Note: I’m focused primarily on commercial appeal. I’ve heard quad that is great, but every format beyond stereo has failed in the marketplace. I am also worried creatively. As in if the Atmos versions of originals become the standard. Atmos is the default in Apple Music. Which is criminal. Atmos should be opt-in, not opt-out. It’s bad enough that Beatles remixes are superseding the originals on platforms. It takes an effort to find the older, original versions. I mean when you mess with the Beatles… But it’s always about money. I’ve got nothing inherently against Atmos, although I don’t believe in remixing already recorded material. I’ve got nothing against the experience but do I think it will become anywhere near the dominant, accepted playback format? No.

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In 1975, my band, Fireballet, recorded our first album, Night On Bald Mountain, in Sansui Quad.

Oh, it was fun having things bounce around the room, but that’s all it was,  sonic fun you could  only properly experience if you stood dead center in the control room.

We did not do the 2nd Fireballet in Quad.

Quad faded away very quickly.

We’re coming up on 50 years since my Quad experience.

I’m with Mr. Ezrin and Mr. Anderton about this.

Jim Cuomo

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I’m sticking with the two Bobs on this.  I think Ezrin makes the most persuasive argument. Being blown away is exciting but it’s about where we focus our attention on a primal level. Like worshiping at church or a sacrifice. The difference between the energy at a rock concert versus silent disco where everyone is free to focus on whet they want. The best experience is when are attention is directed. As a producer I’m always aware of HOW I introduce the information.

I’m intrigued by the long game theory but I think it’ll end up applying more to VR experiences than music which will always be worshiped at the temple of stereo.

All the best,

Jeff Bhasker

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One fallacy repeated here is that stereo is effective because people only have two ears. That wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. If you go back and review Steinberg and Snow’s papers presented to the IEEE ca. 1931-1934 on stereo and auditory perspective, you will notice that they always intended for stereo to be delivered via three speakers, not two. Dropping the center channel was a mistake made by the business folks involved, citing costs.

Jim Rondinelli

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Music lovers use equipment to listen to their music,
Audiophiles use music to listen to their equipment

Rusty Hodge

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Hey Bob, I’ve found it interesting that several of the most vocal and fervent supports of Atmos that have replied to you here also have a financial stake in it’s success. Add a paycheck to the equation and it’s easy to see objectivity go right out the door.

Bret Bassi

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There is a big fallacy in spatial audio marketing, which is that two speakers cannot properly recreate a three-dimensional experience.

It’s just that, with the availability of multi-track recording, audio engineers seem to have forgotten how to produce true stereo recordings, i.e. with a coincident pair of cardioids, or, if you also want to capture what’s happening behind, with a pair figure of eight polar pattern microphones. On two tracks.

What has been happening since is the production of “fake stereo” where the spatial rendition is invented at the mixing table with or without the addition of effects. Atmos takes us even further down that path.

While Atmos may provide more life-like simulations for movies or gaming, I doubt it is necessary for music if the aim is to reproduce a live experience. Pleasing or not, the final effect will be us listening to sound engineers much more than musicians. But in this realm of product manufacturing, if it is the product that sells…

Sincerely,

J-Dominique Sellier

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As usual people are thinking about Atmos with dated thinking. It seems a waste of time to take stereo mixes of music created for stereo and try to create a spatial experience. Atmos  is a niche technology that people need to write a musical experience for. As Mr Ezrin says we a wired to look where sound comes from so this technology at its best would be coupled with immersive visuals.  It isn’t a mass market tech. Some people eat at Michelin rated restaurants. Most eat at McDonald’s. Looks like the industry is trying to add garnishes to our happy Meal.

Allan Davey

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Atmos, or any future “immersive” scenario will definitely get traction from a generation that grew up on video games, that are also immersive and may eventually prove to be influential in future music creation … who knows? Humans evolve… or “devolve” depending on which side of the fence you fall on.

Which is a good segue to my stating that nonetheless, I’m on “Team Ezrin” 100%.

Jason Steidman

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I haven’t seen anyone mention this and I believe it’s crucial.

The current technology is evolving towards the metaverse –at least that’s where many big players are placing their bets. Immersive audio may be a fad now, but once virtual/augmented reality becomes a… well, a reality, dolby atmos will not only make sense, but play a huge role in our virtual lives.

I guess that’s a whole other conversation. Not many people are talking about it from this perspective, I’m curious what are your thoughts.

Sergey Boket

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How many households have 5.1 speakers for watching films/sports/movies?

How many have 7.1?

Most consumers will use the tv speakers or maybe a sound bar, similar to just AirPods.

I wonder if you went back though and looked at curmudgeons railing against new found stereo vs. mono would you see the same thing? Think of how bad early stereo mixes were because they were an afterthought after mono was done. Or how bad CD transfers were originally.

Dolby and others are continually pushing tech to deliver different audio experiences. But just like any tech, it will be for a small part of the general public. And that’s OK.

Regards,

Ned Ward

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Dirty little insider secret among many top engineers (please don’t use my name if you share this) is that Auro-3D is the best sounding of the immersive formats for music, due to speaker angle placement and lossless PCM playback (typically from Blu Ray disc).

Both Sony 360RA (which is a variant of MPEG-H) and Dolby Atmos are encoded in a lossy manner, Sony tends to have better imaging and placement and is a bit more “hi-fi”, Atmos was developed for cinema and can work quite well for music, but seems to be a few steps behind the others when it comes to ultimate audio quality and fidelity. The angle and placement of the height channels in Atmos tend to make it difficult to get a seamless audio image from top to bottom.

Sadly Auro is a tiny niche within the limited immersive niche itself. Sounds incredible though if you ever get a chance to check it out.

Funny to see the “old guys” (Ezrin, Fremer – who’s whole life is vinyl, etc) firmly rooted in the established standard. As you like to say, the cheese is being moved. Will they come along into the future (stereo isn’t going anywhere, immersive is a bonus), or stay stuck where they’ve been throughout their career? Anderton’s comment is correct, engineers are paid to listen to sound, and the good ones (along with the producer) are also listening for music -performance, artistry, magic, lightning in a bottle. Regardless of format or number of channels.

I could name a long list of horrible sounding vinyl LPs and CDs. Does that mean the formats suck? Not according to the market. Same goes for immersive. There’s cheesy dreck, rushed remasters that butcher the original as well as mind-boggling well done inspiring tracks, new and old. Just because not everything is incredible doesn’t mean it’s dead as a format. Caveat emptor, as always.

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OMG,

I remember not so long ago higher-ups in the business seemingly severely allergic to change screaming “PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS WANT TO HOLD SOMETHING IN THEIR HANDS – LIKE A CD!!! AND THE ARTWORK!!!  THIS WON’T STAND”!

It really doesn’t matter what people think – this thing is here to stay.  You know what, like Giles Martin says: “You don’t have to listen to it”.

Far from a wank, this format, done right, is transformative – it takes listening to recorded music to a whole new level – there is no doubt about this.

To my dear friend John Van Nest: You can’t listen to Atmos on stereo speakers – doesn’t work that way.

To my friend Bob Ezrin – I love the allegory of human beings spinning to face the new sound, but once we realize that it wasn’t a lion about to eat us, we relax and enjoy the immersive-ness (yep that’s the word) of an Atmos music mix.

For what it’s worth – the amazing kids I teach at USC are crazy for this shit!!

All my best, -b

Brian Malouf

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Subject: Suddenly everyone is an Atmos expert

Hi Bob, respectfully disagree with almost everything that was posted on your pages regarding this topic.

I get it, most of the released Atmos is shit. So when people are complaining, it’s because they have a lack of skill or a lack of imagination.  Yet if a scientist compared three or four tracks for a few minutes each of a format with 70 years of experience versus a more complex format with just a couple of years of experience and came to any conclusions they would be fired.

This is mostly a headphone format not a speaker format as with cinema, and it’s the future of headphones, absolutely.  Apple invests billions per year in developing VR.  Atmos sounds objectively better when it’s done right in headphones versus the stereo in headphones.  More canvas, more dynamics. Better.

I have pioneered analog atmos mastering using 50 custom EQ’s and 48 analog compressors.  Better in headphones, always, compared to stereo.  Not only is 99.9% of Atmos released unmastered, the rare mastering paid for by the people who care is not sufficient for the format. Too safe, too clinical … something we wouldn’t pay for it if was a Stereo mastering job.

I had to figure out what was the purpose of mastering in this format (if any) and learn how to do it on any project in any genre, at any quality of mix, just like I do in stereo. I have done that work.

My analog Atmos mastering work sounds better in the headphones vs. stereo, every time, every headphone, every listener, every style, no exceptions, no excuses, no fish bowl of sound, no phase mess, no weird center vocal image, no lack of punch down the center … absolutely better, end of argument.

Analog while mastering atmos is needed else the distortion / harmonics sound like a demo.  No analog bus processing in atmos and no analog mastering processing as we have with the highly evolved stereo format.  Plugs in don’t add what Class A discrete op amps with juicy transformers do. So analog has to happen on every object (3D track).

As far as the skill set, almost everything released is middle to awful and the five percent that’s good could still be much better. And that makes sense.  This is new territory, and it’s a great opportunity for those of us who are older to be young again, to learn every day, to take everything we know about stereo and to apply it into an arena which is not a completely new invention. It’s just an extension of stereo into a larger field.

Everything we know about stereo still applies and it’s important.  Again we have 70 years working in stereo vs. just a couple years on this format, with many skilled people not even bothering.  And yet suddenly everyone is an expert?  I’m at the front of this and learning constantly, that is the mind to have.

This is not surround … or from the past … this is a streamable and accessible room full of sound decoding for every speaker system and every headphone. That is new.  As are the height speakers.

Humans are wired to expect sounds from behind to be a threat, and we hear them very well … so there is a stress thing that can happen.  Yet when the music is great, and we let that fear stress go, there is no greater feeling of euphoria assuming the music has the punch we expect down the middle like in stereo.

Yet again, Atmos is a headphone product 99.9%

What’s needed in atmos is Center Power and to combat the phase issues from the DSP in headphones.  That’s the skill of atmos.  What’s needed in stereo is to combat stereo phase issues, created by the limitations of the two speakers. And we have mastered that skill.  Phase issue either way, just a different issue.

Size is built from the center power out, in stereo.  Power is built from the inherent size inward, in Atmos.

Atmos is triple the canvas, and double the dynamics, and that’s good news for music.  It’s a better phase problem to have.

Stereo is not going away, this is not a contest.  Stereo is convenient for speakers and Atmos is superior for headphones and the rare speaker set up, when done well which most people have not heard.

Stereo headphones are actually quite terrible yet we accept that. What’s good about them is the phase clarity and punch of everything that’s mixed down the middle .  Except that center lives at our third eye, it’s not in the audio in front of us as in a room, it’s in our head.  There’s a whole empty space in front of us.  Stereo headphones have no center image like a room, it’s a weird image in the mind.

Those of us who understand and enjoy phantom center from speakers are in the .00001 percent of humans on the earth.  Meanwhile atmos on any headphone (highly recommend the new $200 Apple AirPod Pro 2) puts everybody into a room with not just a center, but a room experience all around … just like a studio with 2 speakers up front.

Putting the average person into real listening rooms is a big deal.  And just because we don’t have the skill on aggregate to do it consistently well yet, as we do with stereo, doesn’t mean anything about the format or its potential.

That potential is available today.  Send me anything and I’ll send it back better than the stereo in headphones.  That’s the job of Atmos mastering, something with an evolving understanding, to beat the stereo in headphones. Every time.

Yes atmos speakers don’t translate perfectly to the headphones yet, but that doesn’t matter.  Move on.

Brian Lucey

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Everyone has the wrong take on Atmos. Personally I like The Beatles in mono but that’s just because that what I’m used to and I think most atmos mixes are disappointing because we’re used to the listening experience of stereo. The question is where is music listening experience going and how should we format for that?

Arguably, no one sits and listens to music anymore, well certainly no on under the age of 40, its generally a soundtrack to something, driving, washing up, working out, etc and sometimes accompanied by visuals, so what listening experiences are actually needed?

Ever since the Walkman, stereo as a listening experience became normalised and therefore more intense and where instruments were placed in the stereo field became an artistic choice tuned to that experience. Want the chorus to sound bigger? Add more stereo instruments, backgrounds, FX, etc.

As we move more into an immersive online experience, which if you speak to any 15 year old you will see they are already there, then sound has the opportunity of working in different and exciting ways with the visual. Companies like Dolby are building for that. Personally I love the way atmos mixes envelop you on even a straightforward Sonos 5.1 system and listen to a good atmos system in a Merc, its incredible but on AirPods some mixes work, some don’t. That’s the art form and over time the tech and engineers ability will improve exactly the way stereo mixes did. Remember all the drums on the left hand side in Beatles stereo mixes?

As a music creative my job is to take people on a journey and deliver messages and experiences through sound. Where the world is going is augmented reality and 360 immersive experiences, totally blowing stereo out the water and atmos will be imperative for that.

Best

TommyD

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I’m with Tom Waits who said something along the lines of, music sounds best when you hear it blaring out the windows of a passing car.

Rob Radack

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I admire and appreciate innovation and technology but hearing sounds in recorded music I do not recall from the originals is discomforting and disingenuous but I remain open.

Andrew Paciocco

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A little late to the game, but so glad many said the same thing I was thinking – Ezrin nailed it. The man who got one of the best ‘no frills’ sound for guitar/bass/drums on a hard rock album with Love It To Death.

Cheers,

Thomas Quinn

Spencer Proffer made his name producing records, most notably Quiet Riot’s “Metal Health,” which sold in excess of ten million copies, and now he’s producing movies, most recently “The Day the Music Died: The Story of Don McLean’s ‘American Pie.'” Proffer is a hustler/entrepreneur/survivor with a long history in entertainment, tune in for the story of his career.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/spencer-proffer/id1316200737?i=1000595414384

https://open.spotify.com/episode/387wrhYaaXZPdlNVu8sqW8?si=z6f8N6DVRXGlYhocZHHhCA

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/041035cf-0add-46a9-98a5-762131c5bb29/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-spencer-proffer

https://www.stitcher.com/show/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast/episode/spencer-proffer-210934085

Subject: Why you get pushback from some people about Atmos

Hey Bob,

Consumers listen to music, which includes sound. Engineers listen to sound. which includes music.

People whose priority is music don’t really care about the delivery system.

Craig Anderton

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I stood down on this one though I’m with you and awaited the responses. Ezrin is where I’m at..

Michael Fremer

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Ezrin nailed it.
Joe Solo
Producer

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It’s about the money, not the sound!

I’m sure you know this. The best way to sell new devices is to add features that the old ones don’t have. Apple knows this, headphone manufacturers know this, studios know this, engineers know this, Harman knows this, record labels know this. They all profit from new technology purchases. Please buy new things, download new files, compare, opine, and prove how good your ears are.

Everyone in the audio business thanks you.

I agree with Bob Ezrin on almost every point, but I also believe spatial audio has it’s place in the experiential marketplace. As a fan of mono I haven’t invested the time to critically listen yet, but I expect that tracks created with the new format in mind are going to sound a whole lot better than old analog masters phased out of their minds.

Thanks for keeping the dialog relevant.

Victor Levine

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Wow. Bob Ezrin has turned into the old guy who doesn’t like change. But two ears? Really? Yes there is a lot of crap out there calling itself immersive. But when it is done right, from people like Bob Clearmountain or Steven Wilson or Alan Parsons or Elliot Scheiner, it can be thrilling. It’s like hating music videos because the visual is a distraction from the music. Maybe it is sometimes. And sometimes, 1+1=3.

Bruce Greenberg

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I listened to a couple sample Apple spatial remixes of Sgt. Peppers when they were released. It was THE worst thing I’ve ever heard. An abomination and crime against The Beatles. And us. What do you expect from a company that paid a billion dollars for Beats (they sound like doo-doo)?

Knox Bronson

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Ezrin nailed it. The rest is just a big wank.

Hugo Burnham

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This is not necessarily about Atmos specifically, but it’s related. I still have my wired EarPods from my iPhone 6, and they work great. I tried the wireless ones and they simply died within a year. Then I tried the enhanced ones with the spatial audio and it drove me nuts. The sound adjustments that were being made completely messed with the original mix and with my perception of the music. The mid range sounds nearly took my head off, but all of the lows and nice clean high end sounds completely got obliterated. The texture of the music was gone in favor of this boomy fake surroundsound that was hitting my skull.

Music is dynamic. Over compressing mixes, infusing technology that alters the sound in between the creator and the listener, completely distorts the human experience of enjoying the music in context, and from a personal point of view.

Music has a flow. Ups and downs. Energy and digression. Intensity and serenity. We have reached a point where sonic loudness and everything pushed to the hilt is absolutely destroying the ability of a listener to hear what was the originally created.

Sucks. That’s why I went back to vinyl. I still stream and I use my nine year old EarPods when I’m out walking, but I want to hear the music the way it was created, not interpreted by a bunch of nerds in a sealed pristine environment.

Jimmy Becker

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Hello Bob.  I want to throw up.  Audio masturbation is the category for Atmos.  That’s what I need, media vampires telling me what I like to hear.  Yeh, right.  rwhake

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Hi Bob, I’ve had good experience with ATMOS. I put together a room last year and it’s been enjoyable to listen to and mix in ATMOS. I have Dante Virtual Soundcard in my laptop and I’m able to play discrete ATMOS mixes from Apple Music directly into my system. If it’s on Apple in ATMOS I’m able to listen to it. I do think the binaural mode is a little underwhelming but listening on speakers is quite an enjoyable experience. Perhaps you’d like to come by the studio  on Olympic and check out some tracks? I’d be happy to host you and give you a tour.

Have a Great Day! Peter A Barker

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I agree with Brian Malouf. He has been on both sides (label and production).

Gen Zs and beyond, brought up in the gaming world, hear music differently than most do.  Their tastes and expectations are different.

The most impressive immersive sound i’ve experienced (and there are many in LA, including Sony’s at Paramount, Atmos configurations at Spotify and at the Mix Lab studios) is Björk’s multifaceted retrospective at New York’s Museum of Modern Art –an immersive audio and video installation entitled ‘Black Lake’.  To duplicate that, including its 44 speakers, in our homes is pretty far-fetched now or in the near future!

I also respect highly credited mixers like Niko Bolas, Greg Penny, Matt Wallace and Sylvia Massey who are keeping an open mind and ear working in this arena.

Every generation has a sound revolution, not always for the better, but it’s a revolution and with new technologies on the horizon,  it’s best to listen. And heck, if it’s helping move music and people, that’s icing on the cake!

Claris Sayadian-Dodge

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Just yesterday I got to listen to spatial audio in a custom listening room, with tracks by a variety of both legacy artists (Elton John, Marvin Gaye) and new acts (Billie Eilish, A Star is Born soundtrack). As a musician and producer I think ambisonics, when done well, are wonderful and make the listening experience much more interactive and dynamic and the creative process interesting. I also must point out the technical fallacy in the comment above, that simply because audio formats were previously designed in a stereo R/L manner, that stereo is “natural.” Stereo sound is a massive reduction of the entirety of sound that we can hear in any environment we’re in. You can hear things behind you, which is why you turn your head to look, for example. Just as mono was the dominant format until stereo became more available and engineers got familiar with it, spatial will eventually become standard. It’s going to get to the point where people can’t believe we ever limited ourselves to only a right/left pan environment. Having ears on the right and left side of our head doesn’t mean we can only hear to those two directions. Our ears are powerful instruments and one of the features of spatial is that the technology can scan your head size and position and detect movement and continually adjust to deliver the sound in the best possible way for ultimate listening clarity. It’s a really cool technology!

Kela Parker

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Typical of the music business “ if man were meant fly he would have had wings.” There are some great stereo mixes and some real crap the only thing that saves a crap mix is a great song. Joe public doesn’t really care about the mix. Same with ATMOS some amazing mixes some not so good. Like anything. It’s another option I guess that’s terrible? The stereo does not go away. If you don’t like ATMOS listen in stereo. For those who have not heard a good ATMOS mix you need to get out more. What’s funny is back in the day everyone complained about MP3’s compared to PCM. Same thing, this is  another option on headphones, sound bars, huge home systems and cars, Your choice. As soon as an after market car system is available for my restored Pinto I’m getting one.

Dave May

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If you own a MacBook Pro and are NOT wearing headphones, here’s a test:

1) Open Apple Music, go to Settings > Playback and make sure Dolby Atmos box is either “Automatic” or “Always On”.

2) Search for the song, “Something Just Like This” by Chainsmokers and Coldplay and cue up the first result (upper left).  Don’t play it yet though.

3) Open YouTube and go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM7MFYoylVs

4) On YouTube, wait for the ad to go by and then listen to the first minute of the song.

5) Now switch to Apple Music and listen to the Atmos version.

Which do you prefer?

For me, the Atmos mix has the vocal quite buried, especially in the crucial first 30 seconds, so the song doesn’t connect with me emotionally as much as the normal YouTube stereo mix.

NOW, I don’t know if the problem is 1) the Atmos process itself (blame the technology), 2) simply a bad Atmos mix (blame the engineer) or 3) if the label had an intern run the original mix through some sort of Atmos plug-in (blame the label).

Doing the same comparison on headphones, at least the Atmos vocals seem louder than they did over my MacBook Pro speakers.

However, this is only MY opinion.  Does the general listening audience care?  And/or, are we heading towards a TikTok world where people don’t even care to hear an entire song but rather just a snippet?  Maybe Atmos will become the new normal and either the technology and/or engineers and/or labels will improve as time goes by.

I tend to believe that Atmos as it relates to music is largely hardware manufacturers wanting to sell more equipment and record labels wanting to create some excitement especially for catalogue product.  I mean, I venture to say that hearing that song over my MBP speakers in Atmos kind of sounds like ass.  Is this the future of Atmos over stereo speakers?

I do love the sound of multichannel in a room with a proper speaker setup, but I’m not at all convinced that younger people will *ever* be installing lots of speakers in their homes.  The world has never adopted multi-channel sound in its many earlier attempts.  Besides, my wife won’t let me put more than two speakers in our Palm Springs condo AND I’M IN THE FUCKING BUSINESS.

And probably most of us on this thread are music/audio people by trade and probably grew up in an era where, because music was all we had pretty much, we really cared about the quality of the sound.  I don’t see that in the TikTok – or even Spotify – generations whose lives are more focused on social media in general, and especially Insta and TikTok which are visually oriented.

John Van Nest

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Bob,

 

For what it’s worth….

 

I’ve been through this multichannel stuff for 20+ years, mostly on the research and playback assessment side, and not entirely on the creative side.

 

Perceptually we are all gifted with ability to perceive sounds pretty much the same way. I’m not talking just from a frequency perspective but also from level and direction.

 

As I like to point out in my seminars, our ears are like warning devices. They often help to verify what we can’t see. If there is danger above and behind, we should all get the same idea where it’s coming from, either static or moving – speed included. If we are interested in a sound, we can focus on location and further evaluate its importance.

 

But given all heads, torsos and ear shapes are different, how is this all done so accurately and with such similarities? Well, for those without a belief in divine evolution, we depend on research. And there is a lot of research dedicated to this. Modern day Head Related Transfer Function filtering – HRTF, is a big piece of the puzzle, but not the complete puzzle.

 

I agree as one of your writers wrote we are often steered to look for the sound source, especially if it is not expected. But if you are in a concert hall, one can close their eyes and just appreciate the music and acoustics. In this type of environment sounds are highly externalized. Envelopment is enhanced by subtle differences in timing arrivals in low frequencies being slightly or greatly out of phase. This is a delicate topic, and I’ll leave it at that.

 

Headphone reproduction is quite the opposite where most everything is internalized. Attempting to externalize the listening experience is difficult but having a good HRTF filter and a way to use it is a step in the right direction. Ear canal resonances, researched extensively by Dr. Dave Griesinger, can help equalize the headphone system to be more linear and make better use of the HRTF for binaural reproduction. Head tracking is another dimension that complicates the headphone recipe.

 

If you consider for the moment that attempting to shrink the natural world around your head into a pair of headphones, you’d think it was an impossible idea. We can play tricks for starters, (and have been for years) but the real test of where this is headed is the goal of making something that is supposed to be rendered in front of you, whilst listening over headphones actually sound is if it’s in front of you, not over, on top of your head.  We are still a bit away from that, but once it’s achieved, trust me, all the other pieces will fall into place.

 

As for the streaming business, the distribution as vastly easier for immersive platforms, rather than the old 5.1 platform which only could be played back over speakers and a CD/DVD.  I think the record companies are within their right to explore other options for playback.  If you don’t like it, listen to the stereo track.

 

Virtualization is just that….virtual.  A properly calibrated monitor system is the valued starting point on the creative side, but any mixer will tell you, you must rely on the headphone rendering to check what is happening at the consumer level.  Headphones will always be the final arbiter. Which headphones…? I have no idea. None of them have been accurately linearized for my ears or yours.  Sony has an interesting approach to putting the mixer close to their Renderer.  They will come to your mix room and measure your ear response to the immersive monitor setup in your room.  They will then also measure your ear response with their headphones on. They then cross correlate the two in order to provide the mixer with as good a starting point as possible when you switch between your monitor system and the headphone.  Sony consumers are instructed to take pictures of their heads and ears to which Sony then models and selects a somewhat “personalized” HRTF that lives on your phone while listening to Sony 360RA releases.

 

While in LA last week, I happened to pass by the Lucid dealership at the Westfield Mall in Century City. I stepped into the car, rolled up the windows and listened to a Dolby ATMOS playback – the first I’ve ever witnessed. I can tell you it’s hit or miss with a lot of mixing results.  But the cut I cued up was “Let’s Talk About It” by Queen Naija, and the playback experience was actually really good. But this is just another flame in the fire. (on the flip side the stereo playback of Huey Lewis’ “Power of Love” sounded no better than a decent car stereo.)

 

It’s a new world with regards to playback technology Bob.  You and I may not live long enough to witness front facing sounds to appear to be in front of you over headphones, but someday it will and along the way there will be other iterations of immersive audio to either admire or curse.

 

Br,

 

Will Eggleston

Even NBC can’t get our attention.

That’s why the network is rebooting “Night Court,” which was not a “Seinfeld” level show (although little is), even though it was on the legendary Thursday night schedule as part of “Must See TV.”

I might have seen a half hour of “Night Court” tops, when you add in all the time I was flipping and came across it. Then again, even in the eighties I was time-shifting and not watching commercials. I taped everything. I had this amazing NEC VCR that you programmed right on the remote, there was a little window with the prompts and results, it was easy and amazing.

Actually, I can’t tell you what’s on network television these days. I can’t even remember the last time I watched it. As for football… I’ll probably watch the Super Bowl, but I distanced myself from the game three or four years ago, maybe longer, because I just don’t want to feed this CTE-inducing gladiatorial sport.

So why am I aware of the “Night Court” reboot?

Because the paper had a story on John Larroquette, because he played the doofus heavy in “Stripes,” my favorite stupid movie.

I read a couple of lines, and Larroquette admitted he did it for the money. I mean why not? Everybody can use more money.

But does anybody need to see this show?  Certainly not me, even if it got good reviews, which it didn’t. I’ve been taught over the past two decades that nothing worth watching is on network. It’s just not edgy enough. Did you read that story in last week’s “New Yorker” about the programmer at Netflix?

“How Much Netflix Can The World Absorb? Bela Bajaria, who oversees the streaming giant’s hyper-aggressive approach to TV-making, says success is about “recognizing that people like having more.”: https://bit.ly/3Hd70Fx

It scared me, because they fired the woman who brought the high rent shows to the streaming giant and put the choices in the hands of this woman who… It’s kind of a golden gut thing, it’s hard to quantify what will work, but by time I finished this article I was not a believer. I want more highbrow stuff, otherwise Netflix is going to be the new Elon Musk and Tesla. You need people to believe. Which is another problem with their essentially dead on arrival advertiser-supported tier. Apple, the world’s most valuable company, makes their products for the elite and charges accordingly. And you may hate them, but those who buy them adore them and will defend Apple to the nth degree, even though it’s inanimate.

Sure, there might be a good show on network, but if it’s that good I can ultimately watch it on a streaming outlet sans commercials. I don’t watch commercials, period, life is too short. All the time people say “You know, like in that commercial.” But I don’t know. It’s evidence how mass has decreased in the internet era yet so many see the new world through the old lens.

The most valuable real estate in entertainment is the Netflix homepage. You see it when you log in. You can’t avoid what is proffered, even if it’s different for different people. The homepage show makes an impression. There’s no impression like this on NBC. If you don’t go to the channel, you’re usually unaware. And ever notice how HBO affixes trailers for new shows to their hits? That’s how hard it is to reach people. As for people seeing movie trailers in the theatre, like network television you must partake, and if you don’t…it’s like it doesn’t exist.

We don’t have an equivalent homepage in music. Spotify is made for the phone. I’ve got the largest iPhone available and I never ever see the promoted track/album/artist.

Radio used to be the music business’s homepage. Especially in the heyday of Top Forty radio. Many fewer than forty records were spun, and if you tuned in you were aware of them. An act could go from zero to hero nearly instantly if it had a contagious track.

But we haven’t had that spirit here…for at least a decade. I don’t care how great your track is, crossing audiences, never mind reaching your main audience, is nearly impossible.

As for reboots… None of the dinosaurs has released a new album anywhere near as good as their old, classic material. To the point where when you hear an act has a new album you laugh and don’t even bother to listen to it, in the same way I, and many others, don’t watch network television. So the reboot formula is not working.

So how do you get a project started in music?

Well, you can be featured on a hit act’s track. Rappers pioneered this, rockers have still not caught on. Rockers are doing covers albums, a formula that is now dead on arrival. Hear anybody talk about the Springsteen record recently? Of course not. It was superfluous, unnecessary. None of the tracks were in the league of the originals, never mind that the arrangements were faithful. It seemed like an exercise at best.

So what can you do?

Well, you can put on an amazing live show and hope that the word spreads. The 15-20,000 in the arena are a captive audience. They watch and experience it all. If you can wow them, they’ll tell others. And you can increase your business. Or you can play a favorite album live. But there are only so many of them.

So we can’t reboot music.

And acts’ new material can’t get noticed.

That’s the problem.

We have no equivalent to the Netflix homepage, never mind much more product. TV is much more expensive to make, we’re talking about hundreds of shows, not hundreds of thousands of tracks uploaded to streaming services every week.

Also, we haven’t had an act that we could all get behind in years. Adele was the last one. The twenty first century is mostly arid. You can’t have guilty pleasures because there’s just not enough that’s pleasurable.

But the ship keeps rolling along, no one is trying to fix the underlying problem of the marketing of new music. Everybody has thrown up their hands, it’s too damn difficult. They want someone else to do it.

The music business could have one priority a week. That all streaming services got behind. Well, that might raise an antitrust issue, but couldn’t Spotify have an artist of the month, just like the burgeoning book clubs, and promote it to everybody?

A brand new act, or one without serious traction. That people could listen to and talk about. One with credibility. This is how the entire streaming paradigm began. Netflix paid more than any traditional outlet for “House of Cards” and when it was aired… You’ve got to say one thing about highbrows, they talk, they spread the word. You’ve got to reach the right influencers. And if people believe in a record, like they believe in their iPhone, they’ll talk about it all the time.

But if NBC is so hard up that it has to reboot a mediocre decades-old show… Then how hard is it for your new work to be recognized and heard?

Very hard.