Apple Music to Pay Artists Up to 10% More Royalties for Spatial Audio Content

[xbjllb]

All artists will do is run their album through some digital process to meet the spatial audio requirement. To the user, it will be a worse experience and further cements the gimmick spatial audio is unless mastered appropriately.

I think Apple is savvy enough to know the difference between fake spatial audio and the real thing. And find a way to detect it via automation.

 

[AlinomyTomy]

Never said that at all ha. The majority of music is recorded in stereo and if you’re doing Dolby then an engineer remasters it often times worse than the original. Spatial audio is gimmicky and not really for the music industry IMO.

It is sometimes possible to get the feeling it and gimmicks like it are aimed at folks who want more than anything to use music to listen to their toys in order to appreciate their money.

 

[HDFan]

'Buddy Holly' by Weezer is a good example of it sounding truly terrible in spatial audio.

Thanks. Did listen to it but it sounded equally horrible both in Stereo and in Atmos. Maybe a bad recording or their music just isn't to my taste.

further cements the gimmick spatial audio is, period.

There are curated spatial audio playlist created by audio professionals which sound great. Listening to a great spatial recording is an awesome experience.

The Ten Best Immersive Audio Albums of 2023

www.soundandvision.com

 

[RobertN]

Thanks. Did listen to it but it sounded equally horrible both in Stereo and in Atmos. Maybe a bad recording or their music just isn't to my taste.

It sounds significantly worse in Spatial Audio though.

Widening the stereo field, which is exactly what it sounds like they’ve done to me, does not improve the mix.
It might work for very specific music like ambient or movies/tv shows, but for most pop/rock/electronic a one size fits all blanketing stereo widening treatment is just going to make it sound muddy and unbalanced.