With an extensive collection of vintage equipment and original echo chambers, Stockholm’s Atlantis Studios has hosted Sewdish acts including ABBA, The Hives, Cardigans and Roxette to record some of their most notable hits, as well as attracting the likes of Quincy Jones, Green Day, Elvis Costello and Primal Scream from overseas.
The latest addition to the former cinema’s offering is an Atmos mix room equipped with Genelec The Ones Smart Active Monitors. ‘The latest upgrade saw us install a 7.1.4 system,’ explains Mix Engineer, Stefan Boman. ‘I was really keen on doing that because I did some stuff in 5.1, but that never really took off as there weren’t any proper platforms. I wanted to get into Atmos because you could see the trends and the investment behind it.’
With the decision made to embrace the Atmos standard, the project progressed rapidly. ‘We decided to invest in Atmos, and I heard that Dolby were coming over here to do some work – so I decided that we had to be equipped for immersive by then,’ he recalls. ‘We had to be done within a week and a half, so I called in favours from builders. There were some really late nights, but it worked out pretty well.’
The upgrade saw the transformation of the mix room from one created with 5.1 in mind to a fully immersive space certified by Dolby. ‘Obviously for 7.1.4 we needed to add more speakers,’ Boman says. ‘We worked out the best possible places for the monitors in the room, installed them and then calibrated the space with the help of Dolby engineers to gain the certification. We couldn’t have planned it any better.’
One easy decision for Boman was the choice of monitors. He has been using Genelec since the mid-1990s and has been impressed with the quality of the sound. ‘I’ve had Genelec monitors for a long time, they fit my ears,’ he says. ‘When I first heard The Ones, I was so impressed with the definition. On most speakers you can hear it’s to the left or to the right but on these you can locate sounds with such precision – you can say things like, “it’s 5° to the left”… That really helps in an Atmos room.’
The system chosen by Boman uses Genelec 8351s for LCR, 8341sfor surrounds and 8331s for the ceiling channels, complemented by a 7370 subwoofer. ‘It’s natural sounding, and I never get surprised when I bring tracks home or listen somewhere else. I just hear the mix decisions I made,’ Boman says.
With the room completed in record time, the first Atmos project quickly came through Atlantis’ doors” ‘The first job I landed was Roxette, with a complete remix of their big hits. They asked me before the new space was built and I said I would love to do it, but I didn’t have a room. Eventually, they gave it to a US mix engineer because they really wanted to get it out early. By the time the mixes were ready, my room was about done, so they called me and asked if they could listen to the mixes in my studio. I thought it would be interesting, so I said yes.
‘We heard the mixes, and Per from Roxette came by,’ Boman continues. ‘So I asked if I could try out one song to see what we could do. I did the song and they came back and said, “okay, it can be like this”. So I ended up getting all the songs. It was a really good first real Atmos gig.’
From this starting point, the Atmos work has continued to grow for the studio. ‘I think these days around 80 per cent of the things I do are Atmos,’ Boman says . ‘I wanted to be involved in Atmos early on so I didn’t have to get on board later when everyone is doing it. It turned out to be a good move. I’m happy with the results, and both artistically and financially it has been a good decision.’
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