As we go into 2024 we put on our future-gazing goggles and make some predictions for what 2024 might hold for the Pro Audio industry…
Russ - Market Correction
There've been a lot of acquisitions in the pro audio and music tech space in the last couple of years. Investors see the creator market as a good investment, how good remains to be seen. Some acquisitions took place just after the COVID pandemic, during which a lot of audio professionals were forced to work from home, this meant equipment sales of both hardware and software went through the roof. Some companies were valued based on this growth and therefore overvalued. Also, the space is incredibly niche, it’s not a space where one can simply buy a brand and then install their usual ‘crack’ management team. Some have done this to their peril, have found themselves way out of their depth and are now paying for it. Some of the most respected brands in pro audio have lost considerable market share to smaller, more agile companies, especially software developers.
However, some companies have managed mergers and acquisitions from a position of internal industry experience and intelligence, for example Audiotonix, the owners of SSL, Slate, and numerous other brands. They are proving it is possible to use equity to help grow brands rather than destroy them.
The pro audio market is hugely over saturated, at some point the bubble has to burst. The market isn’t growing fast enough, so for brands to grow they have to gain market share. This inevitably leads to one of two options, sell your business or go under. Watch for more of that. Bottom line, if a brand isn’t distinctive, then in a market like pro audio, they may be in trouble.
Julian - Wider Atmos Adoption
Dolby Atmos for Music has been around for most of half a decade, since Tidal and Amazon Music started streaming Atmos content. In those early days there was a significant learning curve in getting set up to create Atmos content beyond the installation of the necessary monitoring. Setting up a system with a DAW passing many channels of audio to the Dolby Atmos Renderer application was enough of a barrier to discourage many people who might otherwise engage in experimenting with the format and workflow using headphones. We know for many their first experience of Atmos wasn’t an exciting journey into immersive mixing, it was lots of trips into and back out of the IO Setup Window in Pro Tools!
However one-by-one the DAWs we use for music production have gained integrated Dolby Atmos renderers, making access to Atmos in the DAW users already have, immediate and easy.
Here’s a timeline of some major DAW’s Atmos integration:
October 2021 - Logic Pro 10.7
April 2022 - Cubase 12
September 2023 - Studio One 6.5
December 2023 - Pro Tools 2023.12
With the introduction of integrated Atmos support in Pro Tools with Pro Tools 2023.12 a crucial part of the Atmos ecosystem is in place. A workflow has been in place for years, and with the introduction of the Dolby Audio Bridge setting up a connection to the Dolby Atmos Renderer is simpler but with the implementation of an integrated renderer into Pro Tools, a large section of the production community who might previously have resisted experimenting with Atmos have all the tools they need already installed in their DAW, as long as they are running Pro Tools Ultimate or Studio.
A demo of the Dolby Atmos Renderer exists and very detailed tutorials are available guiding the novice through the steps required to get the two applications playing together nicely. It’s not difficult, but it isn’t anywhere near as convenient as having the integration. I’ll put my hand up and say that as a Pro Tools user who is well informed about Atmos but has no business motivation beyond professional curiosity to engage with Atmos, having set everything up with the external renderer more than once in the past, I’ve found Atmos discouragingly ‘fiddly’ to use. I achieved more in a couple of days using the integrated renderer than I did in all of my previous forays into Atmos mixing, because you can skip the setup and get straight to the fun bit - the mixing!
My prediction for 2024 is that this almost complete accessibility of an easy Atmos workflow, combined with growing demand, and greater prominence for people offering Atmos mixes on streaming platforms, will result in Atmos mixes becoming more and more prevalent, although I’m not going as far as calling time on good old fashioned stereo just yet!
Paul Maunder - Blockchain technology
Blockchain is perhaps best known for its use in crypto currencies such as Bitcoin where it serves as the underlying technology for recording and verifying transactions. However, the potential uses for the technology go well beyond crypto.
Blockchain is a distributed and decentralised ledger technology that functions as a secure and transparent record-keeping system. At its core, it comprises a chain of blocks, each containing a list of transactions or data, linked together through cryptographic hashes. The decentralised nature of blockchain means that it operates on a network of computers, or nodes, rather than a centralised authority. This design ensures a high level of security, transparency, and immutability. Once a block is added to the chain, it becomes extremely challenging to alter any information within it without changing subsequent blocks, making blockchain a tamper-resistant technology.
My prediction for 2024 is that we will see the beginning of the use of this blockchain technology in certain areas of the audio industry. One area in particular is royalty payments to artists. There’s been some controversy over artists not receiving sufficient income from streaming platforms. I believe that blockchain technology could streamline royalty payments by implementing smart contracts, ensuring that artists receive fair compensation for their work in a more efficient and automated manner. Additionally, blockchain's decentralised ledger system could enhance copyright protection by securely recording and timestamping the creation of audio files, providing an immutable and verifiable record of ownership. This technology may also facilitate collaboration among artists and producers by establishing a decentralised network for file sharing and project management, reducing the risk of unauthorised access or data loss. This could be of particular interest in film production where the security of content is of critical importance throughout the post production process.
Check out Creative Passport.
Luke - Automatic Input Gain
The first device I came across with this feature was Audient’s EVO range back in 2020, however others have followed suit. In 2024, I anticipate seeing more manufacturers bringing this knowhow to a wider range of interfaces.
I think it’s safe to say that the age of pros and casual engineers often using the same tools is upon us. Whether it’s the voiceover artist using a little red interface for their U87, or the band’s designated tech-head plugging into a bank of inputs on their latest sleek rack-dweller, interfaces are a good example. For pros, this can mean reduced costs, but for non-pro recordists, some boxes’ complement of software and/or DSP mixing can mean extra complexity.
If there’s one place to get it right it’s at the input, and at the interface that means levels. Not so long ago, budget and mid-priced boxes suffered from either tepid amounts of gain, or juicer inputs with jumpy gain pots requiring the hand of a brain surgeon for small tweaks at the upper limit. These days, on a technical level even modest boxes can match the feel and performance of a professional interface or recording console. I’ve tried quite a few this year, and the bar is still creeping upwards, with automatic input gain being the innovation that promises much. I like setting my own gain, but if Auto is there why not try it? Even for self-recording pros, the luxury of just playing without playing-leaning-tweaking-repeat is brilliant in use. Anyone with their hands full, or just those who need things as simple as possible can just press a button while these boxes listen and set the gain for the engineer.
What would be really interesting is if it eventually makes it into the kind of compact professional analogue consoles and ‘mixerfaces’ touted by some. Other features such as user-definable peak level would be useful, because if you’re like me you’ll want it to agree with you on what the ‘right’ level actually looks like!
A Better Understanding of AI
We talked this one through on the team, we couldn’t leave AI off the list, and then if we added it we thought anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock would think “obvious!”
What isn’t so obvious is the attitude to AI and ML products.
We think during 2024, many audio professionals will go from the positions of “it’s magic”, “it’s rubbish”, “it’s going to take over the world,”, or “going to take my job”, to a better understanding of what AI can do for the audio professional.
Thankfully, much of the press has moved on from the headline grabbing stories about AI and associated technologies, there’s only so many times you can say there’s a wolf until no one cares. Now we can all start to explore, review, and see what it can do to make our lives easier.
Widespread adoption? No. Less hype? Yes.