‘Explain it to me like I’m your Mum.’ It’s a phrase I use around smart people. I have nothing against mothers, some mothers have PhDs and are extremely smart. My wife, is one such mother, who is far smarter than me. But what I mean, is cut out the jargon and tell me as if I know nothing about the subject.

Given that a lot of my work is with people who are very smart, it’s a phrase I get to use a lot.

This happened to me again this week during a trip to London. Only on this occasion I was the one being asked to explain something, it’s rare, so I jumped at the chance. I was in London visiting a number of studios and professional engineers and producers. As is the case these days, Atmos is a subject that is a regular for conversation in the world of mixing. For this article, assume I’m talking about music not post applications, music mixing was the context of many of the discussions.

The consensus with those we spoke to; Grammy-winners, top-of-their game professionals working in music, as mixers and mastering engineers, was they wouldn’t be investing in Atmos.

Their answer was simple, an economic one - the numbers don’t add up and the longer Atmos is in the market place the harder it gets to justify to invest.

Explain Like I’m Your Mum

OK, so this is the explain it like your Mum part of this.

There’s one person with a Dolby Atmos music facilty and five people who want to use them. Who decides the price? Yep, it’s the person with the studio, she has more clients and more work than hours in the day, and no one else can do the work.

OK. Now there’s five Dolby Atmos music facilties and five people who want to use them. Who decides the price? Now balance is taking place, as the clients have some choice. If one of those facilties (assuming all offer the same quality service), decides to drop the price to get the work, the price drops.

Last part. There’s 500 Dolby Atmos music facilities and 300 customers, what happens to the price now? Yep, it drops.

It’s the simple law of supply and demand, scarcity creates value. The more studios that invest in Dolby Atmos to offer it as a service to their music clients, the lower the price for providing the service gets. It’s a common business challenge. It’s what I call in my business book seven dogs chasing the same cat. If you just do the same as everyone else then you’ll be fighting for the same customers and that’s a much harder game. The real question for any business in a competitive market is “What makes you unique?”

Beating Price Pressure

How businesses overcome this challenge is in a number of ways.

Some are first to market, so they make what we call in marketing, a land grab. They make money while there are few players in the market. They can almost charge what they like. Although, given the way some labels try and squeeze every last drop of blood out of suppliers, in reality the price isn’t limitless. However, if the work needs doing and you are the only one offering the service then you have leverage.

A second way businesses overcome the challenge of market pressure is to trade on their reputation. For example, having your music mixed by an established professional or in a top named studio, is going to make it easier to charge a premium. Like in every part of life, brands matter, and having a good brand reputation as a studio or mixing engineer helps to maintain a certain price for your services.

A third way businesses overcome the price pressure challenge is to offer value added services. Sadly, this can actually do more harm than good. For example, they get paid for the stereo mix but throw the Atmos version in for free, or vice versa.

Late To The Game

However, from our conversation with those at the leading edge of mixing and mastering, working for major labels, they felt the market may already have too many players. They told us that in some cases an Atmos mix was commanding the same fee as a stereo mix. The bottom line, it simply doesn’t make commercial sense.

They also said that even if they could get a significantly increased fee for Atmos work, that the up front investment was too great to justify.

To build an Atmos based music studio requires a great deal of upheaval. It’s not simply a case of adding more speakers. It requires a rethink of workflow, templates, compatible plugins, and depending on the DAW, a serious amount of learning, both technical and technique.

Is Dolby Atmos Music A Bad Investment?

One counter argument to consider is that the market grows and more people want to pay for Atmos. However, presently those selling to the end user aren’t monitising Atmos. Take Apple, the largest player pushing Spatial Audio (put simply, a version of Atmos), there’s no indication that Apple are asking users to pay for Spatial Audio now or in the future. So record labels are taking a chance that their investment in mixes for the format are going to make a return on investment some time in the future. There’s little evidence that the general population is thinking that music based Atmos is worth investing in. It’s one thing to have Spatial Audio turned on as default in Apple Music, it’s a completely different thing when you ask people to pay for it.

A second equally reasonable counter argument is that everyone offers stereo mixing, isn’t offering Atmos the diversity needed to offer a point of difference? Isn’t stereo seven dogs chasing the same cat? Well yes and no. Part of the decision when considering an investment into new technology is market penetration, are all the points joined up? For example, if any technology is going to take hold it needs to have both the creation and consumption points connected. I was at Pinewood Studios this week listening to incredible Atmos mixes, there is no doubt that in picture, and in particular movies, the creation and consumption chain is connected. The same can’t be said for Atmos Music, this again affects supply and demand. Stereo technology has zero inertia, in audio it’s as common as fresh air and has been for several decades. It’s early days for Atmos Music and it is too soon to see if the entire chain from creation to consumption leads to widespread acceptance and adoption. If Atmos is to replace stereo in the audio world there’s a long way to go.

One could conclude from this analysis that we are suggesting that Dolby Atmos for music is a bad investment. Not at all. There are some mixers making a good living mixing music for Dolby Atmos, some of them are on this team and are contributors to the blog. However, many of them got into Atmos several years ago and have created their own niche and customer base. In music Atmos is still quite niche and with anything niche, the potential for lots of people to capitalise on the market is smaller. Where I live some houses have a round glass window just below the apex of their roof. Someone needs to make round windows, but not every window supplier can make a business out of supplying them. Ubiquity in any market is a double-edged sword.

Should I Invest?

As with any business decision, it’s always critical to consider the cost/benefit of any investment with a level head. Atmos for music isn’t going away anytime soon, it’s just going to be a lot harder to make money from offering it as a service. From our discussions with audio professionals, they are convinced by the technical benefits of mixing in Atmos for music, it’s the business arguments that don’t add up.

Are you someone making money from Atmos mixing for music? Is it for labels or independents? Is price holding for you over time, or are clients expecting more for less? We’d love to hear your experience.

Discuss.