Earlier this year, Apple confirmed it would pay artists higher royalties — reportedly up to 10% more — for music made available in Spatial Audio on Apple Music. The specifics of exactly how that uplift is calculated matter less than the signal it sends: a major platform is now financially incentivising labels and artists to deliver an Atmos mix alongside the standard stereo one, not just permitting it as an optional extra.
That fits a broader pattern. Industry analysis puts the global Dolby Atmos Music market in the low billions of dollars as of last year, with double-digit annual growth forecast for the rest of the decade, driven by streaming platform adoption, growing compatible hardware, and label partnerships pushing catalogue remasters into immersive formats. Apple Music, Amazon Music and Tidal have all been steadily expanding their Atmos libraries, and Europe — with the UK among its most active markets — is one of the strongest growth regions outside the US.
For engineers, the practical shift is bigger than it looks from the outside. A stereo mix and an Atmos mix aren't the same job done twice; object-based mixing means treating individual elements — a vocal, a lead guitar, a string section — as discrete objects placed in three-dimensional space, rather than blending everything down into two channels. That calls for different monitoring setups, different mix decisions, and often a different mental model of the song altogether: less 'left and right', more 'where in the room does this sit'.
Not every project needs an Atmos deliverable yet, and for a lot of independent releases stereo remains the sensible default. But as more streaming platforms treat immersive mixes as a discoverability and royalty lever rather than a boutique format, it's increasingly a capability worth having in-house rather than farming out. We've been building object-based mixing into our own workflow specifically so that when a client does want a spatial deliverable, it's not a bolt-on afterthought — it's mixed with the same intent as the stereo master from the start.