I am somewhat obsessed with planning, installing, and tuning Immersive Mixing setups.
Like most of us, I’d always taken a staunch “less is more” approach to my monitor signal chain. The concept of eq’ing and time aligning my speaker array, whether stereo, 5.1, or 7.1, was entirely foreign to me until Dolby Atmos came along. But suddenly, you find yourself slow-blinking at the Dolby DARDT, trying to figure out some combination and placement of 12-20 speakers to create what others would consider a viable array. It’s all fairly tricky and the learning curve is quite steep. I spent the better part of a year really getting my head around the dozens of possible ways one could setup an Atmos rig.
Once I was setup up and functioning, I learned that there are several things you don’t think about until you’re actually trying to get through your first few immersive mixes: How are we going to monitor the various headphone versions of this mix (Binaural vs Spatial)? How are we sure that our mixes are going to translate to a potentially larger array (Beds, Objects, or Object Beds)? What about downmixes to smaller arrays? It’s likely vehicles will soon come with an Atmos option but this is sure to be more of a 5.1.2 scenario I’d imagine. The questions are endless and the bar is always sort of moving, but the biggest take away for me has been this: Be absolutely confident in your room’s tuning and how music translates BEFORE you bury yourself in all the other complexities of Immersive Mixing.
Having muttled though all this, I quickly found myself being asked by friends to lend a hand on THEIR setups. I’d seen Dolby guys tune rooms a couple times and bought myself a copy of Smaart and a few microphones. And now, to make a short story shorter, I am offering my services as an Immersive Consultant. I can help you plan your room layout, make solid equipment choices, and perhaps come by once it’s all up and tune your array: per speaker delay, corrective equalization, correct bass management. I can help get all your Software functioning and stable.
