Anyone here doing Atmos / Spatial Audio mixes?

one thing it seems they are loading the mixes done for those other formats that never got traction, so someone like me can check them out for the first time and appreciate their effort. Checked out LA Woman last night, there were some surprises

There are two reverbs that support Immersive, as well as surround and plain old stereo.  They are Stratus3d (which has a sound like Phoenix, except much more advanced).  Symphony 3D comes from the R2/R4 lineage. Izotope has committed to porting them to M1 and doing some general refreshing, so you might want to wait until autumn when they say the ports will be ready. But you can educate yourself in the intervening time.

I did a ton of videos about these, and I think iZotope still has them somewhere on their website. They'll work in AU, AAX and VST3.  I did have VST support, but VST-only DAWs really made a mess of anything past 2 channels.  VST3 is much better. In general, the verbs will come up in whatever format your channel is in.  If you've got a 5.1 channel, they'll come up as 5.1.  If you've got 7.1.4, they'll come up that way.  Reflections and tails will be appropriate for whatever that format is.

I spent a lot of time talking with mixers about what they needed, whether score, dialog, foley, etc. I also spent a good amount of time with Dolby folks and they still use them in demos. Of course I still use them myself, as you might expect.

I guess I'm an old codger too. LOL

At some point this might have actual consumer buy In because of the “soundbar “ and headphone components. Dolby and their partners actually put some thought into this one.
The big thing though is I here people who have already made big investments in home theater grumbling about the cost of upgrading and guys who have invested in cars with insert your favorite Samsung / Harmon badge also grumbling.

What radio still exists? I kid.

No wonder Google is confused. Optimix, Optimax and Optimod all are in the audio domain.

The first "Optimix" relies on Orban's Optimod broadcast processor that can be yours for a whopping 14k. It makes surround from any stereo source. Sounds to me like Orban is making a lot of money from people who don't understand ambisonics. Unless it's magic?

Then there's another "Optimix". This one is a new proposed standard for Aoip. As if we need yet another one. Maybe I shouldn't be sceptic, because very little is known and it's not on the market, afaict. I'm still betting on AVB for Aoip. If and when the AVB guys get their stuff together.

SSL also has a product called "Optimix auto". SA used to have a product called "Optimix".

Then there are several other non-audio products called "Optimix". Like the kitchen mixer from Tefal, or investment advice...

Trademark lawyers should have a field day with this one, I believe ;-)

None of the engineers I know are using Hardware. Being Object based kind of makes it impossible. 

I think at AES 2019 there was a thing on "mastering for Atmos" which kind of tried to tackle it but not overly successfully. Can't quite remember. 

I did this for one song to have my 2 Buss processing in place(Dangerous 2 Bus > Red 3 > AML ezp1a pair).. My main issue(keep in mind I’m a total atmos noob) is that I use outboard reverbs and I didn’t like having the effects being printed with the stems. So, I’m either going to have to print the tracks and their FX as two separate stems or go back to plug in effects(that could be switched to surround versions come atmos mixing time). The further I get into this, there’s going to be a heavy temptation to go back to plug ins for 2 Buss too(huge time saver). I may just end up with a couple of choice comps for vocal that will be committed to the track during the stereo mix.

I happily mixed 100% ITB for years so it wouldn’t be such a huge adjustment for me. So much of why I use analog gear is width + depth and in just the little bit of atmos mixing I’ve done in the past week, width and depth are certainly not a problem!

One of the biggest factors pushing me in the immersive direction is that I am so sick of the loudness wars. It’s hard to believe it’s still a thing at this point but I swear every time Apple Music or Spotify announces a lower preferred LUFS level, clients keep wanting their masters louder 🤦🏻‍♂️

Any suggestions for great spatial/atmos mixes to check out? I've dug through some of the playlists on Apple music and jesus christ are there some bad mixes. As of now it feels like most spatial stuff I've heard is softer sounding due to the simulated room effects. That's not the end of the world, but I can't help but feel like the original stereo mixes always hit so much harder. That volume jump between modes doesn't help much either.

My band is currently having atmos mixes done for our new record in hopes for some extra push from Apple. I'm not convinced it's something that will catch on for most people, but hey I like more promotional oomph behind the music and maybe it'll sound cool too. We had our mixer bounce out printed stems with his outboard/processing so everything I've heard back so far still has a similar vibe to the stereo mix... just like 20ft further away.