Dolby Atmos is the most significant development in music delivery formats in a long time. I'm genuinely excited about where it's going. I'm also going to give you an honest answer about whether it makes sense for your project right now — because the honest answer isn't always yes.
I've written before about what Atmos is (Dolby Atmos), when immersive releases make sense as a creative choice, and why stereo and immersive aren't a hierarchy. This post is about the practical side: what an Atmos session actually looks like at Nick Landis Mastering, what you need to send, what's possible creatively, and one way to think about investment in this format before you commit.
Two Session Workflows
The Mastering-Only Session
The most common scenario is that you already have an Atmos mix. Your mixing engineer has delivered an ADM BWF, this is a special type of WAV file. This file is the standard deliverable format for Dolby Atmos Music and all you need is mastering to be ready for release.
This process is similar to a stereo mastering session in many ways. I listen first, then make decisions about EQ and dynamics based on what the mix needs. The key difference is that loudness targets for Atmos are set by platform requirements, not by competitive loudness considerations. The loudness wars mindset doesn't apply here, and that's one of the things I genuinely like about the format. I'm also checking channel balance across the full speaker array and making sure the Atmos master makes sense when compared to the stereo master.
The Stems Session
If you don't have an Atmos mix, stems are the other path. And for budget-conscious indie artists, this is worth understanding because it's more accessible than it might sound.
Most mixing engineers can deliver stems as a normal part of their workflow: drums, bass, guitars, keys, vocals, effects. These stems are separated and leveled so you can reconstruct the full stereo mix without any changes or needing specific hardware or plugins like a full DAW session. Going this path, you don't need to hire a mixer with an Atmos-capable studio to do a complete immersive mix from scratch, which can be a significant expense. Instead, I take your stems and build the Atmos mix in my mastering studio.
The creative conversation here can go two directions. Some clients come in with specific ideas. They have things they want to do differently in the spatial version that weren't possible in stereo. Others say do your thing and want to hear what I come up with. Both work. A short conversation at the start of a stems session usually goes further than written notes alone, because we can talk through the possibilities in real time.
What's Possible from Stems
Working from stems opens up creative decisions that a mastering-only session doesn't. A few examples of what that can look like:
One approach to the sound field places the listener in the audience, facing the stage. The direct sound comes from in front, and the immersive elements — reverb, room, ambience — surround and envelop. It feels like a concert hall. Another approach puts the listener at the center of the ensemble, with discrete instruments placed around and above them. Both are valid and common, and which one serves the music is a creative decision worth talking through before we start.
Beyond the basic sound field approach, working from stems allows for things that aren't possible in a stereo mix: automating objects to move through space in ways that follow or enhance the music, adding depth and height to movement that already existed in the stereo version, or using spatial placement to give individual elements more clarity than they had when competing for space in a two-channel mix.
These decisions always start with the music. What is this song trying to do, and does the spatial version serve that intention or distract from it?
Hearing It for Real
I want to be direct about something that doesn't get said enough: you don't really understand Dolby Atmos until you hear it on a real speaker system.
Binaural rendering (Atmos played back on headphones) is a compromise. The technology is doing its best to simulate a speaker array around head, and the results are inconsistent and often disappointing. Some engineers can get work done this way but it takes a bit of getting used to. If your only experience of Atmos is through headphones, you may have come away wondering what all the fuss is about. That's a reasonable response to binaural. It's the exact response I had when I first heard Atmos, it was a binaural playback and wasn't as good as other binaural recordings (completely different technology here) I have heard in the past.
On a properly set up speaker system the format does something genuinely different. The first time I heard a well-mixed Atmos release on real speakers, my understanding of what the format could do changed completely. If you're making a decision about whether to release in Atmos, try to hear some great Atmos content on speakers first. It changed how I felt about the immersive formats almost immediately.
Who Will Actually Hear It
Today: Apple Music and TIDAL are the primary streaming platforms delivering Dolby Atmos Music to listeners. If your release is on either of those platforms in Atmos, a meaningful number of people have the capability to hear it — more than most artists realize.
Consumer devices: The picture most people imagine when they think about Atmos — a full 7.1.4 home theater setup with ceiling-mounted speakers — is real but not common, and it tends to be home-cinema focused rather than music-centric. The more realistic picture for most listeners is a soundbar with upward-firing height channels that bounce sound off the ceiling, or a system with battery-powered surround speakers that don't require running cables across the room. These setups are becoming increasingly common and they deliver a genuine immersive experience, even if it's not a full speaker array.
Automotive: This is where I get most excited about the near-term future. Several major automotive manufacturers — Bentley, Rivian, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Lucid, and Volvo among them — have indicated interest in or movement toward Atmos-capable audio systems in their vehicles. Pioneer has a new head unit that includes Dolby Atmos playback through Apple Car Play available now for exsisting cars. I've heard amazing playback personally in both Bently and Rivian cars, both of which were WAY out of my price range. Mercedes, BMW, and Volvo are getting more in what I'd consider 'normal car price range' but still most would consider luxury. If (maybe I should say when) that becomes widespread, the number of people with access to a proper Atmos playback environment increases dramatically. People spend real time in their cars listening to music. Often, it's the playback system they are most familiar with. An Atmos-capable car audio system isn't a niche audiophile scenario, it's a mass-market one.
Physical media and downloads: This is a gap I'd personally love to see filled. Streaming Atmos involves data compression. This lossy codec changes what the artist intended as the immersive mix and what the listener actually hears. A downloadable high-resolution Atmos file, or an Atmos release on physical media like Blu-ray, would open up the audiophile audience. This segment that cares deeply about format quality, generally spend real money on music, and doesn't always want to depend on streaming. That market, although small, exists and isn't being fully served right now. I'll also concede there are concerns of piracy when physical media are released to the public. So, maybe not a solved problem yet but I still like to see physical media when it comes to music release.
Should an Indie Artist Consider Immersive Release?
For most independent artists, an Atmos release is currently an expense without a clear return on investment. Streaming royalty rates for Atmos content vary by platform and aren't significantly different from stereo at this point. Your listeners may not know or care whether your release is in Atmos. The format is still niche enough that the audience for it is smaller than the general streaming audience.
That said, here's the case for doing it anyway:
If you have the budget, the experience of hearing your music in Atmos on a real system is often worth it on its own terms. The format does things stereo can't, and if your music has the right qualities for it, the result can be remarkable.
The future-forward argument is another consideration. Archiving a well-made Atmos master now means you have it when the format's audience grows. Redoing this work later, from whatever stems and mixes exist at that point, is more expensive and more complicated. Getting it right the first time is worth something.
There's also a narrow but genuine argument for artists with label ambitions. A catalog that already exists in Atmos is one less conversation to have with a label or distributor that's moving in that direction. It's not a deciding factor, but it's not nothing either.
If you aren't sure about an immersive release, my honest recommendation depends on your situation: if the budget is there and the music suits the format, yes. If budget is the constraint, the stems workflow makes it more accessible than a full Atmos mix session. If the more affordable stems workflow is still not affordable, a great stereo master serves your music well. Atmos is an addition, not a replacement.
Starting a Conversation
If you're considering an Atmos release and want to talk through whether it makes sense for your project, reach out before you commit. A short conversation about your music, your budget, and your release plans goes a long way toward making the right call. Start a conversation here.
For information on distributing your Atmos release once it's mastered, I've written a separate post on the distributors that currently support Atmos delivery called Atmos for Indie Artists.