No matter how epic things get, Dolby Atmos is used to build a sculpted sonic world that delicately engulfs the audience creating a sense of intimacy as much as it does scale. There’s a continual, seamless handing over between the two elements that unifies the soundfield and enhances the drama without overwhelming the viewer. Zimmer has spoken extensively about his fanboy levels of admiration for Herbert’s book (though he claims to have never seen the widely panned 1984 adaption with a soundtrack by Toto and Brian Eno), and it seems he is equally enamoured with Dolby Atmos pulling his magnificent genre-bending industrial-prog-operatic-Celtic-spiritualist score into every speaker in a way that integrates, rather than dominates, the rest of the audio. But Dune’s excellent pedigree extends far beyond its cast and director Denis Villeneuve to include the sonic dream team of sound designer Mark Mangini ( Mad Max: Fury Road, Blade Runner:2049) and eminent film score composer Hans Zimmer ( Gladiator, Pirates of the Caribbean series, Blade Runner:2049). It touches upon themes of colonialism, power, culture and the environment, constructing a world that the audience immediately feels a part of it, which, against the odds, is believable rather than fantastical.Īlongside Chalamet in his desert quest to save all of humanity is an impressive line-up including Rebecca Ferguson, Jason Momoa, Javier Bardem, Zendaya, Dave Bautista and a spectacularly grotesque Stellan Skarsgård. This means that immersive audio for music applications could soon be available at concert venues and on the home front, making now the perfect time for both residential and commercial integrators to get their demos set up and ready to impress.Based on the 1965 science fiction novel by American author Frank Herbert, Dune (2021) is set in a futuristic, interstellar hierarchical society where an adolescent, earnest but quietly gifted nobleman Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) is entrusted with the responsibility to protect the galaxy’s most vital natural resource (‘spice’) from evil forces while also avoiding giant, deadly sandworms.ĭespite its eccentric plot, Dune feels deeply rooted in reality. In the commercial sound reinforcement market, top manufacturers including L-Acoustics, Meyer Sound and Astro Spatial Audio have been promoting immersive audio as a next-generation experience for concert-goers. Demonstrating the immersive characteristics of Atmos-encoded music, Russell played Atmos tracks from Imagine Dragons (“Believer”) and INXS (“Mediate”) for an audience of integrators and designers to underscore how well music can sound in an Atmos environment. The Digital Sales Metro’s event was held at a Cortex VIP-built cinema in New York City at Dolby Laboratory’s offices. Related: Digital Sales Group, Metro to Showcase Amazing 64-Channel Dolby Home TheaterĪs part of his presentation, Russell went on to cite the remastering of the classic albums “Abbey Road “ from the Beatles’ and “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” from Elton John this year as evidence of the trend. “There will be 10,000 audio tracks remastered for Dolby Atmos this year ,” according to Russell. Russell says integrators and music fans can expect the immersive audio market to explode over the next 12 months. During the event, John Russell, co-founder of Cortex VIP Systems, discussed some of the music applications Dolby is working on and its timeline for release.
That new Dolby Atmos audio initiative was on display recently when Dave Silkin, president of Digital Sales Metro, held a high-performance home theater event in New York City at Dolby Laboratories offices. There is no question Dolby Atmos has put a charge in the immersive home theater experience for watching movies, but what about audio? Pre-Atmos, integrators’ surround sound audio demos were relegated to tracks from Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon.” But now thanks to a new initiative from Dolby, a variety of songs have been remastered to Dolby Atmos, giving integrators a growing selection to use for demos with clients, giving them another powerful reason beyond just movies to consider an immersive room environment.