After doing extensive research on more than 100 songs mixed in Dolby Atmos (246 songs analyzed counting MQA and sometimes FLAC stereo comparisons), a meticulous analysis led me to the following question: why music in Dolby Atmos still hasn't achieved what the technology promises us?

Dolby Atmos is a surround sound technology developed by Dolby Laboratories. It expands existing surround sound systems by adding height channels, allowing sounds to be interpreted as three-dimensional objects.
According to Dolby Laboratories, the motivation behind Dolby Atmos is to be "Pioneering unforgettable sound experiences" and that "Dolby Atmos removes the limits of creative expression for artists to create a spatial sound experience that puts you in the center of your entertainment. "

The first thing that pops up on the Dolby website is "Dive into sound reimagined with Dolby Atmos, revealing depth, clarity, and details like never before, Dolby Atmos is a sound experience you can feel all around you."

The Dolby website also allows us to try a Demo of Dolby Atmos vs Stereo. "Hot - The Pushers" is one of the songs you can listen to the demo, as well as "Untie - Ultra\Violet" and "Never Satisfied - Theory Hazit, feat. Jon Belz", these are great examples of what Dolby itself suggests that Dolby Atmos Music MUST be. All Dolby Atmos Music demos make the technology's purpose very clear: to bring an immersive sound, not static, that makes you immerse yourself in the music with sounds that move three-dimensionally around you in a virtual and simulated way, to make you feel in the middle of the music and the instruments. The movement of sound gives the listener the feeling of life, the feeling that the music is not just a static reproduction of recordings, but something that is happening at that moment and that the listener is living this moment with the sounds surrounding they in motion.

Dolby Atmos started out in cinema, then expanded into gaming, becoming popular mostly on Xbox and Windows, and is now slowly starting to gain prominence in music. This cinema sound technology has always been about immersion, three-dimensionality and movement, using psychoacoustics to simulate three-dimensional sound positioning even in the absence of more than two audio channels.

Having said all that, I'd like to talk more about what people want. Saying what people want is a big issue, because I'm a single person and I can't represent everyone who listens to music, but one thing is for sure: it's impossible for everyone to agree on the same thing. Still, assuming that Dolby Atmos Music is a premium feature, you have to pay for a streaming subscription to get access, what's the point of paying to hear more of the same? Let's see, for a few years now, "3D" versions of the songs have been popping up on YouTube and Spotify, which are a cheap version of what Dolby Atmos Music purports to be. The problem is... sometimes it's even more fun to hear these cheap versions (those well done with instruments separate from the voices) because of how sad is the moment that this brilliant technology is passing away. The feeling is that artists and producers are still unprepared for this and stick to what they've known all along, but anyone who pays to listen to music in a different way is certainly not satisfied with what they're listening to on Dolby Atmos Music these days. I'm not the only one claiming this, a quick look at video comments about Dolby Atmos songs on YouTube can show us the popular dissatisfaction with the mixes. Complaints of low volume, of losing the essence of the music due to the lack of presence of some instruments, music as static as its stereo versions and more. In the end, there seems to be no compensation for what we pay. We pay to hear what Dolby Technologies promises: immersive sound that you can feel in an experience with movement and depth all around you. That's not what we're seeing in the current state of music in Dolby Atmos for the most part.
Of course, there are the glorious versions that make you feel like this is what the music industry urgently needs, but there are versions that are so bad that it makes you angry and makes you want to personally ask the team that produced the Atmos version what went wrong.

Another very weird and suspicious situation is the "update" of the Atmos versions. There were cases of songs in Dolby Atmos (like 7 Rings by Ariana Grande, mixed by @ TheHanes ) that their first Atmos version was glorious, very immersive, with movement, but a few months after release they did an update that made the song basically the stereo version, which you listen to it on YouTube or any other streaming, with the same placement of the sounds in a ridiculously tedious and not immersive way. No, leaving the sound exactly the same as it was originally made in stereo to be released on Spotify is not "immersive" just because it's in Dolby Atmos on Tidal or Apple Music, it's just more of the same and it's just frustrating to pay to listen more of the same. Where was the idea that "Dolby Atmos removes the limits of creative expression for artists to create a spatial sound experience that puts you in the center of your entertainment."??? I don't feel like I'm at the center of entertainment at all and I don't even feel entertained after listening to such bland mixes. Dolby Atmos gives you the tools to not limit yourself, but you, mixing engineers and artists, are limiting yourself.

About that, luckily I can prove it because I recorded the entire 3 minutes of the first Atmos version of 7 Rings in November 2020 and made a quick video comparing the movement of sounds against today's version of the song in 2022. Link: https://youtu.be/pJXlrnLPTsU The song was better on first version, and anyone would say that without a shadow of a doubt, because the current version is EXACTLY the same as the stereo version and this is disappointing and completely the opposite of what Dolby suggests the experience of listening to music in Dolby Atmos will be.

Finally, I'd like to mention the Immersive Mix Engineers that I've noticed commendable work in recreating stereo music in Dolby Atmos:

Colin Heldt (Circles Post Malone, rockstar)

Nick Rives (3 Little Birds)

Dust Richardson (Somewhere Only We Know - Keane, Don't Matter - Akon)

Steve Genewick (Moanin' Remastered)

Chandler Harrod (Moves Like Jagger)

Gary Lux (He Is The Same - Jon Bellion)

Jeff Huskins (F2020)

Greg Penny + John Hanes @ TheHanes ) in "Dark Horse - Katy Perry" only

Konstantin Kersting (Dance Monkey)

Kevin Grainger (Runaway U & I)


With this review I hope to start a discussion about the future of Dolby Atmos Music, because the vast majority of high quality music lovers would like to hear what Dolby promises us: true immersion.

i've been working in surround since the days of quad and ambisonics (and a bit later got into 'immersive' by combining/mixing to several surround buses), albeit in live sound or then for some installations; in these fields of our craft, there's absolutely nothing that atmos has to offer that would keep up with or would outperform other formats and the fact that atmos has been around for a decade but most folks still cannot wrap their head around the proceedings imo is telling!

the only reason you'll want to use atmos is distribution...

I'll reply in pieces as I'm quite busy and you've covered a lot of ground here!

First I think that we need to get an idea of what you are listening on; Dolby Atmos is not only a format for mixing Immersive music, but it is also a distribution method that allows for the same Atmos mix to be heard in multiple ways.

So are you listening in a 7.1.4 or greater room, or on headphones and AirPods (binaural and Apple Immersive) only?


I'd say a couple of things about this.

Demos of anything are always over the top; you would not drive a car the way it is driven in a car commercial, you would not watch a full movie as it is portrayed in a trailer. The music demos are similar I believe; a demonstration of technology.

Music for listening should not, in my opinion, be moving all around like you are in a cinema. When you listen to a concert, the musicians are not generally running around you (even if they are, the sound comes from the stage PA). When you are in an orchestra, the players are not shifting positions; and when you listen to stereo music, instruments are generally not panning left to right and moving in and out of soundfield (reverb, ambience) as if they are moving in and out.

Immersive doesn't mean moving around to me. I don't think it would be a pleasant listening experience to hear music mixed as if it is cinema sound where things are flying around and tied to action on the screen.

Cool yes, to hear a bit of the technology, but not pleasant and musical.

But if you want to hear movement, please listen to my Imagine Dragons "Enemy" Atmos mix. It can be done, it just requires a production (and file availability) that certain types and genres of music lend themselves to, and others do not.

Also, most Atmos mixing now, and all of mine to date, have been creating an Immersive mix of an existing stereo song. These are not, and there are I think very few, productions specifically written for and recorded for Immersive playback. That would be a different experience, one perhaps more to your liking.

About how I listen to Dolby Atmos I can confidently answer that I hear it as more than 90% of all listeners listen to: In-Ears/Headphones (not everyone can afford an Airpods or have a home theater at home). Even in one of the episodes of creating music in Dolby Atmos, Maggie Tobin teaches the advantage of doing mixes thinking about the obvious: almost everyone will listen to it on earbuds and headphones.


Quote: "Music for listening should not, in my opinion, be moving all around like you are in a cinema." Of course not. The idea is in the small details, like voices and short sounds that can go from one side to the other, or continuous sounds that can move depending on the type of instrument and energy of the song. The Dolby tutorials also teach this question that some things can have movement and that this adds a lot to the music. Sometimes the ideal may be not to move, but always doing so is a waste of technology.


Quote: "Immersive doesn't mean moving around to me."

But shouldn't this be about the listener's experience, as Dolby suggests and promises? What makes your 7 Ring Atmos mix different from the stereo mix if nothing in them is really different for the listener? People listen to music at home, on the street, on the bus, on the plane, in the car, on the subway, everywhere, but almost never on a surround sound system. If to notice any slight difference everyone needs a surround sound system, then something is wrong because the technology proposes the exact opposite. The first Dolby Atmos version of the 7 Rings song was better and really immersive, but not anymore. What sets the current Atmos version apart so that you can say that compared to the stereo version, the new Atmos version is """immersive""" if it's exactly the same?

Quote: "But if you want to hear movement, please listen to my Imagine Dragons "Enemy" Atmos mix. It can be done, it just requires a production (and file availability) that certain types and genres of music lend themselves to, and others do not."

Also, why doesn't this song exist in Atmos on Tidal, only on Apple Music? It makes me think that there are more Dolby Atmos songs on Apple Music than on Tidal, which is a shame. Is it true?

And could you say what happened to 7 Rings? I put the 1:30 minute video on YouTube showing the difference, but I don't understand what caused it to get worse

Nothing wrong with listening in headphones and AirPods; as you note, most people will be hearing it that way.

My philosophy is to create the best Immersive mix that I can for full Atmos playback and let the technology for Airpod and binaural catch up and get better.

It is like I'm making a painting that is bright and vibrant, but you only see an 8 bit color version of it. Eventually the technology will improve so you can see the 24bit or 32bit color version as created.

But I won't create an 8 bit color version of it now as the original, then there is no future for better presentation.

As you can see from the 7 Rings, things change rapidly in the playback world, things that I can't control. So I just try to create the best source I can. (and no I don't know what changed).

What we are also up against is Artists not wanting their Immersive mix played in headphones to be very different at all! They want it the same as the stereo mix that they worked so hard to create. This is, I guess, another form of Demo-itis, but it is the reality we have to deal with. If I can make the Atmos mix sound identical in binaural, close in Apple Immersive, and wonderful in full surround, then I've done my job!

Yes, more interesting things can be done, and I try to fit some of that into the mix, but when you begin to really mix in Atmos, you understand that there are just some things in music that we are completely used to hearing in front, left and right. They sound so odd elsewhere.

Your answer is quite reasonable and makes me believe that those responsible, in fact, for the uninteresting Atmos mixes are the artists themselves, and not or not just the engineers. I've seen at least 1 Atmos mix you were involved in, Katy Perry's Dark Horse. The beginning of the song already has a subtle difference in movement with that high-pitched voice in the first few seconds of the song. These are the details I talk about, and I imagine you're quite capable of doing things like that, because you've done them before. 7 Rings from the link I left from YouTube is a very interesting example too. If you can, listen to F2020 by Avenue Beat, and also Circles by Post Malone. These are really good Atmos mix examples of what I say about the subtle differences that are immersive. I think it's fair enough to say that you're making the best version and that the technology behind binaural playback still has a long way to go. I've seen people comment that the codecs for Dolby Atmos in Apple Music and Tidal are not the same as those used in Dolby software and that binaural playback really isn't that comparable. Still, having seen that you are a very humble and approachable person, I would like to believe that you would think about it in your next Atmos mixes, trying to bring out these little details when possible. Very nice to have this conversation with you, someone responsible for taking care of the music of such famous people. In the end, it's because of people like you that the songs end up being amazing, not just because of the artists, so with great power comes great responsibility. Good job!

Thanks, I think that we all want to make the best music and the best presentation of that music possible, but there are some things outside of the music that must be taken into account.

I'll dive deeper into some of the other issues you raised in later posts, but for now, I hope that you continue to be passionate about music, about Immersive mixing, but I also hope that I've shown some of the 'behind the curtain' issues that we face.