What is Dolby Atmos?

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Dolby Atmos mixing is done in a fully immersive 3D space instead of a standard channel based configuration like stereo, 5.1 or 7.1 surround. Stereo mixes are limited to left and right panning. Traditional surround mixes are limited to a set number of channels, that need to be present in the listeners system as well. Dolby Atmos is object based and therefore can be played on any number of speakers be it a mobile device, headphones or soundbar all the way up to large scale theatre systems with dozens of speakers because it is rendered real time on the playback device for the number of speakers available. When mixing in Dolby Atmos we are able to place instruments and effects (fixed or moving) anywhere in 3D space around the listener.

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Stems in music are one or more mixed tracks grouped together. For example, a recording of a snare drum unmixed is usually the part of a multitrack, while the drum bus separately exported from the final mix is a stem.

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You can think of stems as fragments of a final mix. While an entire song (Multitrack) might feature 20-100 or more individual tracks, stems can lump them all into a lot less sub-categories. Essentially, stems split your songs into distinct and usable sections.

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The short answer is as many as you like that fits into your creative intent as well as your budget. The long answer is very long and you should read our article titled Stems and also book a consultation to find out more if you have never done this before. 

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You can  provide us the multitracks, but that means we will need to do a traditional mix as well as the Dolby Atmos mixing process on top of that. Stems ideally should be mixed final tracks or buses of a song that if played all at once will sound like the mixed stereo version of the song.

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