Apple recently announced that it’s Spatial Audio technology – which is powered by Dolby Atmos – can now be experienced via Apple Music.
However, the potentially bigger news for music makers is that “immersive audio” authoring tools are coming to Logic Pro later this year.
The news was confirmed in a blog post extolling the virtues of Spatial Audio written by Apple Music’s co-head of Artist Relations, Zane Lowe.
“Music in modern times has often been all about innovation,” says Lowe. “From multichannel recordings, to electric guitars, mics, and synthesizers, to tape echo and samplers, to MIDI and iPod – so many technologies have been invented to play, capture, record, mix, and share music.
“With Spatial Audio musicians, engineers, and producers have this amazing new tool to bring a new 3D experience to millions of people. It all starts from one new tool for artists to experiment with and then eventually you end up with Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band; you end up with Pet Sounds.”
Confirming the news of the forthcoming Logic Pro update, Lowe says: “Apple is building immersive music-authoring tools directly into Logic Pro later this year. So any musician will be able to create and mix their songs in Spatial Audio for Apple Music – whether they’re in the studio, at home, or wherever.”
It remains to be seen whether Dolby Atmos-fuelled ‘3D audio’ technologies such as Spatial Audio will become the norm – to be fair, Lowe also makes it clear that “no one is coming in and canceling stereo, just like they didn’t cancel mono” – but Apple’s support will certainly provide a big boost in profile, and possibly in uptake, too.
Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, Speaking to Billboard, he said:
“I’ve been waiting for something in music that was a real game-changer,” he says. “The quality of audio has not been able to really rise because there hasn’t been anything out there that when you listen to it, it truly is differentiated to everybody. It doesn’t matter whether you’re eight years old or 80 years old, everyone can tell the difference and everyone knows this one sounds better than the other one.
“And the analogy to that is obviously the first time you ever saw HD on television: you knew which one was better because it was obvious. And we’ve been missing that in audio for a long time. There really hasn’t been anything that’s been substantial. We’ll talk about lossless and other things, but ultimately, there’s not enough difference.
“But when you listen for the first time and you see what’s possible with Dolby Atmos with music, it’s a true game-changer. And so, when we listened to it for the first time, we realized this is a big, big deal. It makes you feel like you’re onstage, standing right next to the singer, it makes you feel like you might be to the left of the drummer, to the right of the guitarist. It creates this experience that, almost in some ways, you’ve never really had, unless you’re lucky enough to be really close to somebody playing music.”
