Ayu and Dolby Atmos
 

Hey, I was thinking of subscribing to Apple Music, and I was wondering if Ayu has had her catalog remastered for Dolby Atmos. Are there any updates about this? I'd be happy to know.
Thanks! :)

I think I didn't see any Japanese artist catalogue with that technology available. Even lossless quality is scarce (I saw A ONE available in Lossless, but the 20th anniversary version of LOVEppears isn't).

Aww, too bad. :(
I'd be excited if Namie or Hikki got their discographies remastered as well.

Is that even a thing? You can barely find *decent* 5.1 mixes - in Ayu's case, I know only of My Story and Rainbow (the song, not the album). I'd have to think the market demand for Atmos music remixes to be practically non-existent.

And it wouldn't be a small undertaking. They *certainly* would not do these types of remixes purely for releasing on Apple Music.

Avex -slash- Japan remains greedy while Korea keeps getting cash globally.
Talk about poor marketing decisions... :no

Currently there are only a limited albums on  Music has Dolby Atmos enhanced, but as what Apple stated on their website and keynote, the entire catalogue on their platform will have Dolby Atmos enhanced by the end of this year. (Source)

As of now, if you would like to experience how Ayu’s (and other artists you love) music sounds like in Dolby Atmos, all of the videos, including Lives and Music Videos on  Music are actually now Dolby Atmos supported, just put on your AirPods Pro or AirPods Max and click on any videos on  Music, then try to move your head around, you will hear the difference. (The difference is actually Spatial Audio, but if a video on  Music supports Spatial Audio, then it supports Dolby Atmos as well.)

Dolby Atmos on  Music doesn’t need labels to re-submit the catalogue entirely, it’s being processed on Apple’s side, it just need time to upgrade their whole database. :)

If you listen on headphones/IEMs, it's not necessary to have Dolby Atmos. Most music are designed for stereo, not surround sound. Dolby Atmos was initially designed for movies.

Oh really? I thought this technology depended on some kind of remaster or studio input from the artists / producers. And I guess it only works in iOS-driven gadgets, right? I tried to test with my Android phone and nothing happened.

It does require labels to do remastering.
The source linked says that Apple Music will bring entire catalog to Lossless by the end of the year, not Dolby Atmos. (or can we have a direct quote?) It is not possible to automatically convert tracks to Dolby Atmos as spatial information is not present in stereo mixes so new remaster is needed.
At best I hope Avex will make My Story album available in spatial audio. Didn't FIVE BD-AUDIO release also include 5.1 mixes?

This is an interesting observation. For Live concerts I can understand, hopefully original 5.1 track from Blu-ray was used.
For PVs though I tried listening to Zutto and it doesn't sound well at all no matter who ever marked it as ok for Dolby Atmos(automatically or Avex). Hopefully they will actually bring out real Dolby Atmos masters for her tracks.

I've noticed that if you activate Spatial Audio as "always on" on iOS, most stereo/lossless tracks sound actually better, including music you've ripped or downloaded from other places. I tested some songs and you can appreciate an improvement in quality (you need AirPods Pro/Max and the latest iOS version). Some tracks will sound loud as hell, so you'd probably want to turn off that option if it bothers your ears after awhile.

^^ Well, yeah, you can run music through some algorithm that'll try to decide for itself how best to play it back to give the impression it was remixed, but results will vary greatly. It'll *never* sound as good as it might if a qualified sound engineer made the decisions and worked through the entire process carefully. And there are artistic choices an automated process simply cannot make.

As has been mentioned above, most music produced today targets a stereo mix. You can *try* to magically upgrade that, but the end result will be extremely subjective. Some might like it, others will think it's horrible.