Prompted by Apple Music’s launch of Spatial Audio, Irish mixer, engineer and producer Steve Fitzmaurice has expanded his stereo monitor set-up with additional loudspeakers from Finnish manufacturer Amphion to allow him to mix in Dolby Atmos.
Born in Dublin, Fitzmaurice had relocated to London after finishing school seeking work in the city’s best-known recording facilities. His early career began on the nightshift answering the phones at producer Trevor Horn’s Sarm West Studios, but he was soon assisting on sessions with Horn and long-time Sarm West producer, engineer and mixer Julian Mendelsohn. After five years at Sarm, Fitzmaurice moved to New York and got a job at the Hit Factory, then went freelance after a year.
Today, Fitzmaurice is based at Pierce Entertainment’s London studios and has worked with artists including Tina Turner, Tasmin Archer, Jodeci, Ian Brown, Depeche Mode and Hikaru Utada. He has been nominated for ten Grammy Awards, winning five for projects with Sam Smith, Seal and U2, also working on various Oscar, Golden Globe and Brit Award-winning productions.
Sessions with Dublin-based rock band The Frames, in the mid-1990s led him to Amphion reference monitors after David Odlum, guitarist with The Frames, brought them to Fitzmaurice’s attention. Now Odlum is also a successful producer and engineer, and currently musical director for Sam Smith.
‘During lockdown we did a live stream from Abbey Road Studios for Sam,’ Fitzmaurice recalls. ‘I was mixing, and Dave was going on about the Amphions, so I got a pair of One18s to try. At first I found myself using them occasionally, and then more and more.’
Fitzmaurice was happy with the results but still unsure, he says, so Odlum suggested that he try Amphion’s Two18 speakers. ‘I kept them for two or three weeks and the same thing happened – I was using my other monitors less and less. I ended up buying a pair of Two18s, and now they’re my primary speakers.
‘I think that they’re pretty natural sounding, with clarity in the mid-range, especially, and the top end, but they’re not bland and boring. When you turn them up for clients, they’ve still got a bit of vibe. With the Amphions I definitely mix quieter because they don’t change tonally when I turn them down. Mixes seem to be translating to every other system quite well, which obviously was my main concern, so I’m totally sold,’ he adds. ‘And now I’ve got an Atmos system which is all Amphion speakers.’
The 7.1.4 set-up in Fitzmaurice’s room at Pierce Entertainment comprises three Two18 monitors combined with the BaseTwo25 bass extension system, four One18s for the surrounds and four One15 loudspeakers overhead.
One reason to dive into immersive mixing was that Apple Music’s default playback is the Spatial Audio mix of a song, if it exists. Having heard other people’s Atmos mixes of his stereo mixes, he says, ‘I started wanting to do it myself, being a bit of a control freak. Somebody asked me if there was a steep learning curve to mixing in Atmos, but I haven’t really found this as I am trying to convey the same feeling of the stereo mix in the immersive world.’
One advantage of an Atmos mix is being able to spread the tracks out spatially: ‘You don’t have to fit all this information into two speakers, and make tracks bright and aggressive. In fact, I’m often taking a little top end off my stereo stems, as they don’t need it any more to cut through.’
But having heard Dolby Atmos mixes where some of the elements are too spread out, the song loses its power as a result. Fitzmaurice says he is careful to keep his immersive mixes cohesive. ‘Primarily, the vocal and the drums are more in the front. Sometimes, with live drums that I’ve recorded, I might pull the room mics away from the main drum kit. I’ve mixed a few electronic things in Atmos, and there you’ve got a bit more freedom to play around. But I’m not a fan of stuff flying around and making myself feel seasick. Occasionally I’ll have something moving around slowly but it’s more about placement.’
With record labels, streamers and broadcasters all asking for immersive music mixes, the investment in an all-Amphion immersive speaker system is paying off: ‘Nearly every time I’m commissioned to do a stereo mix, as long as there’s a budget, they want an Atmos mix as well.’
Fitzmaurice mixed eight tracks for the stereo version of Sam Smith’s current album, Gloria, released in January 2023 (Serban Ghenea mixed another three and David Odlum and Kevin ‘KD’ Davis mixed one each). ‘All the songs that I mixed in stereo I mixed in Atmos as well,’ he says. ‘There’s one song, ‘Perfect’, where I prefer the end section on the Atmos version because it feels like there’s much more space.’
He also recorded and mixed Smith’s live orchestral performance at Abbey Road Studios in Dolby Atmos. ‘It was Sam, a 16-piece choir and a 20-piece string section. I laid the studio out in a horseshoe and when I was mixing in Atmos I laid it out exactly like that. I had room mics as well and I put those as they were in the room in the Atmos mix. You perceive it as if you are Sam, standing in the middle, so it envelops you. It sounds amazing in Atmos.’
More: https://amphion.fi
