I didn't start taking Atmos for music seriously until around 18 months ago. 20 years ago, I had been burned by the 5.1 surround craze, and didn't want a rinse and repeat of that. But for reasons having solely to do with streaming, I decided I wanted to try it, as an experiment. I have a rather large control room, and a permanent Atmos install would require 11 powerful speakers and a sub, and some complex considerations (i.e. expensive) on how to mount the 4 ceiling speakers in my space. All that amounted to way more than I wanted to spend on an unproven format (unproven for me, in that I didn't know if there would be any ROI).James Steele wrote: ↑Thu Apr 10, 2025 1:08 pm The whole situation just seems really daunting to me. I can't see many independent musicians able to invest in the proper setup with a decent room and multiple speakers, not to mention the added investment perhaps in updated interfaces to provide more analog i/o, etc. in order to produce "proper" ATMOS mixes. It all seems that--intended or not--the end result is forcing indy musicians to have to go back and spend big bucks to the studios that CAN set up an ATMOS mixing room and exploit this industry top-down driven demand.
So I got inventive. I created a small, portable Atmos speaker system inside the control room. With the speakers only 8 feet away, I could get by with a much smaller set. Since all Atmos has to be mixed in the box, I decided to use software for everything else (unfortunately, my specific system eventually needed an expensive hardware monitor controller). I made a contraption out of lighting stands for each of the 4 height speakers- they looked like the game hangman, only speakers instead of a man. I set up all my delays, etc., and I was happily mixing 7.1.4 music professionally, both in speakers, and binaural headphones (both are equally important). Best part? When I'm composing and not mixing Atmos, I can take the system down and store it! It's a couple days to set it back up, but worth the trade-off.
So how does one gear up without breaking the bank? Would you have to cough up a few thousand? Well sure- but, just take a quick look around your studio.. would you have to spend tens of thousands? Absolutely not.
Tell you what, here's a possible solution for you professional artists and producers that want to trick the big money machine we've been talking about here. Learn how to do it yourself, and do it for way, way less. Just like home studios ended the era of the big facilities.
You'll need an interface with 12-16 analog outputs and headphones out. There are many of these out there, so I won't mention any specifically. Also, you will need a subwoofer, but you may already have one, so:
https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail ... ndle-black
These can be mounted on regular mic stands, and they have mounts available for the 4 heights for around $250, IIRC.
https://www.gingeraudio.com/sphere-imme ... controller
$500. It does everything. Bass management, delays, full monitoring and switching control- e.g you can have 2 headphone monitors you switch between, one for Dolby binaural, and one with a plugin that shows what it will sound like on Apple Music, all in real time. You can use it with things like this:
https://www.sonarworks.com/soundid-refe ... ltichannel
Another $500, but helps you set up your Atmos speakers automatically with a calibration mic, setting your EQ's and delays, and volumes, and then applying those as plugins in Sphere, to balance the speakers to your room.
So here, minus the sub and the interface, is a $5-6k solution that would have you mixing 7.1.4 professionally. You would probably pay an Atmos facility more than that, to mix one album. I understand that your room may be impossibly small, or that it's just simply out of your budget. No worries! I just wanted to show that there is a reasonable way into this for most of the mid-level home studios out there.
