West London’s legendary Eastcote Studios has opened a new Dolby Atmos music mixing room equipped with PMC professional loudspeakers.

Housed in Eastcote’s Mastering studio, which has been completely revamped to accommodate the new system, the monitoring system incorporates PMC result6 speakers in an LCR formation and PMC Wafer2 monitors for the height and surround channels. The system was supplied by HHB Communications, which also supplied Crown amplifiers, a Pro Tools/MTRX Studio audio interface and a Marantz Dolby Atmos receiver for reference.

‘I chose PMC monitors after visiting the company’s Dolby Atmos demo studio in London,’ says Eastcote’s Dyre Gormsen. ‘I was looking into different monitoring solutions but felt that PMC speakers were the best option for my room. They seemed to be pretty much on the same page as I especially like the clarity of their monitors and the fact that they offer me an extremely precise reference point.’

Located in London’s Ladbroke Grove, Eastcote Studios has been a major landmark on the UK recording studio map for more than four decades. Founded in the 1970s by Chaz Jankel from Ian Dury & The Blockheads and engineer Philip Bagenal, and now owned by producer and musician Martin Terefe, the facility has played host to a diverse range of artists including Adele, Arctic Monkeys, Mumford & Sons, Depeche Mode, Placebo, Electrica, Neneh Cherry, Tricky, Seal, Suede and Massive Attack, who recorded their seminal Blue Lines album here.

Gormsen began his career as a freelance live sound engineer in Denmark in 1993 and has accumulated plenty of studio experience – both as the owner of his own facility, Sauna Recording Studios in Copenhagen, and at others such as Vega Copenhagen. He moved to London in 2003 and soon after he started working at Kensal Town Studios as Martin Terefe’s engineer. He is also Head of Sound at Laylow, a London-based private members club.

As Director and Main Engineer at Eastcote Mastering, Gormsen has played a crucial role in guiding the studio towards Dolby’s Atmos immersive audio mixing format. ‘When I first came across Dolby Atmos for music and realised the power of immersive sound on headphones, there was no way back for me,’ he says. ‘This format is extremely attractive for the listener, both on headphones and speaker systems.’

To accommodate this new way of mixing, Eastcote’s mastering studio was upgraded from a stereo set-up to a 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos system. The process took six months to complete, from initial planning to the final two weeks of building and installation.

‘We decided to install the Atmos rig in the Mastering Room because it gives me the option to work both mix and mastering rig and the new Dolby rig together for perfect control,’ Gormsen says. ‘We worked closely with Dolby to ensure that the room fitted Atmos specifications, and it was a very exciting and eye opening project. Throughout the process, HHB was extremely helpful and offered plenty of advice and expertise on the technology behind Atmos. PMC came in quite late during the design process, but was extremely efficient and helpful in finding the right combination of speakers for my room. In general this whole project has been an extremely positive experience.

Gormsen says that the collaboration between Dolby, HHB and PMC working very well and he is happy with the results achieved at Eastcote. ‘Embracing the Atmos Music Mixing format has been a pretty steep learning curve but it is extremely exciting to enter this new world of sound,’ he says. ‘I’m really enjoying mixing Dolby Atmos and we have already undertaken a number of projects including Jack Savoretti’s new album Europiana, and tracks from new and emerging artists like Henjilla and Sitrekin, which are available on Apple Music. There is a lot of interest and curiosity around Atmos Music and my clients are keen to try it.

‘It’s about time music got an alternative to stereo and over compressed, loud masters,’ he adds. ‘I do believe there is room for both as it’s two different experiences, and I’m hoping Apple’s involvement will inspire artists and producers to make great sounds in Atmos and in stereo so that music sounds even better. We are in 2021 and we need better sound than mp3.’

More: www.pmc-speakers.com