Cinematic music creation in Dolby Atmos : producing and mixing contemporary cinematic music in immersive audio

Abstract

Immersive audio has increased in popularity over the past decade with Dolby pushing it to the mainstream consumer market in the form of Dolby Atmos, not only for professional and cinema applications. As this has made creating immersive audio content available to more producers and engineers, it is beneficial to assess if it is worthwhile to work in Atmos and what impact it has on the average consumer.

The goal of this thesis was to create an album of modern cinematic music in Dolby Atmos and while doing so, find workflows and approaches that work well and compliment this style of music. Additionally, it was researched what the average consumer thinks about Atmos music compared to traditional stereo.

The thesis examines the brief history and explanation of surround and immersive audio including Dolby Atmos, workflow methods, Atmos for film versus Atmos for music, current challenges faced, and why it works well for cinematic music. To validate Dolby Atmos as a preferred format for cinematic music creation and consumption, a case-study was conducted in the form of a practical project.

It was concluded that Atmos is a viable alternative for the consumption of cinematic and orchestral music. This is mainly due to the immersive nature of Atmos. The engineer is no longer limited to only 2 channels of audio but can place elements where one pleases in the 180-degree half-sphere, leading to less processing on individual sounds which in turn leads to a more natural and encompassing result. However, to fully experience immersive content as it was intended the listener needs at least a 5.1.2 speaker configuration. This is due to the Binaural fold-down for headphones being in constant development and is still not yet a fully viable alternative to an immersive speaker configuration.