For an artist/producer/mixer – the conundrum is – do you create an immersive mix that sounds great on speakers – or play it safe and try to make it sound best on what 99% of the listeners will listen on: stereo or headphones?
Besides having spatial audio default on Apple Music: the binaural render from Apple is different than the Atmos renderer and can change in the future- so mixing in immersive audio means you're essentially mixing for a moving target for headphones/stereo. I've heard some Atmos songs where when downmixed to stereo major vocal parts have simply disappeared (possibly phasing canceling things out and no one checking?)
A separate stereo and surround mix might work: for example - Peter Gabriel - i/o. The downside though is if someone first comes upon the surround album and listens to it on headphones not knowing it is meant for speakers - they may think it sounds not so great and pass over it.
My suggestion would be to incorporate a way to have a separate high quality bounced stereo mix + separate immersive mix in the same file or at least have the software default to stereo if the OS is set to headphones/stereo and if it’s 4+ channels - then have that be the only time the immersive speaker mix will play. Head tracking shouldn't be needed for music or tv or film mixes.
A positive for immersive mixes is they can have dynamic range and have loudness requirements unlike stereo which is oftentimes brick-wall limited.
Besides having spatial audio default on Apple Music: the binaural render from Apple is different than the Atmos renderer and can change in the future- so mixing in immersive audio means you're essentially mixing for a moving target for headphones/stereo. I've heard some Atmos songs where when downmixed to stereo major vocal parts have simply disappeared (possibly phasing canceling things out and no one checking?)
A separate stereo and surround mix might work: for example - Peter Gabriel - i/o. The downside though is if someone first comes upon the surround album and listens to it on headphones not knowing it is meant for speakers - they may think it sounds not so great and pass over it.
My suggestion would be to incorporate a way to have a separate high quality bounced stereo mix + separate immersive mix in the same file or at least have the software default to stereo if the OS is set to headphones/stereo and if it’s 4+ channels - then have that be the only time the immersive speaker mix will play. Head tracking shouldn't be needed for music or tv or film mixes.
A positive for immersive mixes is they can have dynamic range and have loudness requirements unlike stereo which is oftentimes brick-wall limited.
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