On the 23rd of April, I (Elise de Bres) attended the Immersive Music Day in Hasselt, organized by PXL-Music. The day was inspiring, and it gave me a lot to think about.
The day brought together artists, producers, engineers, and researchers across listening sessions, talks, concerts, and workshops. What stood out immediately was how differently people approach spatial audio. Sometimes subtle and intimate, sometimes almost architectural. But in all cases, it changes the experience fundamentally; you don’t just listen, you’re placed inside the music. One thing kept coming back and matches what we do with Flower of Sound, or better say Claudio Vittori, the founder, does: start thinking in immersive instead of starting with stereo.
Some of the most useful insights came from the practical sessions. Mathijs Bertel (Ansatz der Maschine) showed how, even with a relatively modest setup, you can prepare your live set for different spatial audio systems of different venues within 10 minutes. On the tooling side, Areal’s upmix engine showed how existing stereo material can be translated into spatial formats. For distribution, AuroMasters stood out as one of the few current examples in which spatial audio can already be streamed more reliably, underscoring how fragmented the landscape still is.
FLOW
The most impressive project of the day was Flow. Created by Adrian Utley and produced by Grammy-winning engineer Hans-Martin Buff, Flow treats immersive audio as the foundation of the creative process rather than an afterthought. The piece develops new workflows to move beyond repurposed stereo into music that is immersive from the start. Dr. Ruth Farrar presented the project, is contributing academic research to it, and will publish a paper on it that includes research on immersive listening sessions in cinemas.
The immersive result is a fully spatial composition of guitars, voices, four double basses, electronic oscillators, and field recordings from Iceland designed to place the listener inside the music and recorded at Real World Studios in a 9.1.4 surround installation. It was interesting to see how they recorded it and how they put the whole piece together.
Voice
Another strong moment came from Benedikt Ernst working with Amistat twin brothers, who are treating immersive audio as a part of the artistic experience rather than a technical add-on. Hearing how vocal intimacy can translate into spatial audio using double layers and harmonies, and of course, placement, proximity, and layering, made for a very interesting listening session.
AI
One thing was notably absent: AI. In a time when it dominates most conversations around music and creativity, it simply didn’t come up. The focus stayed on craft, perception, and artistic intent. I only noticed on the way back. This felt strange.
What still needs solving
Some important questions remain.
Accessibility is still a real barrier. Full-quality spatial audio requires specific setups, formats, and platforms. Binaural (for headphones) is often still the most accessible solution.
This raises the following questions for me:
- How do we treat immersive mixes as a distinct creative layer in terms of rights? (You can only upload MP3)
- How can we make it easier for artists to have their immersive audio productions available online and distribute it (the ecosystem has a lot of hurdles, stereo is the norm, either a lot of extra costs or very limited choice in distributors)
- How do we make this immersive ecosystem accessible to listeners? Simply put, how do they play immersive audio at home easily with their spatial audio setup, not just with headphones?
What this day confirmed is what we believe at Flower of Sound: spatial audio is the most natural way to listen. Sound surrounds us in real life. Immersive audio brings music closer to that reality. Thank you to PXL-Musi and everyone involved.
