Logic, ProTools, Dolby Atmos renderer all play 7.1.4 well in my room. But Apple Music only seems to play 5.1 if “Dolby Atmos: Automatic” is selected and 2.0 if “Always On” is selected.
I’ve gone into Audio-MIDI setup and configured 7.1.4 there with all the right output, but Apple Music is maximum 5.1.
And solutions?
I found out how to get this to work. If your audio interface has more than 12 outputs, Apple Music and Apple TV will not see it as an ATMOS output device. You need to use something like Rogue Amoeba and create a virtual device with only 12 channels (or use Ginger audio Ground control sphere), which passes audio to your interface.
tl;dr All of the extra outputs of your interface will cause playback to run at 5.1. You need a virtual device with only 12 pass through output channels.
By -expected behaviour- does that mean I should expect Apple Music to only play 5.1 instead of 7.1.4?
All the listed items in Apple Music have been done multiple times. As mentioned, I can get Atmos working on Logic, ProTools, and Dolby Atmos Renderer.
Possibly there's some cryptic setting I'm missing?
I have the same issue. 7.1.4 is set up correctly in audio / midi (and works in pro tools, logic, dolby renderer, etc).
Its not playing true 7.1.4 from Apple Music, only 5.1.
Are there plans to support 7.1.4 natively on OSX so that we don't need to add extraneous outboard hdmi / apple tv / atmos receivers to our recording studio install?
Hello. The same thing happened to me. Music app could play Dolby atmos in my 7.1.2 setting (via MOTU 16A) until last month, but it only plays 5.1 right now for some reason. My MIDI setting is 7.1.2 and I can play all speakers without problem. I hope I can some advice from Apple support team.
I've noticed that since I've updated to MacOS 13.5, I've lost the ability to configure a 9.1.6 Atmos speaker set up in AMS. This was working fine in previous versions of Ventura.
Can anyone else confirm this?
Oh that's interesting, so on MacOS 13.5 I only see two options under the Atmos section, "5.1.2" and "7.1.4", is that the same for you Kenny? Unfortunately I don't remember what it was previously as I had previously run everything through my AV receiver but I'm changing my setup and want to reference on the same Genelec setup as I mix on.
So now I'm interested in what is in the unreleased version (14), I might have to install it on my wife's Macbook Air to check out whether the > 16 channels bug is fixed and also if the extra Atmos configs are back. Or does anyone else already have a Mac with that installed to check? I definitely don't want to go backwards in MacOS versions if possible.
I tested my apollo 16x with OSX sonoma 14.0 but situation is the same, which is no 9.1.6 option provided. Does anyone test with any other audio device ? Or does anyone have information about the OSX sonoma version update supposed to appear in the next apple event in regarding to this topic ?
Thank you, this worked! It's a shame that Apple does not fix this by default. They want to promote Atmos and they don't let us enjoy multi-channel audio from their own music app!!! Apple support told me the desktop Music app is the same as the iOS app, and that's why they don't support multichannel interfaces... terrible!
Anyway, here's a diagram showing the connections in Loopback. It may be helpful.
Thanks again! :D
Found this article because I'm still having issues playing Dolby Atmos music with Apple Music on my interface. I'm on Monterey 12.7.2 and previously I could get it to play 5.1 but now when I enable Dolby Atmos in the preferences it just skips every song I try to play until I turn Dolby Atmos off. I have a 7.1.4 room and have tried the Ground Control workaround and the loopback workaround but I still only get all of the songs skipping until there's nothing left in the playlist and no audio playback until I turn off Dolby Atmos in the settings. This is super frustrating that I can no longer sample spatial audio tracks in my studio. I'm experiencing a similar result when I try to use the Apple TV app on my computer, if the show or film says Dolby Atmos in the info the app just hangs up until it eventually crashes making yet another Apple service useless on my computer.
Hello chx.uk,
Yes. If you've configured your settings using the steps we've provided, this would be the max setting for your Apple Music. Feel free to provide feedback to Apple here: Product Feedback - Apple
Thanks for using the Apple Support Communities, and have a great day!
Thank you! Brilliant!
So pathetic that we have to discover these kinds of workarounds. Apple needs to acknowledge the bug and monitor these forums for this kind of thing.
Absolutely!!🤦🏻♂️
Apple Music plays 5.1 instead of Atmos
