Immersive Audio Mastering for Classical and New Music
Spatial audio isn't a trend. It's a new canvas.
What is immersive audio?
Immersive audio places the listener inside the music rather than in front of it. For decades, recorded music has lived in two channels. Stereo is a remarkable format and it isn’t going anywhere, but spatial audio opens up something fundamentally different.
What is a 7.2.4 immersive monitoring environment?
A 7.2.4 monitoring environment uses seven ear-level monitors, two subwoofers, and four height channels, arranged for full-sphere spatial coverage. It lets an engineer evaluate an immersive master across the full spatial field and across the playback systems listeners actually use, from dedicated home theaters to soundbars to headphones.
I helped design and implement the technical systems for the 7.2.4 immersive mastering studio at Tippet Rise Art Center in Montana, where I’ve spent nearly a decade recording world-class classical artists. Then I built my own. My Denver studio is a converted basement built around a world-class signal chain: Grace Design monitoring, Fluid Audio speakers, and Merging Technologies conversion, calibrated meticulously for accurate spatial listening. Every element was chosen deliberately.
Which immersive audio formats can be delivered today?
Today, the immersive format that matters for music delivery is Dolby Atmos. It’s the most widely supported immersive format and the one with broad consumer distribution, available on Apple Music, Tidal, and Amazon Music and supported across major streaming and broadcast systems.
What is Dolby Atmos?
Dolby Atmos is an object-based immersive format: instead of fixed channels, sounds are placed as objects in a three-dimensional field and rendered to whatever speakers or headphones the listener has. It's the format most streaming platforms use for spatial music today, which makes it the practical delivery target for most projects.
What is Eclipsa Audio?
Eclipsa Audio is an emerging, royalty-free immersive format built on the open IAMF standard (Immersive Audio Model and Formats), developed by Samsung and Google through the Alliance for Open Media as an open alternative to Dolby Atmos. As of 2026 it’s gaining ground on TVs, soundbars, and YouTube, but it is not yet a music-streaming delivery target the way Atmos is. I’m tracking it closely.
The reason it’s worth watching isn’t the technology alone; it’s the economics. An open, royalty-free format could lower the barrier for independent artists, ensembles, and New Music creators who are priced out of proprietary immersive tooling. That matters to me, and it’s part of why I am staying tuned in to where this is heading.
How does immersive audio benefit classical and acoustic music?
Acoustic music has always existed in three dimensions, and immersive formats finally let the recording reflect that. A string quartet in a room. A choir in a cathedral. A solo piano and the space around it. An ensemble whose physical arrangement is part of the composition.
I believe acoustic music, chamber music, New Music, and contemporary classical deserve the same access to immersive formats that pop and film have had for years. That’s why I developed this practice and built this room.
What does an immersive mastering session involve?
We start with a conversation about your project, your creative intent, and your distribution goals. You provide stems or a spatial mix, depending on scope. I work in my calibrated monitoring environment to craft a spatial master that translates across playback systems, then deliver final masters to spec for each target format and platform, with documentation of loudness, dynamic range, and any format-specific requirements.
Throughout, I’m here to answer questions, explain options, and make sure you feel confident about every decision. I’ve been through this enough times to make it smooth.
Do I need stems or a finished mix to start an immersive master?
Either can work, depending on the scope of the project. If you have an existing stereo mix, we’ll talk about what spatial audio can add to the listening experience. If you’re working on something new, we can discuss format and approach earlier in the process, and you can provide stems or a spatial mix.
What is the difference between composing in space and mixing into space?
Mixing into space takes existing music and places it in a spatial field after the fact. Composing in space means spatial movement, directionality, and the listener’s position become part of the compositional intent itself, from the first note on the page.
If you’re composing a piece where space is structural, the conversation starts earlier and looks different. I sit at a unique intersection of artist, engineer, composer, and producer, and from that vantage point I can see possibilities that are hard to see from any single seat. I work with composers as a creative and technical partner from the earliest stages: exploring what the medium can do, understanding its constraints, and helping translate spatial ideas into a form that can be realized, recorded, mixed, and delivered. This is consultative, exploratory work. There’s no fixed scope or standard deliverable. It starts with the music.
How does spatial intent survive consumer playback?
A well-made immersive master is built to translate, so the listener’s experience holds up whether they’re on a full immersive home theater, a soundbar, or headphones. That translation is exactly what the 7.2.4 room exists to verify: I evaluate the master across the full spatial field and across the playback scenarios real listeners use, rather than mixing for one ideal system and hoping it survives everywhere else.
Where can I find an immersive audio mastering engineer in Colorado?
I offer immersive audio mastering from a calibrated 7.2.4 monitoring environment in Denver, Colorado, working with artists, ensembles, and labels across Colorado and the Mountain West, and remotely for projects further afield.
How do I start a project with Jim?
Reach out at jim@jimruberto.com with a bit about your project. Whether you have a finished mix that needs a spatial master, a recording project to plan, or a spatial idea you want to explore from the very beginning, that first conversation is where it starts.
The Invitation
Here's the thing I can't stop thinking about.
Most of the conversation around immersive audio is about the end of the chain: playback, delivery, consumer experience. In the professional world, we talk mostly about how to take existing music and place it in a spatial field, or about capture technique: putting more microphones in front of the ensemble in cleverly designed arrays. That's valuable work, and it's work I do every day.
But the bigger question is upstream. What would a piece sound like if the composer had conceived of space as a structural element from the first note on the page? Not how do we mix this into immersive, but what becomes possible when spatial movement, directionality, and the listener's position are part of the compositional intent itself?
Obviously, these are not new concepts. Composers were placing separated choirs in opposite lofts of St. Mark's in Venice in the early 1500s — cori spezzati, "broken choirs," the architecture itself shaping the music.
I've been fortunate to work closely with composers who think this way. I don't have all the answers, but I've been thinking about this for years, and I've got some ideas. If you're a composer, a performer, an ensemble, or a label, and any of this resonates, I'd love to hear from you.