *something he's already mixed in 5.1 before* pretty efficiently.

If you're really just saying, that amount of care just doesn't go into these Atmos remixes -- a lot of them of albums that have never had surround mixes at all before -- that's claiming something too.
I'm saying that if album was mixed before (by whoever, doesn't matter that much) then atmos transfer is very easy and fast as multitracks are available in most cases. Why would be otherwise if the mix is already done and engineer have the stereo reference at disposal? Donna Summer you say? Anyone could download tracks long before atmos release, I'm sure label had those for decades and for the whole catalog. I also don't see corellation between time wasted on a bad workflow and quality of the final product
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BTW I really don't get why for some the large amount of time spent working on something is important, there are countless examples of historically great albums done in a super short time. It takes time to learn how to work efficiently, how to play the instrument and work on a song, but making a record shouldn't be hard to anyone involved or long. If it is then something is wrong, like the songs aren't written and they need a lot of work, the musicians can't play, or studio burned down or something. Same goes for post production, editing, tuning, cleaning stuff is time consuming, not mixing itself
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And I would say how does that compare with the pre-flood?
pre-flood there wasn't a major streaming service run by a multi-trilliion dollar company explicitly paying financial premiums/benefits for surround mixes. The Apple Music execs apparently think that Atmos is the future and they easily have the power to single handedly create that future.

Also, pre-Atmos surround wasn't designed to be software rendered for headphone listening, so it was always going to be limited to people with expensive headphone setups, making it less attractive commercially speaking. Atmos is not limited in that way.
 
You are looking at this wrong. Have you been a consumer of surround mixes previously? Do you have a sense of what the landscape was like for fans of surround music?

When streaming music became a thing, a lot has been written on the very small amount received by artists each time a song was played. But for this kind of transition (stereo to atmos) it’s certainly a significant success factor.

When you still had to purchase physical medium, there was a whole logistic and storage for the reseller, and the customer had to purchase an album often already owned. On the business side of things this wasn’t worth except for major albums. Being able to purchase files made it easier but wasn’t solving this last point. With streaming you don’t even think about it (I can only speak for Apple Music)

So maybe it doesn’t explain all of the acceleration you refer to, but maybe the effect is actually huge.

For Steven Wilson remixes (I’m a big fan) I see it as a related but different work where it’s not only a matter of placing the tracks in space but revisiting a lot of decisions on the mix, even if he’s super efficient at it, it’s much more work I guess.
 
pre-flood there wasn't a major streaming service run by a multi-trilliion dollar company explicitly paying financial premiums/benefits for surround mixes. The Apple Music execs apparently think that Atmos is the future and they easily have the power to single handedly create that future.

And what I'm asking for, are some actual, not speculative, logistical details as to how this future has now been created.

Also, pre-Atmos surround wasn't designed to be software rendered for headphone listening, so it was always going to be limited to people with expensive headphone setups, making it less attractive commercially speaking. Atmos is not limited in that way.

This is so odd a point to make that I must ask you again: are you someone who was familiar with/buying much product in the surround-mix market in the 2000-2022 era?

I was not asking why Atmos exists, or what its market is, btw. My question is about the how of it.
 
Previous attempts of making music for surround formats were pretty much doomed to fail right from the start…

1. The 5.1 surround mixes were done for a fairly small market of users with surround systems in their homes, where most of them were likely more into using their systems for watching movie than listening to music.

2. It was likely pretty hard to predict how many copies to make based on the uncertainty on how many or few that would be sold, and then on top of that the problem of distribution it for a market that was likely small.

3. Introducing “software” for a market in the hope that the content will sell the necessary hardware for it to play has almost always failed.




When looking at the above points from the view of how Atmos works…

1. Nowadays most people use headphones when listening to music, and thanks to an object-based format like Dolby Atmos the same audio production can be listened to on those simple headphones, as well as on the small market surround sound systems.

2. Thanks to music streaming platforms, it's no longer that hard to predict the potential market and the distribution to the whole world is no longer restricted like it was for physical media.

3. The reproduction hardware is already in place for Atmos music to be played, so the content just has to be made available for the potential of reaching everyone in the world who’s interested in listening to music.
 
Those again are why its happening. And I knew all that already. Though counting headphones as 'reproduction hardware', while certainly true and vital to the markett model, is amusing from the viewpoint of people with actual x.x reproduction hardware

Think Im just going to keep an eye out for articles in professional publications llike Mix, or maybe hit the pro forums. I'm clearly not getting the in-the-know expertise input I'm seeking, here, nor, apparently , have many ASR interlocutors actually consumed surround music for enough time to appreciate the sea change. None has said, yeah, I've been buying DVDA and SACD and Blurays for years, like you, so I get what you're saying. Ta.
 
I bought my first HT receiver, a Denon 2802 almost 25 years ago and bought multiple DVDs of concerts but was never tempted by the SACD or DVDA, hires or to go beyond 5.1 so I have for sure a different perspective but I think I get what you’re saying. I really like multichannel music (enough to spend quite some time with my Sonos system instead of my “nicer” stereo setup) and I’m just happy that more material is available without having to buy albums I already own or new hardware!
 
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