Mixing immersive music is a tricky thing. As more and more Dolby Atmos mixes hit the streaming services, listeners are starting to realize that songs tend to lose a lot of energy and focus when their elements are spread all over the place—but mixing too conservatively can be just as underwhelming. So, how do you make an Atmos mix that grabs your attention like a stereo mix but still provides the feeling of immersion that we all want to hear? 

For Andrew Scheps, it’s all about feel, just like it always has been. To Scheps, having more speakers doesn’t mean more excuses to surprise the listener with wacky panning choices, but more opportunities to direct your attention to the essence of the song. Guided by emotion and never wanting to distract the listener, Scheps tends to keep important elements front and center while filling up the rest of the space with supporting instruments, background vocals, and effects (until it’s their turn to grab the spotlight). His Atmos mixes make excellent use of contrast, negative space, and the occasional sonic surprise—but always in service of the music.

In this special edition of Five Sounds With..., Andrew Scheps digs into the creative choices and challenges behind his top five Atmos mixes, from catchy pop and rock bangers to sparse arrangements and intricate soundscapes.

Note: these mixes will sound best on an immersive speaker system, but if you don’t have access to one, put on your best pair of headphones or in-ear monitors and stream the binaural version. If you’re listening in regular stereo, you’re hearing a different mix.

Low Roar – “Field of Dreams”

This is the first single from the sixth Low Roar record. All the Low Roar stuff is just made for Atmos, so the source material is already there. The concept of the front wall is important to me, so there was never a question about the piano and vocal being up front. It's always weird to me when an important instrument is coming out of the sides or the rears; I feel like that's distracting from something you should really listen to. 

The big difference between the stereo and Atmos versions is the background vocals that come in really loud in the back. In stereo, Ryan's voice almost gets subsumed by them—which is cool when it happens, but to be able to leave him huge in the front without losing any of the other stuff that needs to be there is something I just can't do in stereo. That's a great thing about mixing in Atmos.

I mix a lot of stuff through Object Beds, which are placed on speakers. There’s actually a term for it: “balls to the wall.” Creating a phantom image on the walls only ever takes two speakers; but as soon as you bring something inward, it takes more than two speakers, and it can make the listening position feel smaller. It can also be problematic in headphones because the level can go up more than it should, so mixing this way usually makes things translate better for me. 

Every once in a while, though, it's really cool to bring things through the middle. But you're not trying to distract people, you're just trying to make it amazing. In stereo or in Atmos, your job is to make people listen to the things you want them to listen to. In this mix, when it collapses to the front wall, that's because I don't want you listening to anything other than the piano and the voice.

Black Keys – “It Ain't Over”

Tchad Blake did the stereo mixes for this record. The label said they wanted Atmos, so he said, “Talk to Andrew,” which was very nice of him.

I had to figure out what I could move out of the front wall so that the song stayed in the front all the way through. So I start with, “What's the song?” What's important to have up there can change from section to section, and the rest of it you may or may not be able to strip out of the front wall. It's not like there's tracks all over the place, but there were some cool opportunities like the background vocals that are in the back and up high so that the chorus really gets big. 

It's about finding the stuff you can do to make it cooler as opposed to making it distracting. That's what I'm always trying to do: to use the new tools I have just to amplify what somebody else was trying to do in stereo. It's easy to say, “Well, you didn't really do much,” but there is no format easier to destroy a song in than Atmos. Destroying a song in stereo is absolutely possible, but it's way easier to destroy it with more than two speakers. 

Caroline Polacheck – “Sunset”

When I first heard this one, I thought, “This groove will fall apart if I move stuff, but I need to try it.” I didn't think that was going to work at all, because I don't like it when it feels like I'm sitting in the middle of the band, but this one is kind of like that. There’s stuff all over the room, but it works so well. It's one of my favorite Atmos mixes that I've done.

The groove is amazing, and the groove becomes your listening position because the instruments are so discreet—but at the same time, you never stop listening to the vocals. Her voice, the main guitar line, and some of the percussion could carry the song all the way through, and the rest of the stuff just helps to build it up. It wouldn't be as much fun if you muted that stuff, but the arrangement is so good that you could get through the song no problem. So that means it doesn't have to be in the front, but how can I do it in a way that isn't distracting, but compelling? 

I tried a bunch of different placements and stuff. It was just a lot of trial and error. It starts just in the front and then builds around you until finally you have this more operatic vocal part, which is swamped with reverb and it's all the way in the back. That sort of leaves you with the idea that she's not singing anymore and her voice turns into an instrument. It changes the perception of what stuff is, in a way.

Hozier – “In a Week” (feat. Karen Cowley)

I chose this one just because I absolutely love this song. It's just gorgeous. And because it's so sparse, I was able to fill up the room without having to think too much, because it’s the atmosphere that’s all around you. But, whether it's stereo or Atmos, if you don't have the emotional response that I think that song should give you, then I've just fucked it up. 

I felt like Andrew’s vocal had to be in the middle, but Karen is no less important. She is exactly as important a character in the song as he is, so if you split her off to the side a little bit, then all of a sudden she's the second-most important vocalist. And their voices blend so well together that there’s no problem with them stepping on each other. 

I usually base things on what's already in the stereo mix, whether I’m recreating my own mix in Atmos or I'm using jiggery-pokery to spatialize someone else’s mix. A lot of the reverb will come from the stereo track, but I often use upmixing plug-ins and mute the front. That will usually leave me with just the effects, so I can spread them around the room in a way that is different than just having the stereo vocal with effects. But if you do too much extra stuff like that, it might be great in the room with speakers; but on headphones, everything's just swamped. I’m always checking for that.

The 1975 – “How to Draw / Petrichor"

This was relatively early in me doing Atmos mixes, and I thought, “Great, I can fuck around on this. I can do anything I want.” At first, I was just going nuts all the way through; but it’s a long song, and I realized it was exhausting to listen to when I did that. It felt twice as long because it was too busy, so mixing this in Atmos was a huge lesson in how to think about doing it. 

First, it spreads out around the room, and then when that vocal stack comes in, it all collapses to the front and stays there for a bit. All you're supposed to feel at that moment is, “Wow, that vocoder stack is fucking huge,” and it just wouldn't have worked if it was in every speaker—believe me; I tried it. After that, the room slowly starts to fill up again and stuff starts to move faster and move up and down and all that. That happens about two or three times during the track.

I’m always pointing out what the listener should pay attention to, but there was too much of it, so I sort of came up with this arc of when I was going to make the listener really pay attention to stuff and when I wasn't. That made it much stronger, emotionally. I play this one at trade shows a lot and I always worry that people are going to get bored, but no one ever does. 

If you’re interested in upgrading your studio for Dolby Atmos and immersive mixing, contact a Vintage King Audio Consultant via email or by phone at 866.644.0160.