Dolby Atmos & Spatial Audio

Note that there are multiple pages of comments and the latest ones are at the last pages.

EDIT (08/08/2023) - I've migrated to uploading to Telegram.

EDIT (03/01/2022): https://burnt.link/Atmos - Password: burntscarr

EDIT (08/22/2022) - Google terminated the account that the backup was on, the new one is on OneDrive but I'm unable to update it further. I have a new backup started on Google but I need a place to host them besides Google so I can share them without fearing another termination. Any help on cloud storage would be appreciated!

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) 10 (up to 128, before encoding) "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.

UPDATE 08/22/2022 - Additional Info on the Atmos Layouts
So, here's how Atmos works for the most part.
The artist/mixer opens the multitrack/project for the song. They then use the DAW they have with an Atmos exporting capability. The latest Logic Pro for MacOS has Atmos capabilities.
The exported file that contains all of the objects as separated as possible is the Atmos ADM file.
This ADM file is up to 128 channels (that I've seen so far), but usually only has as many as needed for the stems. These ADM files can be made up of filtered content. This is due to the fact that the sound engineer/masterer/mixing artist for the song is the one who chooses what goes where. If something doesn't already have a studio separation or it was lost or is unaccessible then they will use filtered content, much like Rock Band 4 is doing nowadays.
The other exported file is an EAC3JOC file (sometimes they don't export this, but use another program with the ADM file to set up the EAC3JOC file) - This is the Atmos file we receive from downloaders like redsea that download Atmos from Tidal. Since ADM files aren't very common or accessible, we'll focus on what is inside the Atmos DD+ file (EAC3JOC is the codec, Dolby Digital Plus is the marketing name).
There are several "layouts" that Atmos can be formatted to. This is because there are several setups for spatial audio and 5.1 is only the default.
If you clicked on the link above that had a video showing the Spatial visualizer, you'll get the idea.
There is 5.1 by default, but the possible channel layouts for any encoded Atmos stream are:
2.0: L, R
3.1: L, R, C, LFE
5.1: L, R, C, LFE, Ls, Rs
5.1.2: L, R, C, LFE, Ls, Rs, Ltm, Rtm
5.1.4: L, R, C, LFE, Ls, Rs, Ltf, Rtf, Ltr, Rtr
7.1: L, R, C, LFE, Ls, Rs, Lrs, Rrs
7.1.2: L, R, C, LFE, Ls, Rs, Lrs, Rrs, Ltm, Rtm
7.1.4: L, R, C, LFE, Ls, Rs, Lrs, Rrs, Ltf, Rtf, Ltr, Rtr
7.1.6: L, R, C, LFE, Ls, Rs, Lrs, Rrs, Ltf, Rtf, Ltm, Rtm, Ltr, Rtr
9.1: L, R, C, LFE, Ls, Rs, Lrs, Rrs, Lw, Rw
9.1.2: L, R, C, LFE, Ls, Rs, Lrs, Rrs, Lw, Rw, Ltm, Rtm
9.1.4: L, R, C, LFE, Ls, Rs, Lrs, Rrs, Lw, Rw, Ltf, Rtf, Ltr, Rtr
9.1.6: L, R, C, LFE, Ls, Rs, Lrs, Rrs, Lw, Rw, Ltf, Rtf, Ltm, Rtm, Ltr, Rtr
Acronym Key: Left, Right, Center, Low-Frequency Effects, Left Surround, Right Surround, Left Rear Surround, Right Rear Surround, Left Wide, Right Wide, Left Top Front, Right Top Front, Left Top Middle, Right Top Middle, Left Top Rear, Right Top Rear (These are the ones for 9.1.6 but they stand for the same things in the others)
This leaves you wondering, I'm sure. How does one get higher than 5.1 out of an Atmos file?
For now, there is no method without applying for a license from Dolby to get higher than 5.1 officially.
However the unlicensed/free method for higher than 5.1 is recording/bootlegs. Due to there being no desktop app for Amazon Music or Tidal Music that contains Atmos playback, that leaves recording/bootlegs limited to Apple Music. Unfortunately, I received a lot of trouble the last time I posted a recording method, but I will give you hints! MacOS is required, Apple Music Subscription is required, and BlackHole 16ch or higher is required.
I will not give further details on proper setup of these applications, here.

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, are ADM files. They contain the separated objects.
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. So most will be from Tidal.
However, on Apple there is no public downloader available, so I'm forced to bootleg them. As for where they're hosted, what remains after the Google takedown is on OneDrive.

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.
It used to work like this, but is now broken and only records the first 2 channels.

Bootlegging is broken since Apple implemented a patch for recording via virtual sound setups
There are Apple Music downloaders, but I have not received one and the people who do have them keep them very private for good reasons. If I do get one, I likely wouldn't host a backup of Atmos rips like I do with Tidal.

Are these stems?
I cannot define these specifically as stems or multitracks. They are better defined as multichannel songs, or spatial audio. The audio contained may have some separation, but it's better to assume there isn't any and be happy when there is.

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):

• Zane Lowe & The Weeknd - The Weeknd From Stereo to Spatial.flac
• Zane Lowe & Marvin Gaye - Marvin Gaye From Mono to Stereo to Spatial

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 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.
(now at https://t.me/atmosrips)

Any questions, thoughts, ideas, remarks let me know please. I'm bored as hell so these can help me out.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by burntscarr

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):

• Zane Lowe & The Weeknd - The Weeknd From Stereo to Spatial.flac
• Zane Lowe & Marvin Gaye - Marvin Gaye From Mono to Stereo to Spatial

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.

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Does GNR-Sweet Child o Mine, or Steve Winwood-Higher Love have any kind of separation? The Prince ones were kind of a bummer :/

I would really love to have Wolves!

Would love to learn how to rip them from Tidal or how to bootleg record them from Apple Music

Looking at the ATMOS playlists a lot of the songs were also licensed by Harmonix in RB. I got my hands on some like the extremely rare Prince and sadly very poor separation. Someone needs to compile a pdf of all the songs.

I would say in the stems/multitracks area but labelled accordingly. I could create a new prefix for these if you prefer?

yes that would be great!

please post them, I would really love to have Good Thing!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jakeambrossi

please post them, I would really love to have Good Thing!

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The only people that have them are people with Dolby 7.1 capable hardware. As far as I know without a player it's impossible to rip them from Tidal, or Apple Music.

[Deleted]