Listening to music in your car is an easy way to pass long stretches of drive time or sit through bumper-to-bumper traffic.
“The songs from your childhood trigger a memory, or you know, like I said, it might be something that you you sang with your children or your parents sang with you or, or it was, you know, a first date or whatever it might be,” said John Couling, Dolby senior vice president of entertainment. “And, so it's this incredibly connected experience and to be immersed in that in your car is is just emotionally powerful.”
And now Dolby wants to elevate that experience by providing immersive sound of Dolby Atmos in your vehicle.
“We were really excited about was when musicians started to think about Dolby Atmos, and they started to play with the technology and really expand how it could be used for music,” Couling said. “We realized that the car is the place where you listen to music the most.”
Dolby Atmos is a surround sound technology that expands past listening to things on the left and right side of your ears. It lets composers place audio so it sounds like its sitting different spaces. It’s used mostly in movies and television, but the company has expanded into different music applications, including nightclubs and concert venues.
“What it does is it allows the creator to create these objects of sound, naturally over 100 of them and place them anywhere around the listener, which is actually just like real life,” he explained. “So we're mimicking that in in Dolby Atmos and giving this amazing creative palette and immersive experience.”
As we move towards autonomous driving, we’re going to need more things to entertain us on the road. But even before self-driving cars are widely adopted, people can still enjoy an enhanced listening experience, Couling said. While cars like the Mercedes Maybach, as well as select Volvo, Polestar and Nio models are being equipped with speaker systems made for Dolby Atmos, streaming platforms like Apple Music are offering subscribers the option to listen to tracks with this mix. The goal is to let anyone -- and any car -- have this.
“This wasn't about he technical savvy lead or or a set of people who had the most money, we wanted the technology and an experience that everybody could access,” Couling said.
Still, if you want that live performance aspect, brands like The Singing Machine Company are creating karaoke machines … for your car. The company, which has been making karaoke machines for 40 years, is partnering with manufacturers to install its karaoke systems into infotainment systems.
“People are singing at home, at bars, singing the shower and people singing their cars, right?” said Chris Pacheco, The Singing Machine Company director of product. “We decided to take on the car endeavor before we took on the shower endeavor.”
The words appear on your car screen, while a wireless mic allows passengers to participate. A digital songbook provides thousands of options. Don’t worry the mic comes equipped with bells and whistles like autotune and pitch correcting.
“If you're running a little higher or coming in a little low it can get you to where you need to be to hit that note,” Pacheco said. “It's got great echo and reverb effects, choir and harmonizing. So you sound like you've got the like a full quartet singing along with you.”
So feel free to belt your favorite tune.
“It makes it so much more fun to sing knowing that you're singing them and sounding the best you possibly can do,” he said.
