Audio stream dependency information

An apparatus comprising at least one processor and at least one memory including computer program code, the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to:

• receive an audio format comprising a plurality of individual audio signal streams and metadata, wherein the metadata comprises a dependency field associated with each of the plurality of individual audio signal streams, and wherein the dependency field indicates whether an individual audio signal stream of the plurality of individual audio signal streams and another individual audio signal stream of the plurality of individual audio signal streams were captured from one or more microphones in a same audio scene or captured from one or more microphones in different audio scenes;
• determine that a dependency field associated with a first individual audio signal stream of the plurality of individual audio signal streams indicates that the first individual audio signal stream and a second individual audio signal stream of the plurality of individual audio signal streams were captured from one or more microphones in the same audio scene;
• and
• in response to determining that the dependency field indicates that the first individual audio signal stream and the second individual audio signal stream of the plurality of individual audio signal streams were captured from the one or more microphones in the same audio scene, encode the first and second individual audio signal streams as a combined multichannel audio signal by an audio encoder.