Trying to figure out how that works, I should be able to make spatial mixes for my AirPods.

https://support.apple.com/en-kz/guide/logicpro/lgcpc442ee1f/mac

Nice! Now I need to buy 11 more speakers so I can mix in 9.1.4 Atmos. Hmm...

Yeah, it's hard to get too excited when I realize I'll have to insert things in my ears to hear this.

But the interface! I'm playing with the demo, just listening in stereo, and instead of pan pots there are all kinds of surround controls being AUTOMATED. I suppose when I stick the AirPods in I'll hear things flying around the room, wowie zowie.

Spatial Audio DOES sound very nice on AirPods.

OK, well, this sucks. I can bring up all the 3D tools in Logic and pan left/right when using speakers, but when I switch to AirPods, I get some kind of mono, or nothing. Apple Music still plays "spatially" so this appears to be a problem with Logic, for me at least.

Make sure the Airpods are not selected as the input device in Logic, that may cause them to go into "phone call mode" for lack of a better term, which reduces sample rate and switches to Mono.

Bingo! That was it.

Many thanks.

You're welcome Mark, glad to help!

This was mixed in Logic Pro 10.7 using the Dolby Atmos tools and the new Space Designer. I do not know if the "Atmosiness" will make it across via SoundCloud. In any case, I don't seem to be able to get the vertical dimension to work with AirPods at all; moving a sound higher up just fades it out, meaning I keep everything on a level plane, meaning this reduces to old surround.

https://soundcloud.com/mark_hayes/dioxin-vox-atmos

Groove 3 just posted a "Whats new in Logic 10.7" by Logic Pro uber-geek Eli Krantzberg.
I watched a couple of the first videos.


I see 10.7 requires Big Sur. I'm still running Catalina.

I'm thinking about upgrading. reading up on it now.


Wondering if any BIAB gotchas left with Big Sur.

As long as you have 2020 or 2021 you should be fine. We did have to make quite a few changes when Big Sur was released, but those are all taken care of now. I've been using 2021 on Big Sur on an M1 Macbook and it's been quite stable.

Thanks,
I was hoping we'd see a new M1x Mini at the announcement earlier this week.
Then new Macbook pro's look nice but they are hard on the wallet.
$6k for a fully tricked out laptop is more than I can swallow.

What I would like to know is, is there any reason to use Dolby Atmos for plain old non-headphone stereo speaker playback?

Because you can.

Honestly, it seems like another feature who’s power I may simply never harness.

No.

Your next multi-channel mix being released in a high end theater near you?

Yes

I'm sorry, but this just does not sound safe to me, for the same reason I would never drive with headphones on!

https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/28/22750572/mercedes-benz-cars-dolby-atmos-summer-2022-s-class-maybach

"Mercedes-Benz’s implementation of Atmos [features] a whopping 31 speakers scattered around the car (a list that includes six 3D speakers above passengers, four “near-ear” speakers for the two front seats, and an 18.5-liter subwoofer). Each seat also features two hidden exciters apiece (for a total of eight in the car), and everything is powered by two amplifiers with a total of 1,750 watts of power."

From a tech standpoint I'd be interested in hearing how that sounds, but overall I agree that it sounds dangerously distracting. I'm also assuming a car like that might have a large touchscreen in the dash (like Tesla's do) which is yet another built-in distraction.

I'm not so much concerned about distraction as I am about the effects of 3D audio on the driving brain. Normally, you hear the car stereo as the car stereo and road sounds as the real world, but Atmos will presumably deliver the experience of driving through whatever audio environment is being created. Try not to jerk the wheel when you suddenly hear a scream coming from right outside the window, or when the psychoacoustics tell you you are heading directly toward a brick wall!

That's exactly what I meant by "dangerously distracting"! Some artists love putting sound effects in their songs, like police sirens, tires squealing, screams...