PMC USA has announced that Chris Karn has joined the company as Director of Operations. His appointment coincides with Ted White’s move from Director of Operation to Director of Sales and Marketing.

Karn joins the company from renowned pro audio distributor Vintage King where he was responsible for sales and for consulting on studio design and recording. His ability to turn any space into a warm and inspiring recording environment was highly sought after by Vintage King’s professional clientele.

Karn is also a successful artist, having previously been signed to Capital Records with his band Sonichrome. Behind the console, he has earned production credits for engineering or co-production with Daniel Lanois, Joe Chiccarelli, Chris Lord Alge, John Shanks, Neil Avron, Jack Joseph Puig.

Commenting on his appointment, Jeff Willcocks, CEO of PMC, says: “Chris has extensive knowledge of the pro audio industry, having worked as an artist and a producer for over 20 years. We are fortunate to have him as part of our team and feel confident that he will add significantly to the smooth running of PMC USA at a crucial time in our history when we are experiencing high sales volumes thanks to our leading position in the immersive audio market.”

In his new role Karn will be responsible for procedures and software systems at PMC USA, supporting both logistics and the purchasing and ordering processing.

He says: “As an engineer who loves high quality tools of the trade, I am honored to join the PMC team. My aim is to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the company, and ensure that customers’ orders are fulfilled quickly and to their satisfaction.”

Chris Karn will be based at PMC USA’s head office in California.

The post Chris Karn Joins PMC USA As Director of Operations appeared first on Audio Media International.

Crosound Studio, a recording facility owned by acclaimed producer and musician Øystein G. Brun, is the first in Norway to install PMC 6-2 monitors.

Established in 2016 and based in the idyllic countryside near Bergen, Crosound Studio was initially intended as a base for Brun’s own projects, but as the studio developed it became a focal point for other musicians who wanted to record, mix and master there. As a result, Brun decided to upgrade his monitoring from PMC result6 to PMC 6-2.

“I was very happy with my result6 monitors, which I bought four or five years ago,” Brun explains. “They introduced me to the sonic excellence of PMC and were a big step up from my previous monitors in terms of transparency and precision. For a long time, I thought they would keep me going for the rest of my career, but as my studio expanded and the acoustics in the room changed, I began to feel I needed bigger monitors with more low end and more focus in the mid range – more power in general.”

Brun contacted Frank Oestrem at PMC’s Norwegian representative Matrix Pro Audio and he recommended the PMC6-2 monitor, which are part of a new range of compact professional monitors that were launched in 2021 and are already redefining the listening experience for audio professionals working in stereo or large scale immersive formats. The range, which also includes PMC6, PMC8-2 and their associated subwoofers, has the same sound signature as the company’s main monitor products that are found in many of the world’s top audio facilities.

“PMC6-2 seemed like the perfect option for me as they fitted my ambition of creating a genuine mastering grade studio,” Brun explains. “It’s in my nature, as a producing musician, to always move forward and seek perfection. These monitors truly delivered beyond all my expectations, and I love them. The first time I heard them they sounded so good that my jaw dropped to the floor.”

Impressively powerful but with a firm and accurate low end, is how Brun describes them, adding that the mid range is ‘magical’ and ‘mind blowing’.

“PMC’s result6 monitors are indeed great, but the clarity and focus of the 6-2s, especially in the mid range, is just beyond anything I have heard before,” he says. “Their full range power is impressive, but they sound beautiful at any level because they are so incredibly precise, transparent, and lively. They seem to trigger all my senses and quite literally invite me into the soundscape. Seriously, it almost feels as though I can touch the sound and move things around. That’s a crazy, yet satisfying experience, but it is what you want if you are a musician and producer.”

As an international artist with a music industry career that spans nearly 30 years, Brun is ideally placed to know what he likes when it comes to recording equipment.

“Being the main composer and lyricist of my band Borknagar, I have always had a firm grip on our productions, as a producer or co-producer,” Brun says. “I have worked in many studios, with many engineers, and have a lot of studio experience.”

Borknagar, which was formed by Brun in 1995, is a heavy metal band that combines black and folk metal with progressive and melodic elements – a style that has led some reviewers to describe the band as the ‘Pink Floyd of metal’. Signed to Century Media Records/Sony Music, Borknagar has released 12 albums and notched up record sales of 1.5 million, not to mention several entries on the Billboard US and national European charts.

Brun’s extensive studio experience with Borknagar and Cronian, a progressive/avant-garde metal band that he started in 2004, informed his equipment buying decisions for his own studio where he wanted to create the best sound possible. He feels he has achieved this by combining analogue and digital technology and choosing equipment from top manufacturers such as Solid State Logic, Universal Audio, Steinberg and Dangerous Music.

After a year of intensive touring Øystein G. Brun is now back in the studio working on tracks for a new Borknagar album that is scheduled for release in 2024.

The post Norway’s Crosound Studio Installs PMC 6-2 Monitors appeared first on Audio Media International.

Ever since Apple’s 2021 announcement that it was embracing spatial audio, and in particular Dolby Atmos, recording artists and music producers have faced growing demand from record labels to create immersive mixes of their latest and back catalogue work.

With Apple and Dolby now working closely together to promote this new format, it is no surprise that the number of Dolby-enabled studios in major markets is growing exponentially to cater for this growing demand. Equally, large numbers of producers and engineers are facing a sharp learning curve as they work out the best methods and techniques for mixing music in Dolby Atmos.

PMC’S SEMINAR TOUR

As an industry leader in the field of immersive sound, UK loudspeaker manufacturer PMC is currently running an international seminar tour that aims to tackle these gaps in knowledge head on. Hosted by Grammy nominated engineer, Nick Rives, and PMC’s US president and head of pro global, Maurice Patist, the seminars give invited audiences an opportunity to learn directly from the experts so that they can avoid making the mistakes others have made as they navigate this new and exciting format.

“Creating best practices among audio professional who are new to the Atmos mixing process and helping audio professionals improve their skills will ultimately benefit the entire audio industry,” says Patist, whose numerous credits cover many critically acclaimed Atmos mixes including the biggest selling jazz album of all time, Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue.

“This seminar tour is hugely important because it is helping to dispel a lot of the myths around immersive audio mixing and give newcomers to the format the opportunity to learn a great deal in a very short space of time.”

PMC’s seminar tour began in October when Rives and Patist spoke to a packed audience at Best Studios in Holland during an event hosted by PMC’s distributor Joystick. The tour then visited MGM’s recently opened PMC-equipped Dolby Atmos demo facility in Zurich for two days before moving to PMC’s own demo facility London where Rives and Patist were joined by PMC Studio Manager Heff Moraes, an acclaimed recording and mix engineer who is a brand ambassador for PMC products and works closely with producers and artists to introduce them to the Dolby Atmos mixing process.

TOUR MOVES TO FAR EAST

In November, the tour moves to the Far East, first to Sound City Studios in Tokyo, Japan, where the seminars will be hosted by distributor Otaritech, and then to South Korea where they will take place at Music Metro’s Dolby Atmos demo facility in Seoul. The Tokyo dates are November 10th and 11th, while the Seoul dates are November 14th and 15th.

ENGINEER NICK RIVES ON MIXING IN ATMOS

Nick Rives, who was Grammy nominated in the Best R&B Album category for recording Gregory Porter’s album All Rise, is a staff engineer at Capitol Studios in Los Angles – an internationally acclaimed facility that has been at the forefront of Dolby Atmos music mixing. He undertook his first Dolby Atmos music project in 2017 when he mixed REM’s Automatic For The People. Since then, he has tackled Atmos mixes for artists such as Billie Eilish, Bob Marley, Pearl Jam, James Blake, Eminem, and many more.

“Sharing my experiences of working with Atmos Music and bringing it from a cool idea into a worldwide reality is really exciting and I am delighted that PMC has given me the opportunity to do this,” he says. “During these seminars we are talking about the philosophy of immersive mixes, sharing techniques and tools and explaining how we interact with artists and A&Rs so that we maintain the artists’ intentions when taking a mix from stereo to Atmos.”

Patist adds: “By bringing industry-leading sound quality to Apple Music subscribers, and for no extra cost, Apple has singlehandedly created a boom in immersive audio mixing, and this has focused attention on how best to tackle the format. It is not just about techniques – pro audio professionals also need to know how to set up their studios so that they can successfully deliver Atmos Music mixes. At PMC, our understanding of Dolby Atmos means that we are ideally placed to offer practical advice to producers and artists who are installing their own Dolby Atmos mix rooms and finding their way around the format.”

PMC’S INVOLVEMENT WITH DOLBY ATMOS GOES BACK YEARS

PMC’s involvement with Dolby Atmos goes back many years. Thanks to its close working relationship with Dolby, PMC monitoring systems are now widely regarded as the standard reference for Dolby Atmos for Music because their almost limitless headroom, power capabilities, accuracy and sonic fidelity ensures that they go well beyond Dolby’s minimum requirements.

“Our joint approach towards promoting Dolby Atmos has seen us work with Dolby on many high-profile Dolby Atmos for Music studio installations, including facilities at Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Dean Street Studios and Apple,” says PMC’s CEO Jeff Willcocks.

“As a result, we now have a significant knowledge base that we are happy to impart. We are running this seminar tour because we believe much can be learned from experts like Nick and Maurice. They have unsurpassed experience of successfully delivering Dolby Atmos music projects and are willing to impart this knowledge so that others can avoid costly mistakes.”

FEEDBACK ON SEMINARS

Audio professionals who have attended PMC’s seminars in Holland, Switzerland and London are thrilled with the amount they have learned.

Benbrick, who produces Have You Heard George’s Podcast for the BBC says: “I came along to the seminar because I work in binaural and wanted to find out how that might translate to Dolby Atmos, It was amazing to hear so many different ideas and songs and see how they came together in the Atmos format. PMC’s demo studio is great, too – better than mine! I want to move in!”

His views are shared by recording and mixing engineer Will Reeves, who has worked with Will.i.am, Migos, Bree Runway and Wes Nelson. He says: “The technical side of the seminar was very interesting, especially Nick’s workflow and template, which I hope to learn from. I also liked his philosophy and approach to music, especially back catalogue material. I appreciate the care he takes and how this inspires his workflow when mixing in Atmos.”

Mix engineer Ashley Krajewski, who has worked with artists such as Jack Back, Apollo 440, Ellie Goulding and Sway, says PMC’s London seminar was his first experience of Dolby Atmos and he was suitably impressed by the format and by hearing a demo in studio equipped with high end monitors.

“Comparing a stereo mix with an Atmos mix was really interesting,” he says. “The demo of the Gregory Porter Atmos mix was particularly extraordinary because I felt like I was in the studio with him and the orchestra.”

Anyone wanting to attend PMC’s next seminar events in Japan and South Korea should contact the specific PMC distributor in each territory for details.

The post PMC Seminars Highlight Techniques for Mixing In Dolby Atmos Music appeared first on Audio Media International.

Where are you right now?
I am in our PMC Studio, in Islington, London 

What is the last album you listened to?  

Billie Eilish, Happier than ever. So much emotion, so beautifully produced, and sounds great in ATMOS! 

Describe 2022 so far in one sentence.  

Reverting our lives to pre-pandemic, back to normal, but that normal is now completely different…

as the pandemic permanently changed the way you work? 

Yes, although not as much as I think we all might have envisioned 12-18 months ago. We all work with a new appreciation and understanding of flexibility where we work, how we work and when. 

What’s the biggest change to pro audio industry this year?  

 I think everyone is upping their game. Creating new, higher specification facilities to help them produce even better audio, especially for creation of Dolby Atmos music, and that is keeping us immensely busy! 

 What’s the best live event you’ve been to this year and why? 

Glastonbury. 4 days of unbelievable music and laughter. It was the 50th anniversary and hadn’t been run since 2019 – this all made it extra special 

What live event do you most want to go to in 2022?  

I have already been to it… see above… but 2nd to that would have been the NAMM audio show in Anaheim, which I missed in June sadly. It’s my favourite of the audio shows, a place where you can browse 50,000 guitars, piles of esoteric Synthesisers as well every other piece of audio equipment imaginable.  

Tell us something you’ve never told anyone else?  

I secretly love the movie, “Bridesmaids” 

The post 60 Seconds with… Oliver Thomas, Commercial Director and CTO at PMC appeared first on Audio Media International.

Question: What makes a truly great recording studio speaker? 

Answer: One that you can’t hear!

So says Peter Thomas, Chairman of PMC, the British manufacturer currently celebrating three decades of lauded loudspeaker design.

It was back in 1991 that Thomas, then a BBC engineer, along with colleague Adrian Loader, formed PMC loudspeakers, with the aim of developing a high resolution monitor speaker for the BBC.

“Right at the beginning, Adrian and I couldn’t believe how engineers and producers could work with many of the studio monitoring speakers on the market at the time because they made their work so much harder,” he told Audio Media International.  

“In my opinion, what makes a truly great recording studio speaker is one that makes your job easier by not having to worry about any deficiencies in the monitors. This leads to the other great test for your monitoring speakers – do your recordings translate? This really is the acid test because if your recordings sound poor on different systems or in different environments then the monitors are usually the culprit…assuming the engineer is reasonably competent!”

Thirty years on from the launch of that first loudspeaker, the iconic BB5, Thomas says he has mixed emotions.

“While I’m sad that my business partner Adrian Loader is not alive to see the amazing things we have achieved in 30 years, I find it incredible that we have come so far since those early days designing and building prototypes at my house in North East London.

“We were both sound quality nuts and to be able to combine what you love with your business is very special. For it to lead to success all over the world, and in the process meet your heroes in music (especially Elton!) is just unbelievable.

“What is wonderful is that Tom, Adrian’s son and Ollie, my son, are both key directors in PMC to see the next 30 years through. We really are a family business.”

As Thomas and Loader listened to their first Big Box speaker, then garage fresh, glue probably still drying, neither could have imagined where it would take them.

“We were confident that we had developed a speaker that was a significant leap in performance but, of course, that isn’t always a recipe for success” he recalls. “It has to go hand in hand with great marketing plus considerable investment to gain momentum in a crowded marketplace.”

PMC loudspeaker’s first customer, BBC Radio, proved an education in customer care and support, says the CEO: “We felt we were getting somewhere when we supplied three of the top film score recording engineers in LA, plus the mastering suites at Metropolis studios in London!”

Thomas says he still listens to the brand’s early loudspeaker designs. 

“They still sound great! Sound balance-wise they’re the same, which is really important as we know what we are trying to achieve in terms of accuracy and consistency. The big development over the years is the transparency. Each new design removes another layer of distortion, whether from the drive units, the cabinet vibrations or the electronics. So the older designs are not as revealing as the current models.”

“Of course, at the time, we couldn’t see how we could improve our designs any further, but then new measurement techniques come along that speed up the analysis, which allows you as the designer to explore whole areas that before you would not have had the time to. This plus new materials and new techniques all add together to increase performance, in particular with image placement and detail.”

The CEO is a self confessed ‘avid collector of pro audio technology’, with a large number of speakers designs, not only PMC, in his personal collection. “We hope to eventually put the entire collection on display for visitors at PMC’s head office in Bedfordshire,” he tells us.

Commercial Director Oliver Thomas believes the brand’s early designs remain one of its greatest assets. “Having a reliable and high quality range of products available as benchmarks and references is really important because it allows us to review and improve upon their various attributes when we are developing new products.”

The old products compare very well to modern designs, he notes. “We normally reflect on how we can get a bigger sound out of a physically smaller speaker now, but there are always little characteristics that we will find and say ‘oh yeah, we really nailed that bit’.”

Obviously loudspeaker design and technology has changed dramatically over three decades. Thomas cites Acoustic measurement equipment advancements, as well as rapid prototyping and simulation technologies, as key areas of change. 

“3D computer aided design software with integrated finite element analysis simulation have allowed us to achieve a more refined design faster,” he says. “Moving into a practical test and trial stage of development; rapid prototyping, utilising 3D printing technologies have allowed us to create more iterations, again faster, to further refine new products. Measurements utilising laser displacement sensors as well as a variety of software to compute acoustics have allowed the biggest jump forward in performance. Our new products utilising these technologies find a new level of accuracy and refinement that was not possible previously.”

Over the past decade, PMC loudspeakers have become the reference for Atmos music mixing, partnering with Dolby to install Atmos Music mixing rooms in Los Angeles, New York and Nashville. Most recently it opened PMC Studio London, a cutting edge Dolby Atmos music mixing suite, conceived to offer artists, record labels and recording professionals an opportunity to experience the creative potential of Dolby Atmos music mixing.

We’ll be looking at PMC’s leadership in this area, and its passion for immersive audio, in another feature article, so stay tuned.

So where is PMC heading next in terms of hardware development? It seems the brand has its eye on the burgeoning custom install sector, recently opening a new production factory for CI product manufacture.

“Personally, I’m looking forward to new product releases over the coming years that offer an even better window on the recording process!” says Thomas.

PMC speaker aficionados wouldn’t expect any less.

The post PMC in conversation: 30 years of loudspeaker innovation appeared first on Audio Media International.

PMC is marking its 30th anniversary with the opening of PMC Studios London, a Dolby Atmos music mixing suite.

Based in a former piano factory in Islington, North London, the studio will act as a showroom for the UK manufacturer’s professional loudspeaker products, especially those that are particularly well suited to Dolby’s immersive audio technology. 

“The main purpose of PMC London is to introduce recording professionals to Atmos music and allow them to experience the benefits of this format through practical demonstrations,” said Chris Allen, PMC’s Business Development Manager. “It will also act as a hub where dealers and distributors can bring customers for hands-on demos of PMC products, and we will be making it available to educational facilities and other manufacturers who need a cool, exciting central London space for an audio event.”

The new site adds to PMC’s growing list of audio suites in LA, New York and Nashville and offers artists, record labels and studio pros the chance to experiment with the capabilities offered by Dolby Atmos. 

The opening of PMC Studio London was no easy task as the team had to contend with numerous lockdowns as well as social distancing rules and a lack of materials caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. The project was carried out with the help of consultants JV Acoustics.

“This is an exciting development for PMC – and for the UK’s professional audio industry,” said Oliver Thomas, PMC’s Head of Design. “Dolby Atmos is already the leading immersive audio format for film and television and it is now gaining ground as a music format, with Dolby Atmos music releases now available through streaming services such as Amazon Music HD and Tidal.

“We are proud to have a close working relationship with Dolby and to have worked together on a large number of Atmos mix room projects so far. PMC has always been at the cutting edge of new technology and our professional monitoring systems are ideally suited to Atmos mix rooms.”

PMC designed one of the very first Dolby Atoms Music monitoring systems for Capitol Studios in LA back in 2017. Similar systems have since been installed in other major studios around the world including London’s Dean Street Studios, Dolby’s New York Midtown Studios and Universal Music Group’s Berry Hill Studios in Nashville.

As well as access to the company’s technical capabilities, PMC customers will also benefit from the expertise of its US president Maurice Patist. A 20-year PMC veteran and long-time advocate of Dolby Atmos Music, Patist was part of the team that remixed Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue in Dolby Atmos.

You can read more, schedule a visit and explore a 3D preview on the PMC site.

The post PMC Studio London opens to showcase the UK firm’s Dolby Atmos speakers appeared first on Audio Media International.

Man Made Music, a Manhattan-based company owned by award-winning composer and producer Joel Beckerman that specialises in sound design, sonic branding and music creation, has been working closely with UK loudspeaker manufacturer PMC to upgrade the stereo and surround monitoring in one of its two control rooms.

The company has installed a PMC IB2S XBD-A active system for both stereo and 5.1 monitoring and is using PMC Wafer2 passive speakers for Left and Right Rear Surround positions. These provide excellent dispersion and frequency response in a small, rectangular footprint, and because they can easily be mounted to any wall they allow for maximum flexibility in all types of custom-install situations. Man Made Music’s studio facilities occupy over 10,000 square feet of space in the heart of Manhattan’s financial district.

“The PMCs are hands-down the most true and transparent monitors I’ve mixed with,” said Beckerman. “They’re also so incredibly inspiring to track with, which just makes the music better all-around.”

Man Made Music’s Manhattan base incorporates two large control rooms, a communal tracking space and several other smaller production studios and offices. The technical facilities were designed by renowned studio designer Fran Manzella, who describes the isolation in the two primary studios as ‘the highest-end we do, with completely decoupled floors and multi-layered box-inside-a-box walls’.

The decision to upgrade Man Made Music’s main A Control Room was taken by chief engineer Dennis Wall and chief technician Darren Moore, who both recognised the need for better stereo and surround monitoring. “We do IMAX, immersive and other advanced audio formats, so we were looking for an upgrade to add to the speaker allotment in our main studio,” said Moore. “PMC are leading the way for the new Dolby Atmos format and were already outfitting major facilities and schools with Dolby Atmos systems.”

The addition of the new PMC monitors is providing better full-room coverage and additional reference monitors for mixing in-studio. This, in turn, is allowing clients, guests and larger groups to enjoy the full surround experience: “Having the new PMC system is a joy,” added Wall. “There’s less guesswork when mixing, less ear fatigue when tracking, and they also deliver that ‘wow’ factor for client presentations.”

Man Made Music is now using its new PMC monitors to create music and sounds for companies such as Nissan, Disney, Citi, Alzheimer’s Association and HBO.

www.pmc-speakers.com

The post Manhattan-based Man Made Music receives PMC upgrade appeared first on Audio Media International.

AMI speaks to PhD student Dora Filipovic about being the first recipient of the PMC Sound For The Future scholarship in association with the AES…

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UK loudspeaker manufacturer PMC recently established the Sound For The Future Scholarship in association with the Audio Engineering Society Education Foundation, whereby a $5,000 prize will be given annually to an audio engineering graduate who is also a member of the AES.

The AES Educational Foundation was established in 1984 to encourage talented students to enter the profession of audio engineering.

The first recipient of the PMC Sound For The Future scholarship is Dora Filipovic, a PhD candidate in Digital Media Arts at the University of Surrey in the UK. Already a graduate of the University of Arts in Belgrade, Serbia, Dora has won numerous awards for her sound design work, including four for creative contribution from Radio Belgrade.

Over the past seven years, Dora has worked as a sound designer on more than 20 award-winning feature films, as well as many documentaries and short films including ‘Glances of Closed Eyes’, a documentary she created about blind and visually impaired people who use sound to introduce the viewer to their way of life. The film won national and international film festival awards for best film and sound design.

AMI recently caught up with Dora after she was awarded the scholarship:

Could you tell us about some of the sound design projects that you have been working on recently?
Lately, I have been working as a sound editor on feature films and as a sound designer on documentaries and short films from Serbia and the United Kingdom. ‘Glances of Closed Eyes’ was for my Masters studies at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade, Serbia, where I was both director and sound designer.

The next project will be for my PhD studies at the University of Surrey in the UK, a piece of sound design and immersive media work which I am using to explore, understand and share children’s experiences of sight loss.

How did you first get involved in audio?

I have always loved watching films and going to film festivals in my country. Curious about what is happening “behind the scenes”, I found out about this profession and various things you can do within the sound department. Luckily, the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade has the Department for Sound Recording and Design, where I learned and practised my skills from one of the best sound designers/professors in the Balkan area.

What was your initial reaction to being the first recipient of the new PMC/AES scholarship?

I was honoured that I received this scholarship, especially being its first recipient. I was also very excited when I saw my picture with the AES logo and read the news about the scholarship on the Audio Media International website.

It is a $5,000 prize and to receive it you have to be an AES member, have successful completion of an undergraduate degree program (typically four years) at a recognised college or university, show commitment to audio engineering (or a related field) as a career choice, be accepted or with a pending application for graduate studies leading to a masters or higher degree – or an internationally recognised equivalent – and send three recommendation letters.

To what extent do you expect the scholarship to help you with future projects and your career going forward?

With this scholarship, I will use it to cover the tuition fees for my PhD studies at the University of Surrey. I am also looking forward to meeting the team from PMC Speakers and new colleagues who must have interesting stories to tell and great ideas to share.

The post Interview: PMC “Sound For The Future” scholarship recipient Dora Filipovic appeared first on Audio Media International.

UK loudspeaker manufacturer PMC has established the Sound For The Future Scholarship, in association with the Audio Engineering Society Education Foundation.

The $5,000 prize will be given annually to an audio engineering graduate who is also a member of the AES.

Tim Ireland, CEO for PMC, said: “As a company, PMC has always been at the cutting edge of research and development and this has led to the introduction of many innovations such as Advanced Transmission Line (ATL) bass-loading technology and D-Fins, the finned HF driver surround that plays a key part in our result6 compact nearfield monitors. We are very keen to support graduate students who share our desire to see real advances in audio technology and we hope that this scholarship will help by funding tuition fees and educational expenses.”

The AES Educational Foundation was established in 1984 to encourage talented students to enter the profession of audio engineering. Grants for graduate studies with emphasis on audio topics are awarded annually, with recipients selected on the basis of demonstrated talent, achievements, goals and recommendations.

The first recipient of the PMC Sound For The Future scholarship is Dora Filipovic, a PhD candidate in Digital Media Arts at the University of Surrey in the UK. Already a graduate of the University of Arts in Belgrade, Serbia, Dora has won numerous awards for her sound design work, including four for creative contribution from Radio Belgrade.

Over the past seven years, Dora has worked as a sound designer on more than 20 award-winning feature films, as well as many documentaries and short films including Glances of Closed Eyes, a documentary she created about blind and visually impaired people who use sound to introduce the viewer to their way of life. The film won national and international film festival awards for best film and sound design.

Commenting on her PMC scholarship, Dora said: “I am very honoured to receive this scholarship from PMC and AES, and to be its first recipient. I will use it to cover the tuition fee for my PhD studies at the University of Surrey. For my PhD project, I aim to develop an alternative approach that uses the new medium of virtual reality film, immersive sound and vision and fictitious storylines to transport audiences into the everyday life of people with different kinds of sight loss.”

The post PMC launches ‘Sound For The Future’ scholarship with the AES appeared first on Audio Media International.

PMC Speakers pulled out all the stops at this year’s High End Munich international hi-fi event with its demonstrations of Dolby Atmos for Music. The company’s demo room welcomed a record number of visitors as people flocked to hear tracks from Miles Davis’ iconic 1959 jazz album Kind of Blue and his 1960 Sketches of Spain remixed into Dolby Atmos. Here, Colby Ramsey speaks to PMC USA President Maurice Patist about how the company was given unprecedented access to create them using the recently installed PMC Dolby Atmos system at Capitol Studios, LA…

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Where did the initial idea for the project come from?

Maurice: About four or five years ago I did a project with David Rideau, one of the other engineers that I did this one with, in which we remixed Sketches of Spain in 5.1. It was a special project as the family was also involved, and this was my first contact with them. We worked with the original three-track and ended up making a 5.1 mix out of that.

Fast forward a few years up to around two years ago. I ended up designing and building a Dolby Atmos for Music room at Capitol Studios, which is Studio C. I worked very closely with Steve Genewick, the senior engineer at Capitol, and really started bringing this Dolby Atmos for Music project come to life. We soon started to see projects come through, one of the first being Elton John’s Rocketman, which Greg Penny mixed there. Over time, I learned a lot about mixing in this new environment, and ended up building a second room for Capitol in Santa Monica and another in Nashville to start expanding the capabilities.

When I heard how particular instruments sounded in the rooms, I thought, ‘how cool would it be to do this with more of Miles’ music?’, using Dolby Atmos to take an older recording and bring it to life. I always loved Miles’ music and always wondered what it would sound like if you were in that same room, rather than being behind the glass in the control room.

I ended up contacting Dave about this idea and told him that I’m planning on contacting the Miles Davis estate to ask them if they’re willing to let us have a go at one of the tracks. We had a Grammy event going on at the time so I invited drummer Vince Wilburn down to listen to the Dolby Atmos system we had set up. He was impressed, and when I asked if we could do Kind of Blue (I thought I was really pushing my luck on this one as it’s the most iconic jazz album on the planet), I was extremely surprised when he said he was a fan of the idea, and said yes. He contacted Sony straight away to get the masters and sort out the legalities, and by the end of the week I had the original digital conversions of the three-track masters. I was quite frankly shocked that we were able to get hold of them, and really didn’t want to screw up the opportunity! I was very keen for other people to hear what we could do with the mixes and I wanted to break the mould a bit, so we ended up designing an Atmos system and a pop-up room based around our flagship hi-fi system Fenestria for the High End Munich show.

How did you actually go about creating the Dolby Atmos mix?

Maurice: I took the three-tracks into Capitol, because for us and for Dolby, that is the absolute benchmark of quality recording studio. Me, Steve and Dave then started experimenting with the mix. I was confident that we would be able to show this off at the High End show due to it being such an iconic, prestigious album, with the Dolby Atmos mix being the show stopper. I wanted to be conservative and show audiences that you can utilise this technology to make old recordings come to life.

We had the original mono vinyls, stereo vinyl, the 1997 legacy stereo mixes, and went back to all of those. When we pulled the masters up in mono however, they were amazing, so we knew we couldn’t possibly screw this up. There was some hard panning going on with the stereo mix, so what we did with the mono was just open it up slightly, pan it a tiny bit and create the space with how we would imagine the setup to be in the studio.

Then we had to think about what Columbia Studios would’ve sounded like, because of course it doesn’t exist anymore. We didn’t have Columbia, but we did have Capitol. After we panned the masters in a way that we felt achieved proper imaging, we ended up taking two speakers, put them into Studio A – the large live room at Capitol – aimed them at the wall, and then together with Steve and Dave built a microphone arrangement that mimics where the speakers are in a Dolby Atmos environment. So we basically built a live chamber in an Atmos setup.

While we were listening back to it, we tried to create a sense of space, and by determining the distances between the microphones and the height we created a space around the original tracks. When we added that space into the speakers, it came together beautifully. We spent a lot of time balancing the reverbs so that it really felt like you were in the room, looking at the players with a huge sense of space, but in a very subtle kind of way. More importantly, we ended up making the mixes without EQ or compression so we feel like we stayed true to the original recordings, which were sensational!

How did this translate to the High End show and how was it received there?

Maurice: A lot of people came in assuming that they weren’t going to like the mix because it wasn’t stereo. When we played it for them, they were shocked as we blew stereo out of the water. Everybody who heard it was very impressed and some of the reactions were incredible. We had nothing but amazingly positive reviews, but people weren’t so happy when we told them it wasn’t yet available!

This is all going to change now however. Because of the success, Sony want us to release it (they had me remix the stereo as well). When we brought Miles Davis’ family into Capitol, they enthused that there is just no other way to listen to Miles’ music anymore after hearing our mixes. Whenever Dolby Atmos becomes available for streaming maybe we’ll see the two albums released in the format. It was a huge success for us having been done all under the banner of PMC and on our speaker systems. We really did something so unconventional by going into the ‘Kingdom of Stereo’ with this rig and blowing people’s minds where they were determined not to like it.

When it comes down to it though, it was all about respecting and honouring the music, so we left it all original and left all the original mistakes in. We had the benefit of having amazing masters and so the credit should really go to Fred Plaut, the original recording engineer. 

Capitol are mixing hundreds of tracks at the moment for Dolby, but it’s clear that on some of the older legacy albums it has so much potential to bring it to life, and experience it in such a different way. The overall response we got from the project was better than anything we could have hoped for.

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