| At NAMM 2022, DADman was peeking out from behind the immersive audio playlist in Dynaudio Pro's demo room - and it was not a mistake or a coincidence...!
DADman was deliberately placed there, as it helped emphasise certain points in the demo visually. Because immersive music mixes opens up for a number of creative mix choices, having three speakers in the front row.
In stereo, unless special effects are the goal, the lead vocals usually sit in the middle - or in other words, equal amounts in the L and R channels. But in Dolby Atmos Music format, mixing engineers play a lot with how to use the entire LCR array on lead vocals. Some use all three channels, while others go for L+R only, or C only.
DADman clearly showed the cases when the Center channel was left unused, which did puzzle some of the listeners, who happened to notice it during the demo. This, of course, opened up for a good discussion on various approaches to mixing in immersive formats.
It is indeed an exiting period, as immersive is still a very 'young' format, and just like people experimented quite radically with stereo mixing in the 60's and 70's, when that was a new format in the broader commercial sense, all corners of immersive sound is being explored at this time. Good times!
| 