AES Fall Convention 2023

Immersive audio playback is now possible at home, on the go, and on the road. We now have a historical chance to make a success of immersive audio! Yet consumer acceptance will determine the success of the current iterations of spatial/immersive audio formats.
There are many factors to achieving consumer acceptance. One of the key factors is creating a compelling listening experience, and this takes effort at both ends of the chain. Creative decisions made during mixing, along with how the reproduction system has been configured, will directly affect the end-user experience and therefore consumer acceptance.
Due to the nature of the delivery medium (a single immersive mix that needs to be compatible with all reproduction formats), there will inevitably need to be compromises made at either end of the chain:
During music mixing, will the center channel be utilised? (Indeed, is it “allowed” to be used? Some record labels stipulate that there is to be no isolated vocal in the center channel!) Will care be taken about off-center listening? Or will the mix simply ignore the majority of people in larger spaces, or all of the occupants of a car? Which tuning curve is being used in the mixing room? Are immersive mixes created on loudspeaker systems being checked using headphone playback? What about headphone-based mixes?
When setting-up the immersive sound reproduction environment, will care be taken in speaker arrays to cater for off-center listening? Does one second-guess the mixing engineer’s decisions (or the record label’s rules) and try to accommodate multiple types of mix paradigm (e.g. phantom/hard center). Which tuning curve is being used in the reproduction environment? What factors in the headphone rendering or head-tracking algorithms have an effect on sound quality?
One further discussion point is that there appears to be a quality versus quantity debate for immersive music mixes. If the market is saturated with non-compelling immersive music mixes, then consumer acceptance of the format is likely to be damaged irrevocably. In cases where budgets are extremely limited the use of automatic upmixers from stereo-to-immersive appear to be being utilized. Often only stereo stems will be available for the immersive mix. What are the benefits of mixing in immersive from the start, or having access to the multichannel stems for remixing. What are the cost implications? Are there any recommendations and best practices when remixing stereo-to-immersive?
These and other topics will be considered by the panel.