Today, we are at PMC Studios checking out their incredible Dolby Atmos Room!
Check out my interview with PCM Studios, Maurice Patist below!
Warren
Hi Maurice! We are at PMC Studios in LA right now — how long have you had it?
Maurice
This came online in early 2019. Actually, we started building in late 2018. And in early 2019, we brought it online
Warren
Well, obviously, this is definitely not your usual stereo mix room.
Maurice
No, you know, it expanded a little from the original idea we had in mind back in the day, to also have basically a demo room. But a room where people could come and feel comfortable, not in a sales environment, but at the same time, when we were having these thoughts of building a room, we were working very closely with Dolby and Universal Music at the time on the Dolby Atmos music format. And actually, straight from that, it was very clear to us that there was a need for another room that we could use as all partners between us and Dolby. So I decided to go all the way and make it into a Dolby Atmos Music Room, which was at the time unheard of because nobody had one except for Capitol, which we designed with them. And so for me, it was a really great moment to make that step and say, let’s make it an Atmos room and go full in and put your money where your mouth is, as they say.
And here we are! It has been up and running for over two years now very successful and contributed to, you know, a lot of developments, which were, I think, very crucial for the format. And apart from it, it’s great fun. So you heard it so you know what it is like.
Warren
Alright, Maurice, can you actually just tell us a little bit more about the room, but I have to be honest, I have no idea what the DAD is here.
Maurice
So this is the DAD MOM, so basically, it’s a remote control in a sense, and at the same time also have volume control. As you can see, I can move this dial and when I do that, and actually go on to the screen, you can actually see in the DADman, which is a software that basically, let’s call it the brain that sits in between the renderer, and for instance, Pro Tools, if you work in Pro Tools. But by changing the volume here you see also the volume change on the outputs of all the channels. And part of the software in the DADman is that it basically sets your system up and this allows me to make a bunch of presets; I can make an Atmos preset, I can select another layer that becomes the stereo preset or to 7.1 preset, it’s all configurable. Or you can actually switch between different outputs in a sense of the speakers that you want to address. So it’s kind of a really handy box-in-one, allowing you as you might be used to on your SSL or whatever, and to have one knob to at least control all the levels at the same time. And what you probably notice, I also have the S one hooked up. If I lose this volume control, I actually also have volume control on the S1. And s one is right now connected to the DADman as well. But if I, for instance, open up a Pro Tool session, then this one becomes actually the mixing console for Pro Tools. And I can just control the volume here. So I have multiple options. It’s all configured, logged into each other.
Warren
So is that the only piece of hardware?
Maurice
This is pretty well, it’s not quite the only piece of hardware because in the machine room of course we have all the computers, the converters, the matrix that sits in between etc.
Warren
Just because it’s the DAD and a MOM, it’s not connecting to another piece of art?
Maurice
No, no, it’s usually the MOM which is connected to the DAD. Of course, at the end of the day, you know, it’s all about the Dolby render, in which we are mixing into out of in this case Pro Tools and the MOM allows us just with one maneuver to control the levels of older speakers in this room which, as you know, are quite a few.
Warren
Could we go through the speakers?
Maurice
Let’s go through the speakers. So this room is designed around what we call “11-1-6 Speaker Monitor Setup” and don’t really want to compare it to “5-1”, “7-1”, or “9-1”. In Dolby Atmos, you don’t necessarily speak about those type of formats because it’s an immersive format. And you’re not channel based, you’re object based, but to make it simple people can recognize the format in the numbers that we do. It’s an “11-1-6” meaning we got the left center and right in this case, it’s based around our main mp3 XPD system, fully active system. Each drive unit has its own amplifier, t center channel, then we have the LV, and that’s the point one, which in this case, are two sub woofers. That gives us all the headroom and the tones that we need for the discreet LV channel. What you don’t see that we have built into the walls here are basically our per-side, three surround channels. And then in the rear of the room, two rear channels that basically make your lower level 11-1. A then we have the 6 overheads above us. It’s a nice accumulation of speakers. And as a speaker manufacturer, obviously delighted with that format because the more speakers we saw, the happier we are. Like I said earlier, we all know that this is just going to happen in the studio, people are not going to put this in their homes. Although funny enough, there are a lot of home theaters that we also build. And the influence of Atmos music actually helped the people that are also building the Atmos music, home theaters, because they can do both now. So we actually saw an increase in home theaters being built, possibly could have had something to do with this little pandemic that we’re dealing with, that people spend more time at home. But the fact is that, hey, you can watch a movie, and you can actually listen to music in one in the same room, which is kind of cool.
Warren
So it’s an “11-6-1” meaning what? 11 at head height?
Maurice
Yes, 11 is, let’s say your planner level, Point 1 is the subwoofer (it’s one channel, it could be multiple subs, but it is one channel), and the seats are indeed the six channels that we have overhead.
With mixing in Dolby Atmos, it’s the same for the speakers in the wall. So it gives you a real sense of coherency, where you don’t want to put something in front and the moment you move it out, it starts to sound different, it has to feel and sound the same. And that’s what we have been focusing on to build it in such a way that a two speakers don’t take over the room. It gives us much more flexibility in installing it in studios because you don’t take up so much space, you actually can hide them. So you’re not surrounded by all the gear all the time. Or if you’d like to, that’s a choice. But these speakers and our whole new Sci-Fi series that we designed specifically for Atmos movement, multiple larger and smaller models are just designed for this format. And that’s the beauty – It works really well plus, you gain all the space that you otherwise would have lost with speakers hanging off the walls and brackets and what you see sometimes in other studios.
Warren
The biggest concerned people have is that this is being done on the pretense that everybody’s going to have their own home version of this just to listen to the new music that is coming out now. Now the reality is that it’s bigger than that. These rooms are being designed for mixers that can then have their music mixed in the Atmos room, but it’s being translated into like every single format.
Maurice
The whole idea about it, it’s kind of the same as in a stereo environment. Why would you have an amazing room, like at Capitol studios with all the gear in the world, when whatever is being produced there or mixed there are also being heard back on the stereo system in the car, on headphones from your phone, or, you know, in your home from whatever soundbar etc. It’s really nothing else nothing different than what we’re doing in the Atmos environment. And I think there’s a lot of confusion with the idea of what happened with the 5-1 format or 7-1 where you had to have these five or seven speakers had had to be in deposition for the format to be able to play back.
Now the beauty about Dolby Atmos music is that it is scalable. The reason why we have this room is because this is a reference room where the product can be created, that then can be utilized in all these different environments. It’s a format that has been created to bring music to the people that are actually consuming the music, and how are people consuming music? On their phones, in the car, radio, streaming services, etc.
We’ve seen this whole shift, of course, in the industry, but you need to have a reference point, you need to start somewhere where the creation happens. And then it spreads out to all the different formats. And that’s what these rooms are — for their reference rooms. And now it filters down to all the other different ways of playing back to format.
Warren
That’s a huge point, I think something that I really want to get across is, the reason why I’ve been featuring so much Atmos is because it’s my job to educate engineers, producers, mixers. Basically to say this is a wonderful opportunity. Immersive is here to stay.
Maurice
Exactly. We have all the big streaming partners that are involved in it, you have the car industry that’s involved in it. And don’t forget, I don’t know the exact number. But I think at this point, a couple of billion devices out there that are set up and already capable of streaming Atmos, so the infrastructure is there, the ecosystem is there.
Watch the video to hear our full interview with Maurice and to see this amazing studio for yourself!
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Watch us tour the PCM Studios Dolby Atmos room in the video below!
