Will Spatial Come To Spotify?
Elite engineers Steve Genewick, Kevin Moo & Dean Reid debate the future of Atmos.
A few weeks ago, we ran an op-ed titled “Is Dolby Atmos Bringing Gatekeeping Back to Music?” written by Los Angeles-based music producer, mixer, and instrumentalist Dean Reid, known for working with artists such as Lana Del Rey, James Blake, and Stevie Nicks.
Immediately, we started getting feedback from Cadence readers, including Grammy-winning engineer Kevin Moo (aka Daddy Kev) and longtime Capitol Studios engineer and OG Atmos mixer Steve Genewick, who had their own opinions about where spatial audio is headed.
We quickly got these three esteemed record makers onto a Zoom to try to come to an understanding of what this all means. And we learned that even amongst the industry’s most elite practitioners, there is a lot of uncertainty.
What follows is an excerpt from the convo that is free to all of our weekly Cadence readers.
If you want the full 60-minute roundtable discussion, it is available in video format for our Premium Subscribers. You can click here to watch the first 5 minutes for free, or subscribe for $6/mo. ($60/yr.) to get the full convo, plus our full archive of complete Cadence Talks.
Atmos Producers Roundtable EXCERPT
Kevin Moo: I hate to say it, but when you look at our streams right now across our entire catalog, over 12,000 titles, it's like 85% Spotify world for us.
Steve Genewick: Right, but isn't Spotify coming online with Atmos soon?
Kevin: There's been no public statement around that. And I don't foresee it, to be honest.
Steve: Oh, I actually do. I think it's going to be sooner than later.
Kevin: I mean, it's speculative, right? They announced they announced HiFi two years ago. They still haven't brought that to market. My understanding is from their perspective, there is no demand for it from a consumer perspective, not on a widespread level. So until that's the case. Granted, should they have Atmos on Spotify already? Sure. Just from a competitive landscape point of view. But, working with the ingestion teams over there, I'm privy to a lot of how things are working. As far as file delivery, there's been no suggestion that Atmos is coming online.
Steve: Interesting. I would think because the labels had these deals with Amazon and Apple, the labels are pushing hard. Especially the big labels. I used to work for Universal Music. They're spending significant amounts of money to have mixes done and stuff like that. I would suspect that they're probably pushing Spotify pretty hard to jump in the pool. Again, I don't have any inside information, but I can't imagine they're not.
Dean Reid: So Steve, your feeling is that the pressure to adopt Atmos across all streaming platforms is more coming from the majors as opposed to coming from Apple or Dolby?
Steve: Dolby was the original catalyst, obviously. It's their technology. When I started mixing in Atmos, it kind of landed on me. I was literally brought into a meeting one day and was told, we're tearing apart this room, we're making an Atmos room, and then you're going to mix this record. And then it kept going. So for the first three years, it was me and four other guys mixing music content.
The Cadence: Steve, I'm sorry to interrupt you, but this is actually really important. I think the commitment that was made by Universal at the time was to put this technology in place to start empowering artists to be able to hear it and then embrace it.
Steve: A little bit. So again, it was literally the record label that came to us and said we need a Dolby Atmos Room. We have this technology, and we want to use it.
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TAKEAWAYS
Salient statements from this week’s music news.
1. Has Hipgnosis Hit the Bottom?
Can the song speculation giant save its plummeting stock price? Or could the whole thing evaporate?
Takeaway: Hipgnosis Songs Fund Limited is rowing in a much better direction. At the same time, the company still appears to be in a bit of a pickle contending with variables either outside of its control or requiring hard decisions.
2. Why Do Dancefloors Foster Intimacy Among Strangers?
A new book explores the unique behaviors of ravers.
Takeaway: Authors will make passing mention of the audience as part of the overall phenomenon while mainly focusing on the key artists, records and events that make up the chronological story. But none have delved this deeply into the physical contact that is as distinct to the overall experience of raving as the lights and music.
3. Like Streaming Price Hikes? Warner Music CEO Says We’re Just Getting Started
WMG boss Robert Kyncl has hopes recent increases in subscription prices at all the major DSPs are just the start of resetting the value of music.
Takeaway: “Last month, Tidal, YouTube, and Spotify all followed Apple, Amazon, and Deezer by upping their prices. This is the fiscally responsible thing to do for themselves and for the creative community. I’d like to thank them all for taking this important step.”
Curious about your experience with Deezer.
I (Josh) switched from Spotify to Tidal a few years ago because even their non-HiFi codec sounds better. I also like the fact that Tidal has much more complete meta-data, so you can ID contributors to a song (musicians, producers, etc.) and then go down the rabbit hole to other things they've done.
Price hikes are very much needed, and I'm glad to see them finally happening. We've had a decade of music subsidized by investor money, which created the best conceivable experience for users, but it's not sustainable.
Remember that the $16 you used to pay would be $29.28 today.
Yes its true that other costs (production, distribution) now approach zero. We should not be paying anywhere near $30 per album in 2023. But we also need to pay more than $11 for everything.
I would love to see spatial come to Spotify, or even HiFi. I use Deezer for a lot of things, but I find myself on Spotify even more.
As far as price hikes go, of course I would like prices to stay the same. But, I look at it from the perspective of: I used to pay at least $16 for every album I bought. ( And I still do buy physical copies of certain albums.) Considering the near endless library that comes with a streaming service, I feel like I can’t complain too much about price hikes. What I’m getting for the money is simply extraordinary for someone who grew up buying one album at a time.
But yes, let’s have the highest possible audio quality across the board.