Located in the city’s iconic Crescent Building in Des Moines, Iowa, Trilix Studio is designed to serve clients spanning corporate clients and TV/film production companies to musical artists, and whose centrepiece is an impressive 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos system comprising Smart Active Monitors from Genelec.
The studio is an outgrowth of Trilix, a full-service marketing agency that found itself in need of an expansive home base for its robust A/V work, and since the studio opened for business less than a year ago, it has quickly carved out its own niche as an elite recording, mixing, and postproduction facility to rival anything found in US recording hub cities.
‘Trilix Studio was built for one purpose – to achieve the most refined sound experience possible,’ says President of Trilix and Trilix Studio, Brett Adams. ‘Trilix Studio is fully equipped for artists and outfitted with a Dolby Atmos system to provide a fully immersive sound. It allows artists to expand their creativity and is a powerful complement to all of our video production work.’
Although the facility has four interconnected studio rooms (Studios A, B, C and D), the beating heart of Trilix Studio is its Studio A, which is the Dolby Atmos immersive control room. This room features an impressive complement of gear, with the immersive monitoring system itself comprising seven 8361A monitors for the mains, sides, and rears; four 8351B monitors in the height positions; and a 7382A subwoofer. The facility was designed by the acoustic thought leaders at Russ Berger Design Group (RBDG) and equipped with equipment from Sweetwater Integrations.
Phillip Young, who serves as Trilix Studio’s Head Audio Engineer, was heavily involved in the planning and set-up of the studio, as well as its ongoing operation. Although did not have much previous hands-on experience with Genelec monitors, he was aware of their reputation when the studio was in its planning stages.
‘I had a general idea of what we needed, and one aspect of that was the smaller size profile and rigging options of these monitors compared to some larger options from other brands that often have to be free-standing,’ he says. ‘Additionally, with another brand I was considering, I knew I was prone to ear fatigue, so I was wary. I started doing a bunch of research, and Genelec seemed like the right solution. Approaching Sweetwater Integrations with my preferences, they were very enthusiastic about an all-Genelec system. I needed no other convincing.’
Young has been more than busy in Studio A since it opened its doors. On any given day, he might find himself working on any number of different projects spanning genres and disciplines.
‘In the morning, I might be working on a mix for an independent prog-metal band, and then in the afternoon jump into pre-production on a feature-length film. And that is something we knew and considered when building out this room; we knew that we’d be doing everything from editing a podcast to doing sound design and mix on movies.
‘I’m lucky to be part of a large and very talented team – Senior Audio Engineer Brooke Schaffner, who generally focuses more on the video work than I do, although we each do both, and a truly exceptional camp of designers, video editors, videographers, animators, web developers, podcasters and other specialists. So we needed the room to be able to do all of those things to the best it possibly could, and it certainly does.’
Equipping the space for Atmos was crucial: ‘We aimed at going above and beyond anything that’s really available in the entire state of Iowa, or even places like Chicago or Nashville,’ Young says. ‘Atmos is key to that. The writing has been on the wall for a few years that Atmos is the future of audio in so many ways. It is a future-proof format, because it can do so many things, and because of the unique way it stores information, it is able to adapt to any different playback system, from just a few speakers or a soundbar, to a truly immersive system with a multitude of speakers. It is adaptable and smart in an open-ended way, and that is what makes it future-proof.
‘I regularly have to explain Atmos to bands and marketing clients, and once they understand it, they are so excited. We have so many independent bands mixing their music for Atmos now, which certainly wasn’t the case just a few years ago. It’s easy to get it out there with indie distribution to places like Apple Music and Tidal, and I’m sure there will be more places supporting music mixed for Atmos in the future.’
The choice of Genelec continues to reinforce itself as a good one: ‘Working with Genelec has been a pleasure,’ notes Young. ‘The Genelec GLM software has been an invaluable way to manage the system. Mark Salamone at Sweetwater got me in touch with Will Eggleston at Genelec Inc, and we sat down together on a video chat, and he personally guided me through the GLM Setup File I made of this room. He was able to give us some great guidance on how to get the most out of our system and really dial it in for this space.
‘And working day-to-day on these monitors has been something special. I don’t really have to worry about ear fatigue, which is not something I can say for monitors from other manufacturers. And what does the future hold? We might be looking at some gear upgrades – it’s hard to say – but I know whatever we do, Genelec will be involved.’
More: www.genelec.com
