Quote Originally Posted by burntscarr View Post
Alright, so here goes. My rant on Dolby Atmos content, where it can be found, what it is, what we can do with it, and how to get it yourself!



Let's begin with the intro on Atmos.
Dolby Atmos is a term for the spatial or "3D" audio which is made up of (usually) 16 "objects" that are positioned in a 360 degree view by the official mixers. These mixes are largely made from stems and previous multichannel releases, such as those on DVDs or SACDs.

Where did it come from?
The first few songs came out on popular streaming services like Tidal and Amazon Music. Recently Apple Music has adopted the format and helped a lot with its publicity.

What is it (audio-wise)?
The natural files, which we normally never get to see or use, I haven't learned the codec for. They contain 16 objects which I think translates to 7.1 audio if you stereo pair.
The files we do get are encoded in E-AC-3 JOC in an M4A container, at least the ones I personally get from Tidal. This is a format that, when opened via ffmpeg like many DAWs use to import audio, will give you 6 channels, in basically the exact layout a 5.1 movie would be in.
Channel 1 is the Front Left
Channel 2 is the Front Right
Channel 3 is the Center
Channel 4 is the Sub-Bass (or LFE)
Channel 5 is the Surround Left
Channel 6 is the Surround Right

How is this useful at all?
Well, besides a whole new listening experience which I'll get into later, you also get some studio separation. A lot of the time, especially on earlier releases, there are lead vocals all throughout the center track. Of course some instruments are there too, but with the new AI separation tools like UVR and Spleeter, isolating those will be no problem. These are useful in the same way an Acapella is useful; Remixes, Mashups, Listening, Analysis, etc.

Where will the shared files come from?
If they are from me personally, all my songs will use the easiest source first. When I say easiest I mean that Tidal has a way to download the audio as is and instantly be shareable. However, on Apple there is no public downloader available, so I'm forced to bootleg them. As for where they're hosted, a large amount will be hosted via Google Drive.

WTF is a "bootleg"?
When I say bootleg, I mean a recording of something as it plays. For Apple's Atmos content that isn't on Tidal, I have to record each song and export each track separately. When I record, the files I generate are .aiff and are named like so:
[Artist] - [Song Title] 01 Front - Stereo File with Channel 1 on Left, Channel 2 on Right
[Artist] - [Song Title] 02 Center - Mono File with Channel 3
[Artist] - [Song Title] 03 Sub-Bass Mono File with Channel 4
[Artist] - [Song Title] 04 Surround Stereo File with Channel 5 on Left, Channel 6 on Right
Which I then import into Audacity, amplify to just under 0.0dB (to avoid clipping) and export as a single 6-channel FLAC file.

Are these stems?
I cannot define these specifically as stems or multitracks. They are better defined as multichannel songs, or spatial audio.

So what do they look like?
Here's two example .flac files you can download now and import into Audacity or your DAW of choice (as long as it handles ffmpeg and multiple channels):

and here's a screenshot of the Weeknd one

What kind of songs are there?
Both Tidal and Apple have playlists full of songs already in Spatial audio, and both have a place for each new album/single to be shown as it's added. There are lots of songs, too many to list here for sure.
A few albums I know of are, Taylor Swift - folklore, Taylor Swift - Lover, Post Malone - Hollywood's Bleeding, and here's some of the recent ones I've already done myself from Apple:
Selena Gomez & Marshmello - Wolves
Disclosure - Latch (ft. Sam Smith)
Skrillex, Noisia, josh pan & Dylan Brady - Supersonic (My Existence)
Zedd & Kehlani - Good Thing
Jonas Brothers - What A Man Gotta Do
Marshmello & Jonas Brothers - Leave Before You Love Me
Zedd & Griff - Inside Out
Post Malone - I'm Gonna Be
Post Malone - Candy Paint
Maroon 5 - Memories (Remix) (ft. Nipsey Hussle & YG)
Tiësto & Sevenn - BOOM
The Doors - Riders On The Storm
Pat Benatar - We Belong
Styx - Renegade
The Vines - Get Free
George Thorogood & The Destroyers - Bad To The Bone
Marcy Playground - Sex and Candy
Sheryl Crow - All I Wanna Do


and there's many more I've done already too!

Now for my question:
Where do I post any of this?
I have no idea which section on LiteRecords this content would even be posted to. I can take requests but know it takes about double to triple the length of the song for me to fully render it into a 6-channel flac, unless it's on Tidal in which case I can rip it in about 1 minute.

Any questions, thoughts, ideas, remarks let me know please. I'm bored as hell so these can help me out.
Does GNR-Sweet Child o Mine, or Steve Winwood-Higher Love have any kind of separation? The Prince ones were kind of a bummer :/