Listen to songs in surround sound with Dolby’s spatial audio tech
Dolby Atmos Music has literally added a whole new dimension to music-listening. Dolby’s immersive audio technology may have been designed for movie surround sound in multiplex and home cinemas, but in the past couple of years it has found its way into the music realm too.
Thousands of Dolby Atmos Music tracks are now available on streaming services such as Tidal and Apple Music, and an increasing number of Atmoscapable devices – phones, TVs, soundbars, wireless speakers – can play them. Dolby even has a dedicated Dolby Live venue in Las Vegas where concerts can be engineered and delivered in real time to audiences in Dolby Atmos.
As Dolby Atmos Music essentially encourages music to be created in or produced as surround sound instead of stereo, it seems to have divided opinion in its fledgling years. While the big players such as Apple and Amazon are embracing the technology in their services and products, Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich has, for example, snubbed the technology
So, what is Dolby Atmos?
Put simply, Atmos is a way of remixing songs using an object-based surround sound tech that started life in cinemas. It differs from traditional 5.1 and 7.1 channel set-ups, not only in how it allows engineers to create surround sound but also by adding extra channels overhead (for example, with speakers mounted in the ceiling). The result? A much more engrossing sound, creating a dome of audio with the audience at the centre. It’s much more precise than ‘standard’ surround sound. Thanks to the technology’s new method of calibration, sound engineers can precisely place sounds at various points in the soundstage, rather than just pumping them through a select audio channel. It makes for a much more realistic and immersive home cinema experience. And now it can do the same for music. Artists can create music in Dolby Atmos in the studio, or music can be converted to Atmos purely in the post-production process.
Where can I listen to Dolby Atmos Music? What music is available?
In 2020, we saw the first tranche of 50 Universal Studio releases hit streaming services. These included Kraftwerk’s 3D The Catalogue, Hans Zimmer’s Live In Prague and R.E.M.’s Automatic For The People (25th Anniversary Edition). Nowadays, however, all tastes are more or less catered for: there’s everything from Rodriguez Jr.’s Bliss to Public Enemy’s Don’t Believe The Hype to Rush’s Tom Sawyer, and everything in between.
As well as remixing exi
