Cover image via Faithful Music
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If you are an Apple Music user, you've probably noticed the Dolby Atmos or Spatial Audio badge on your "Now Playing" screen
The Spatial Audio feature — available on Apple Music — makes you feel like you're sitting in the middle of a live band, with vocals upfront, drums thumping from behind, and guitars drifting somewhere above.
With the feature — and the right earbuds — music is no longer blasting into your left and right ears. Instead, it opens up into something that feels almost 3D.
I recently visited Faithful Music in Kota Damansara, one of the first studios in Malaysia to offer a full Spatial Audio mixing setup accessible to local artistes, to witness how the Spatial Audio feature works and is made.
Composer and producer Adib Sin showing how Spatial Audio is made.
Image via Faithful MusicAccording to the co-owner of Faithful Music, Mike Chan, the biggest challenge in remixing old songs for Spatial Audio is that most finished tracks are "flattened"
"Imagine trying to take a baked cake and perfectly separating the flour, eggs, and sugar back out. Impossible, right? With Logic Pro, it's now possible," Chan said.
I watched the team use Logic Pro on a beastly Mac Studio M3 Ultra. The star of the show was a feature called Stem Splitter.
Powered by AI, this tool took a finished stereo track and effortlessly split it into distinct parts: vocals, bass, drums, and instruments. It happened in a matter of seconds.
Thanks to the Mac Studio's immense power, the audio track was separated instantly. Chan explained that the feature now allows producers and musicians to experiment with how they want their music to sound.
Faithful Music is among the pioneers in the Spatial Audio experience in Malaysia.
Image via Faithful MusicTo demonstrate this, we were joined composer and producer Adib Sin, who broke down the track Masa by local artist NAKI
Inside Faithful Music's studio, which is kitted out with a 7.1.4 speaker setup (that's 11 speakers and a subwoofer surrounding you), the experience was mind-blowing.
On stereo, it sounds like you're listening to a regular recording. However, with Spatial Audio, it sounded as though NAKI was in the room, singing to us in person.
Chan and Adib showed us how they could grab NAKI's vocals in Logic Pro and drag them around a 3D visualiser on the screen.
As they moved the dot on the screen, the sound physically moved around the room.
"Music is now an experience. We can now create music that gets listeners closer to the artist because the sound wraps around them," Adib shared.
Logic Pro is a go-to for Faithful Music when it comes to creating music.
Image via AppleFaithful Music, founded by Faizal Tahir and Mike Chan, is pioneering this tech for Malaysia's music scene
Usually, high-tech Spatial Audio mixing is reserved for massive international acts. But Faithful Music is making it accessible to homegrown talent.
They recently partnered with Universal Music Malaysia, meaning we will hear a lot more Malaysian hits getting the Dolby Atmos treatment.
"It's about empowering local artistes with quality creative opportunities," said Chan.
Musicians and producers now have more control over how their listeners experience music.
Image via Faithful MusicWhile homegrown musicians might not have 12 speakers in their bedroom, the tools are now available to everyone
Chan and Adib both foresee many local musicians taking advantage of Logic Pro's Stem Splitter and Spatial Audio features to create bigger, wider, and more immersive hits than ever.
The Stem Splitter feature is available on Logic Pro for Mac (requires Apple silicon) and Logic Pro for iPad.
- Logic Pro for Mac: RM999.90 (90-day free trial available)
- Logic Pro for iPad: RM22.90/month (1-month free trial available)
Whether you're a budding producer or just a music nerd, you can try "unbaking" songs yourself on an iPad or MacBook. And hey, who knows, you might even collaborate with Faithful Music one day.
