Apple Joining the Atmos streaming game!

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You are correct Norm....no centre speaker used.
Great song 🎵 though...Nice mix, bass is coming through loud and proud.
Cheers for that seems like it’s on solo acts as opposed to groups noticed it on a Arianna Grande (or something like that) album will get round to checking a few others to see if there’s a pattern.
 
Cheers for that seems like it’s on solo acts as opposed to groups noticed it on a Arianna Grande (or something like that) album will get round to checking a few others to see if there’s a pattern.
Perhaps they trying those new mixes...'Quad Dolby Atmos' :D
Don't find it detracts from the music or mix...imo.
 
The next step is to play every single Toto song.
And I'm not joking -- unfortunately this is the only way to find if a song is available in Atmos.
Unless all the songs in an album are available in Atmos -- then you will see the Dolby Atmos label on the album.
Or unless a song is included in one of the Atmos playlists.

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212182How can I see if a song is available in Dolby Atmos?
"Play the song . . ."

Yes ! No doubt I’ll be doing that…..looking forward to receiving my Apple 4K TV box on Monday.
 
Respected Music Blogger just posted this to his subscribers

I got the following e-mail from a producer/engineer:

"I just want to try and alert you to the potential seismic scam happening with this Atmos roll out. Atmos catalog remixing is being done by the truckload in a handful of Nashville, LA, and NYC rooms right now and has been for a couple of years, and almost none of it is being overseen or approved by the artist or original producer or mixer. And these versions- according to Apple- will be the new standard versions, superseding the original versions, now designated by Apple to the dustbin of history.

I have heard some Atmos mixes which were indeed an improvement. However, most are not. And I would like to steer you toward this demo from Apple to get a sense of their mindset

Introducing Spatial Audio

In the rush to make content for Apple, labels are jamming this crap out with little QC and -again- almost no input from artists. This format has real potential but if they continue to try and tell us that shit like this 'new' version of 'What’s Going On' is better than then original, then it will be seen as a counterfeit and a fraud, and will go the way of the Home Pod. I know how you feel about catalog being remixed and this has potential to be a worst case scenario."

And then my inbox filled up with more, and iMessage started to ring from other professional engineers.

Now wait a second, this was supposed to be a breakthrough. But is it more of a marketing gimmick? A way for Apple to gain subscribers?

So I pulled it up.

You can hear it, it definitely sounds different, but is that a good thing?

And here's where I venture out beyond the limits of my knowledge, to what these people are telling me.

There are over a hundred reference points in Dolby Atmos. As in this is far beyond conventional 5.1. Think of a movie theatre, where the sound moves around, now you get the idea.

But that's movies. We're talking about music, sans pictures.

Now the truth is almost all music today is ultimately released in stereo. You record it, someone mixes the multiple tracks down to two, and then a mastering engineer EQ's it. The artist supervises the entire process. But when it comes to Atmos...

Let's say you have the equipment and ability to make an Atmos mix. My understanding is right now, you send the end product to Dolby and they use their special sauce to create the final product. Furthermore, they have special sauce to turn the same Atmosfied music into two track stereo. So, in a business where how it sounds is critical, Dolby is the ultimate arbiter.

The writer at the top is right. It is sacrilegious to remix/Atmosfy classic tracks. They weren't cut that way to begin with. It even bugs me that they're using remixed tracks from "Abbey Road" to Atmosfy, now you're multiple steps from the original.

Now if we look at the history here...

The big breakthrough came in the mid-sixties, when there were two formats, mono and stereo. At first albums came in both iterations, then stereo only. And the goal was to buy the best home stereo you could afford, so you could hear the end product the way it was made, so you could get closer to the music.

Then they introduced quad. There were two competing formats, they both failed.

And then, this century, there was surround sound, a lot of money was dropped and consumer adoption was extremely low. Once again, the albums were being bastardized, this is not how the band and producer and engineers envisioned the sound to be, this was an afterthought. And it also required a special system to hear, which most people didn't own, the script had flipped, from buying ever better, more expensive stereos to boom boxes and then headphones. And right now the standard is AirPods/earbuds, which ironically don't even work with Apple's Spatial Sound/Dolby Atmos. But if you have a wired connection...

I fired up Apple Music last night on my iPad. There's Zane Lowe's dog and pony show linked to above, but there's also 127 demo tracks, as in Apple is trotting these out to demonstrate the greatness of Spatial Audio. I pulled up ones I was familiar with.

Now I was listening on wired Sennheiser headphones, which retail for about $300, far better than what most punters are listening on, never mind the bass-heavy, distorting of the music Beats, talk about a marketing job.

And the tracks were, as I said, definitely different. Not radically different, but there was more space...

But then I started getting reviews e-mailed to me.

And just now I went back. Now I'm listening via my computer, with $700 Audeze headphones with a separate headphone amp. And what I've learned is...the Spatial Audio and stereo versions are not only different, the process affects the punch, the essence of the originals!

I compared Spatial Audio tracks to their HD equivalents on Amazon Music and I found exactly what one writer said: the vocal gets lost. Instead of being up front and in your face, it's buried more in the mix.

Let's start with Apple's demo track, "What's Going On." In the stereo mix Marvin Gaye is up front, the band is backing him, in the Spatial Audio version, the band is surrounding him, on the fringe, background vocals popping up way up to the right, Marvin is just an element, not the essence, it's a cornucopia of music, but it's not the legendary track, it's absolutely different, a sacrilege.

Same deal with the Doors' "Riders On the Storm." Pat Benatar's "We Belong."

Let's talk Bon Jovi's legendary "Wanted Dead or Alive." Listen to the stereo version and it's like there's a band on stage, the members are not all standing in the same place, but they're definitely on stage, in front of you, you've got a cohesive sound. Now on the Spatial Audio take... It's like you're in the arena and sounds are not only coming from the stage, but off to the right and left of it, from other places in the arena. It's an immersive experience akin to a...movie. But is music a movie? I don't think so. And in this movie, the instruments dominate, Jon Bon Jovi is fighting for attention, and he's losing the battle.

Wait, it gets worse. Forget the big budget records, more and more music is being made by individuals in bedrooms, home studios, on a budget. They have neither the equipment nor the skill to mix in Dolby Atmos. As for just sending the file to Dolby to be processed...that's like finishing a painting and having an amateur come in and completely change it, make it 3-D.

Actually, the more I listen to these Spatial Audio cuts, the more offensive they become. Kind of like those Beatles remixes. These are not the original records, they've been messed with, they're not even facsimiles, they're bastardizations.

Now the truth is this is a headphone genre. Which at the moment doesn't support Bluetooth, which is how most people listen to music on headphones today. So they can't hear the space, but somehow they're going to listen to two channel Atmosfied mix-downs. Oh, there could be two takes, like with mono and stereo in the sixties, but that's far too confusing, we need one standard, the marketplace needs one standard.

So, maybe there's a future for Spatial Audio...if it's mixed that way to begin with. But as demonstrated now, it's a hell-bent drive in the wrong direction.




Interesting. I tend to agree with him. I always come back to the originals, not the re-mixes
Sorry, but this one got me all fired up. One thing I hate is when someone tried to tell me what I should like and should not like. I could poke a thousand holes in this "respected" producer/engineer's argument. How does he know what the artist intended? How does anyone know that that artist didn't really want sound coming from all around but was limited by the technology of the time or by record company pressure? Calling these "bastardizations" is just ridiculous. Didn't Paul McCartney, RIngo Starr and the families of George and John approve the Sgt. Pepper surround mix? Some people get a little too precious with their beloved music. Yes, they are works of art, I get that. And the originals are out there, so go listen to those and be happy, no one is telling you otherwise. But don't tell me what to listen to or how I should listen.

And I know I'm not alone.
 
Anyone else finding some tracks make no use of the Center channel? I thought it was a problem with my system (it could still be) but it’s only certain mixes that don’t seem to use the centre channel for example Goats Head Soup tracks do but Taylor Swift’s Folklore doesn’t. There are other mixes that don’t seem to use the centre but haven’t checked them all so just used the above as an example.
I'm going to take a guess here . . .
We know that more people (including Taylor Swift fans) will be listening to Apple Music Atmos on earphones/headphones, so the mixers probably take this into consideration. Not using the center channel might be more effective and result in more separation when listening on earphones/headphones.
And this is perfectly fine for me, even when listening to Atmos/surround on speakers. I actually don't like the SACDs/DVDAs where the vocals or main instruments are focused on the center channel. Probably because of the limitations of the center channel -- you might have large floor standing L/R speakers, but the center channel will be "small" and the placement will not be ideal and it ends up below the TV and not in-line with your ears. Sure you can angle it to point to your listening positions, but it still sounds like it's coming from below and I always hated that.
So for me personally, no center channel = good ( with music, not movies).
 
Sorry, but this one got me all fired up. One thing I hate is when someone tried to tell me what I should like and should not like. I could poke a thousand holes in this "respected" producer/engineer's argument. How does he know what the artist intended? How does anyone know that that artist didn't really want sound coming from all around but was limited by the technology of the time or by record company pressure? Calling these "bastardizations" is just ridiculous. Didn't Paul McCartney, RIngo Starr and the families of George and John approve the Sgt. Pepper surround mix? Some people get a little too precious with their beloved music. Yes, they are works of art, I get that. And the originals are out there, so go listen to those and be happy, no one is telling you otherwise. But don't tell me what to listen to or how I should listen.

And I know I'm not alone.
Amen, this is 95% of the ancients on Hofmann forum.
 
Respected Music Blogger just posted this to his subscribers

I got the following e-mail from a producer/engineer:

"I just want to try and alert you to the potential seismic scam happening with this Atmos roll out. Atmos catalog remixing is being done by the truckload in a handful of Nashville, LA, and NYC rooms right now and has been for a couple of years, and almost none of it is being overseen or approved by the artist or original producer or mixer. And these versions- according to Apple- will be the new standard versions, superseding the original versions, now designated by Apple to the dustbin of history.

I have heard some Atmos mixes which were indeed an improvement. However, most are not. And I would like to steer you toward this demo from Apple to get a sense of their mindset

Introducing Spatial Audio

In the rush to make content for Apple, labels are jamming this crap out with little QC and -again- almost no input from artists. This format has real potential but if they continue to try and tell us that shit like this 'new' version of 'What’s Going On' is better than then original, then it will be seen as a counterfeit and a fraud, and will go the way of the Home Pod. I know how you feel about catalog being remixed and this has potential to be a worst case scenario."

And then my inbox filled up with more, and iMessage started to ring from other professional engineers.

Now wait a second, this was supposed to be a breakthrough. But is it more of a marketing gimmick? A way for Apple to gain subscribers?

So I pulled it up.

You can hear it, it definitely sounds different, but is that a good thing?

And here's where I venture out beyond the limits of my knowledge, to what these people are telling me.

There are over a hundred reference points in Dolby Atmos. As in this is far beyond conventional 5.1. Think of a movie theatre, where the sound moves around, now you get the idea.

But that's movies. We're talking about music, sans pictures.

Now the truth is almost all music today is ultimately released in stereo. You record it, someone mixes the multiple tracks down to two, and then a mastering engineer EQ's it. The artist supervises the entire process. But when it comes to Atmos...

Let's say you have the equipment and ability to make an Atmos mix. My understanding is right now, you send the end product to Dolby and they use their special sauce to create the final product. Furthermore, they have special sauce to turn the same Atmosfied music into two track stereo. So, in a business where how it sounds is critical, Dolby is the ultimate arbiter.

The writer at the top is right. It is sacrilegious to remix/Atmosfy classic tracks. They weren't cut that way to begin with. It even bugs me that they're using remixed tracks from "Abbey Road" to Atmosfy, now you're multiple steps from the original.

Now if we look at the history here...

The big breakthrough came in the mid-sixties, when there were two formats, mono and stereo. At first albums came in both iterations, then stereo only. And the goal was to buy the best home stereo you could afford, so you could hear the end product the way it was made, so you could get closer to the music.

Then they introduced quad. There were two competing formats, they both failed.

And then, this century, there was surround sound, a lot of money was dropped and consumer adoption was extremely low. Once again, the albums were being bastardized, this is not how the band and producer and engineers envisioned the sound to be, this was an afterthought. And it also required a special system to hear, which most people didn't own, the script had flipped, from buying ever better, more expensive stereos to boom boxes and then headphones. And right now the standard is AirPods/earbuds, which ironically don't even work with Apple's Spatial Sound/Dolby Atmos. But if you have a wired connection...

I fired up Apple Music last night on my iPad. There's Zane Lowe's dog and pony show linked to above, but there's also 127 demo tracks, as in Apple is trotting these out to demonstrate the greatness of Spatial Audio. I pulled up ones I was familiar with.

Now I was listening on wired Sennheiser headphones, which retail for about $300, far better than what most punters are listening on, never mind the bass-heavy, distorting of the music Beats, talk about a marketing job.

And the tracks were, as I said, definitely different. Not radically different, but there was more space...

But then I started getting reviews e-mailed to me.

And just now I went back. Now I'm listening via my computer, with $700 Audeze headphones with a separate headphone amp. And what I've learned is...the Spatial Audio and stereo versions are not only different, the process affects the punch, the essence of the originals!

I compared Spatial Audio tracks to their HD equivalents on Amazon Music and I found exactly what one writer said: the vocal gets lost. Instead of being up front and in your face, it's buried more in the mix.

Let's start with Apple's demo track, "What's Going On." In the stereo mix Marvin Gaye is up front, the band is backing him, in the Spatial Audio version, the band is surrounding him, on the fringe, background vocals popping up way up to the right, Marvin is just an element, not the essence, it's a cornucopia of music, but it's not the legendary track, it's absolutely different, a sacrilege.

Same deal with the Doors' "Riders On the Storm." Pat Benatar's "We Belong."

Let's talk Bon Jovi's legendary "Wanted Dead or Alive." Listen to the stereo version and it's like there's a band on stage, the members are not all standing in the same place, but they're definitely on stage, in front of you, you've got a cohesive sound. Now on the Spatial Audio take... It's like you're in the arena and sounds are not only coming from the stage, but off to the right and left of it, from other places in the arena. It's an immersive experience akin to a...movie. But is music a movie? I don't think so. And in this movie, the instruments dominate, Jon Bon Jovi is fighting for attention, and he's losing the battle.

Wait, it gets worse. Forget the big budget records, more and more music is being made by individuals in bedrooms, home studios, on a budget. They have neither the equipment nor the skill to mix in Dolby Atmos. As for just sending the file to Dolby to be processed...that's like finishing a painting and having an amateur come in and completely change it, make it 3-D.

Actually, the more I listen to these Spatial Audio cuts, the more offensive they become. Kind of like those Beatles remixes. These are not the original records, they've been messed with, they're not even facsimiles, they're bastardizations.

Now the truth is this is a headphone genre. Which at the moment doesn't support Bluetooth, which is how most people listen to music on headphones today. So they can't hear the space, but somehow they're going to listen to two channel Atmosfied mix-downs. Oh, there could be two takes, like with mono and stereo in the sixties, but that's far too confusing, we need one standard, the marketplace needs one standard.

So, maybe there's a future for Spatial Audio...if it's mixed that way to begin with. But as demonstrated now, it's a hell-bent drive in the wrong direction.




Interesting. I tend to agree with him. I always come back to the originals, not the re-mixes
I hate this idiot!!!
 
Respected Music Blogger just posted this to his subscribers

I got the following e-mail from a producer/engineer:

"I just want to try and alert you to the potential seismic scam happening with this Atmos roll out. Atmos catalog remixing is being done by the truckload in a handful of Nashville, LA, and NYC rooms right now and has been for a couple of years, and almost none of it is being overseen or approved by the artist or original producer or mixer. And these versions- according to Apple- will be the new standard versions, superseding the original versions, now designated by Apple to the dustbin of history.

Does this guy realize that 99% of those same atmos mixes "for" apple are also the exact same mixes that have been on Tidal?

All I'm saying, is why is he picking on Apple per se when his real gripe is with these new atmos mixes, wherever they end up.
 
Yeah that blogger is way off base. I gleefully disagree with him and his outrage.

Also, anyone who does not have a way to listen to Atmos, the "original versions" will continue to be what plays. And anyone who has Atmos capable devices can merely turn Atmos off, and they get the original mixes, as I do if I listen on anything that doesn't support Atmos.
 
What’s going on with Apple Music?! A song is in Atmos one day then disappears the next? Point I’m making Grand Funks “we’re an American band” was there now it’s not.. WTF

I’m actually starting to wonder if they are doing their own UNAUTHORIZED mixes then taking them down, or releasing stuff they weren’t supposed to release as of yet and being told by the artists/record companies to take them down
 
What’s going on with Apple Music?! A song is in Atmos one day then disappears the next? Point I’m making Grand Funks “we’re an American band” was there now it’s not.. WTF

I’m actually starting to wonder if they are doing their own UNAUTHORIZED mixes then taking them down, or releasing stuff they weren’t supposed to release as of yet and being told by the artists/record companies to take them down
It's still there in the Rock playlist.
Maybe you were trying to play a different version.

It's confusing because the Atmos version is in a compilation album by various artists, and not on the band's album.
Incidentally, this album has 5 songs in Atmos.
https://music.apple.com/us/album/classic-rock-workout/1434903954
 
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