Spatial Audio & Immersive Music for Electroacoustic Music: Musique Concrète, Acousmatic Music & Tape Music
Spatial9 Team · · Updated · 16 min read
Part of the series Spatial audio and immersive music by genre.
Key takeaways
- In a spatial electroacoustic music mix the main gesture is anchored in front, while voice fragments, concrete sounds, tape loops, field recordings, granular clouds and spatial sweeps use the whole sphere.
- Bright, airy material reads best overhead in electroacoustic music, because the ear judges height from high-frequency spectral cues shaped by the outer ear.
- Electroacoustic music treats space as part of the composition, so movement should follow musical gestures rather than constant random panning.
- The electroacoustic music immersion profile scores width 5, height 5, movement 5, low-end focus 2 and space 5 out of 5.
Electroacoustic music grew out of two post-war studio traditions. In Paris in the late 1940s, Pierre Schaeffer began composing with recorded sounds at French radio, which he called musique concrète. In the early 1950s, the studio of West German radio in Cologne developed electronic music made from synthetic tones. The two approaches soon merged into what we now call electroacoustic music. The sound is built from recorded and transformed material rather than notes on a page: trains, voices, objects, water, tape loops, filtered noise and synthesised tones, shaped by speed changes, splicing and later digital processing. Space has been central from the start. Karlheinz Stockhausen wrote for groups of loudspeakers around the audience, and Edgard Varèse's Poème électronique was played through hundreds of loudspeakers in a pavilion at the 1958 Brussels World's Fair. Spatial audio is the natural home for this music. This guide covers how spatial audio for electroacoustic music works, where to place each element and how to make an immersive electroacoustic music mix. For the basics, see what spatial audio is.
Why electroacoustic music belongs in spatial audio
In most genres space supports the music. In electroacoustic music, space often is the music: a sound approaching, passing and dissolving into the distance is a musical event in itself. Stereo can only hint at that movement between two speakers. An immersive mix lets sounds come from behind, rise overhead and recede far away, much as composers have long done with multi-speaker concerts.
The rule: one clear anchor, a fully open sphere. Keep the main gesture readable in front, then let every other sound object use the whole space.
Immersive music for electroacoustic music: what listeners hear
- Sounds with a real location. A voice, a door or a bell seems to sit at a point in the room.
- Movement as form. Gestures approach, pass and fade away as part of the piece.
- Sound above the head. Clouds of grains and sweeps drift overhead.
- Near and far. Some sounds feel close enough to touch, others far away.
Where to place each element in an electroacoustic music mix
| Element | Position | Height | Why it works |
|---|---|---|---|
| Main gesture | Front centre | Ear level | The clearest focus of attention |
| Low drone | Centre | Ear level | A stable floor under the piece |
| Voice fragment | Front left | Ear level | Close, intimate and readable |
| Concrete sounds | Front right, moving | Ear level | Real objects with a clear place |
| Tape loop | Left | Ear level | A repeating anchor at the side |
| Field recording | Right | Ear level | A real environment around you |
| Granular cloud | Behind left, moving | Raised | Texture that drifts overhead |
| Spatial sweep | Behind right, moving | Raised | Gestures that fly past |
| Room resonance | Behind | Raised | Depth and distance |
The psychoacoustics behind electroacoustic music placement
Every position in the table above follows how the ear and brain locate sound. Here is the reason behind the main choices for electroacoustic music.
- The main gesture sits in front. The smallest change in direction we can hear, the minimum audible angle, is about one degree straight ahead and much larger at the sides, as Mills showed. Detailed, fast-changing material is easiest to follow in front, so the main gesture belongs there.
- Bright material goes overhead. The ear judges height from spectral cues, small changes in the high frequencies shaped by the outer ear, as described by Hebrank and Wright. Granular clouds and airy sweeps rich in high frequencies read clearly as raised. Dull, low sounds do not.
- Rising gestures feel like they approach. Listeners hear rising pitch as rising and as coming closer, a bias shown by Neuhoff. Pairing a tape speed-up or upward sweep with movement towards or above the listener makes the gesture feel natural rather than arbitrary.
- Room resonance around the listener. Sound arriving from the sides soon after the direct sound is what makes a space feel enveloping. This comes from research on early lateral reflections by Barron and Marshall. Room tone and resonance placed around and behind the listener create a believable acoustic world.
The immersion profile for electroacoustic music
Width, height, movement and space are all at maximum because the genre treats space as a compositional material, and sound objects can come from anywhere. Low-end focus is low because there is usually no kick or bassline to anchor. Low drones and rumbles exist, but they support the piece rather than drive it.
Tips for an immersive electroacoustic music mix
- Keep one clear anchor. Too much movement at once makes the piece hard to follow.
- Move with purpose. Tie each trajectory to a gesture in the sound, not random panning.
- Use distance, not only direction. Change level, reverb and brightness so sounds approach and recede.
- Let silence have a place. Empty space makes the next sound arrive with more impact.
- Respect the original diffusion. If the piece was made for many speakers, start from its stems.
Electroacoustic Music styles: musique concrète, acousmatic music and tape music
The core placement still applies to every electroacoustic style: one clear anchor in front, objects and textures around the listener, movement above. What changes is the source material and how literally space is used.
Musique Concrète
Musique concrète is the Paris tradition of composing with recorded sounds treated as sound objects: a train, a door, a piano lid, a voice. In a spatial mix each object can have its own point in space. Keep recognisable sounds at ear level, close and dry, so their real-world origin stays clear. Place transformed versions further away, raised or behind, so the listener hears the object turning into something abstract. Short, sudden objects work well at the sides.
Acousmatic Music
Acousmatic music is made for loudspeakers alone, with no visible source. In concerts it is often diffused live over a loudspeaker orchestra, such as the acousmonium developed at the Paris research group GRM. An immersive mix can capture that diffusion. Use depth heavily, with sounds moving from far behind to close in front, and open the full sphere at climaxes. Keep quiet passages narrow and close, then widen.
Tape Music
Tape music is the term often used in the US for works built by splicing, looping, reversing and changing the speed of magnetic tape, from New York studios in the 1950s to the San Francisco Tape Music Center in the 1960s. Loops make natural spatial anchors: place them at fixed points around the listener so the repetition becomes a sense of place. Let speed-up and slow-down gestures travel, rising or approaching as pitch rises. Hiss and room tone can sit behind.
Closely related practices such as live electronics, soundscape composition and sound art follow the same pattern, with a readable anchor and the rest of the sphere open.
Dolby Atmos and object-based mixing for electroacoustic music
Dolby Atmos mixes electroacoustic music as a channel bed plus objects placed anywhere in the room. The bed provides a steady foundation, while objects allow precise placement and movement of individual sounds. Most listeners will experience the mix on headphones through binaural rendering on platforms like Apple Music, Tidal and Amazon Music. Apple Music uses its own spatial renderer, so its headphone output can differ from the Dolby binaural render. Spatial9 helps plan these placements carefully to ensure your electroacoustic music translates well across every format.
How the Atmos plan differs from the placement map. The Ambisonics map places the low drone behind the listener, but in Atmos, low frequencies stay in the front bed to ensure proper bass management. The map also puts the main gesture at distance 0.45 in front. In Atmos, we pull this object slightly off the front wall to create depth without losing focus. Finally, the field recording and room resonance are mapped to specific directions, but in Atmos, they use the full bed to wrap around the listener and create a convincing environment.
Beds and objects for each electroacoustic music element
| Element | Atmos role | Where it plays in 7.1.4 | Binaural mode | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Main gesture | Object, small size | Ear level, front of the room, centre (X 0, Y 0.8, Z 0) | Near | Main lead stays anchored in front to keep the focus clear. |
| Low drone | Bed | Centre plus LFE (C + LFE) | Off | Low end stays in the bed to ensure solid bass management. |
| Voice fragment | Object, small size | Ear level, front of the room, left (X -0.5, Y 0.6, Z 0) | Mid | Placed front left to support the main gesture without masking it. |
| Concrete sounds | Object, moving | Ear level, front of the room, right (X 0.6, Y 0.5, Z 0). Moving: Moves across the right side to create a sense of physical action, ending at ear level, front of the room, right | Mid | Concrete sounds benefit from precise placement and movement to feel real. |
| Tape loop | Object, medium size | Ear level, middle of the room, far left (X -0.9, Y 0, Z 0) | Mid | Wide left placement provides a repeating anchor outside the main stage. |
| Field recording | Bed | Whole 7.1.2 bed | Far | A full bed wraps the field recording around the listener for immersion. |
| Granular cloud | Object, wide size, moving | Overhead, rear of the room, left (X -0.6, Y -0.5, Z 0.8). Moving: Drifts slowly overhead from back left to front right, ending at overhead, front of the room, right | Far | Height suits airy textures and keeps them separate from ear-level elements. |
| Spatial sweep | Object, medium size, moving | Raised, rear of the room, right (X 0.7, Y -0.6, Z 0.6). Moving: Sweeps forward and upward to build tension during transitions, ending at overhead, front of the room, centre | Far | Movement overhead adds drama without cluttering the front stage. |
| Room resonance | Bed | Whole 7.1.2 bed | Far | A full bed distributes room resonance to create a believable acoustic space. |
Dolby Atmos settings for electroacoustic music
- LFE. Low end placed as an object relies on playback bass management, so route sub frequencies to the bed LFE channel.
- Object size. Increase the size of objects like tape loops to spread them across more speakers, making them wider but less precise.
- Height use. Reserve height for granular clouds, sweeps and room resonance, as dry sounds placed fully overhead lose focus on headphones.
- Binaural render. Set binaural modes to near for intimate sounds, mid for standard objects and far for ambience, but never leave all on off.
- Movement. Automate object coordinates to create spatial sweeps and moving concrete sounds, but ensure they never pass directly through the listener.
Electroacoustic music across immersive formats
| Format | How it carries sound | What it means for electroacoustic music |
|---|---|---|
| Dolby Atmos | Hybrid: a 7.1.2 channel bed plus up to 118 objects placed with X, Y and Z metadata | Dolby Atmos allows electroacoustic music to combine a 7.1.2 channel bed with up to 118 objects for precise spatial gestures. |
| Sony 360 Reality Audio | Object-based, built on MPEG-H 3D Audio: every sound is an object on a sphere | Sony 360 Reality Audio places every electroacoustic element as an object on a sphere, as it has no channel bed. |
| MPEG-H 3D Audio | Channels, objects and Higher Order Ambisonics in one stream, with optional listener control | MPEG-H 3D Audio carries channels, objects and Ambisonics, letting listeners adjust specific electroacoustic elements if the producer allows it. |
| Auro-3D | Channel-based: a height layer above 5.1 or 7.1, with an optional overhead channel | Auro-3D uses fixed channels rather than objects to add a height layer to electroacoustic music mixes. |
| Eclipsa Audio (IAMF) | Channel-based and scene-based (Ambisonics) audio elements; no objects | Eclipsa Audio uses IAMF, which lacks audio objects, so an Atmos mix must be rendered to channels or Ambisonics. |
| Ambisonics | Scene-based: the whole sound field, decoded to any speaker layout or to headphones | Ambisonics stores the electroacoustic sound field as spherical harmonics, decoding it to any speaker layout or headphones. |
| ADM BWF | Open exchange file (ITU-R BS.2076 metadata in a BW64 file) for channels, objects and scenes | ADM BWF is the open metadata format used to deliver channel and object-based electroacoustic music to streaming services. |
Delivery checklist for a electroacoustic music Dolby Atmos release
- Master file. ADM BWF at 48 kHz and 24-bit, with no more than 128 channels: a 10-channel 7.1.2 bed plus up to 118 objects.
- Loudness. Integrated loudness no higher than -18 LKFS and true peak no higher than -1 dBTP, measured to ITU-R BS.1770.
- Binaural metadata. Set Off, Near, Mid or Far for every bed and object. Masters with everything left on Off are rejected.
- Re-renders. Listen to the 5.1, stereo and binaural re-renders before delivery, because most people will hear one of them.
Check that your ADM BWF master measures no higher than -18 LKFS integrated loudness and -1 dBTP true peak.
How to make immersive electroacoustic music from stereo
Spatial9 can create spatial audio from a stereo track in a few steps:
- Upload your stereo master or your stems.
- Spatial9's AI separates and places each part, anchoring the main gesture in front and sending sound objects, textures and room resonance around and above you.
- Preview it in binaural on headphones.
- Export Eclipsa Audio, ADM, binaural or Ambisonics.
- Publish a video. Create a YouTube-ready video with your immersive audio and publish it directly.
For related guides, read spatial audio for experimental music and spatial audio for dark ambient. Every guide is listed in spatial audio and immersive music by genre.
Frequently asked questions
Does this guide cover musique concrète, acousmatic music and tape music?
Yes. Musique concrète gives each recorded sound object its own point in space, with transformed versions further away. Acousmatic music uses deep, diffusion-style movement from far to near and opens the full sphere at climaxes. Tape music places loops at fixed points and lets speed changes travel. All three keep one clear anchor in front.
Can I make an electroacoustic music mix in Dolby Atmos or Eclipsa Audio?
You can make an electroacoustic music mix in Dolby Atmos using a combination of a channel bed and spatial objects. The Dolby Atmos Renderer will output an ADM BWF file for streaming. Remember that Apple Music applies its own spatial renderer, so you must check its headphone result separately from the Dolby binaural render. Dolby Atmos and Eclipsa Audio require separate deliveries because Eclipsa Audio is built on IAMF, which carries channels and Ambisonics but has no audio objects.
Should electroacoustic music elements be beds or objects in Dolby Atmos?
Electroacoustic music elements should use both beds and objects depending on their function. Beds suit steady, enveloping parts like low drones, field recordings and room resonance. The low end must stay in the bed to use the LFE channel. Objects are ideal for the main gesture, voice fragments, concrete sounds and spatial sweeps. Objects allow precise placement, movement and size adjustments, letting you pull featured parts off the walls to add depth to the composition.
Does a electroacoustic music Dolby Atmos mix also work for Sony 360 Reality Audio and MPEG-H?
A Dolby Atmos mix does not directly translate to Sony 360 Reality Audio or MPEG-H 3D Audio. Sony 360 Reality Audio is built on MPEG-H but has no channel bed; every element must be an object on a sphere around the listener. MPEG-H 3D Audio carries channels, objects and Higher Order Ambisonics, and is often used in broadcasting. You will need to create separate mixes or use specific conversion tools to adapt your Atmos session for these formats.
Is spatial audio good for electroacoustic music?
Yes. Electroacoustic music has used multi-speaker playback for decades, and spatial audio brings that experience to headphones and home systems.
How is electroacoustic music different from experimental music in spatial audio?
Experimental music covers many approaches, including bands, noise and improvisation. Electroacoustic music is built from recorded and transformed sound, often fixed on tape or disk, so the spatial movement can be composed precisely, sound by sound.
Should sounds keep moving in immersive electroacoustic music?
No. Constant movement tires the ear and loses its meaning. Keep most sounds still, and save movement for gestures where travel through space is part of the idea.
Can I convert a finished electroacoustic music track to spatial audio?
Yes. Spatial9 uses AI to generate an immersive mix from a stereo master and exports it as Eclipsa Audio, ADM, binaural or Ambisonics. For dense or unusual sources, uploading stems gives the most control.
Does immersive electroacoustic music work on normal headphones?
Yes. The mix is rendered binaurally, so moving sound objects and distant textures work on any regular headphones.
Dolby and Dolby Atmos are trademarks of Dolby Laboratories. 360 Reality Audio, Auro-3D and other format names are trademarks of their respective owners. Spatial9 is not affiliated with or endorsed by Dolby Laboratories or these companies.
Sources
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Compose with the whole room
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