London postproduction company Wave Studios has recently completed an extensive refurbishment of its Soho facility with the assistance of studio and technical design consultancy White Mark. As part of the transformation, Wave has installed a Dolby Atmos suite – making it the only commercials facility in the world to run Atmos through an Exigy sound-system

Featuring 42 separate speaker cabinets positioned in specified locations around Studio 3, the Atmos suite is part of a refurb that touches all of the Wave operation: ‘Redesigning the complex has been a major project that has taken nearly three years to come to fruition,’ says co-owner (with Johnnie Burn) and sound designer, Warren Hamilton. ‘White Mark has been part of that process from the outset, helping to guide us through various stages of the remodelling that has seen a number of our rooms adjusted to 5.1 surround sound and improvements made to the overall layout of the facility.

‘We are really delighted with the results White Mark have achieved, especially in our new Dolby Atmos room where we had to strip Studio 3 right back to its carcass in order to install the new monitoring system. Hats off to White Mark’s David Bell and Derek Buckingham, whose acoustic knowledge and expertise made this project such a resounding success.’

Hamilton says Wave committed to Dolby Atmos because it wanted to stay ahead of the game. Developed for the professional cinema and home theatre markets, Dolby Atmos offers an immersive 360° soundscape, bringing a sense of height. ‘This is a new format but it has incredible backing from Dolby and we believe it will have a significant impact on future business,’ Hamilton says. ‘At Wave, we are renowned for offering customers the best that technology has to offer and we are very keen to maintain that reputation.’

Alongside the Dolby Atmos suite, Wave also offers seven audio suites for tracklaying, mixing and dubbing. All rooms are linked to a central server giving them access to a sound library with over two million sound effects. Wave’s relationship with White Mark goes back many years – the company designed and installed Wave’s first audio studios when the facility opened in 1999.

‘The true integration of interior design individuality and technical excellence is always a challenge to achieve, and our long common history helped enormously in the smooth running of the project,’ says White Mark MD, David Bell. ‘The design of Dolby Atmos rooms ensures that the sound created in the studio space translates well to the larger theatre environment accurately demands a high level of acoustic control. The Exigy monitor system helps enormously in this – with its wide dispersion angle and physically shallow cabinets, integration with the room is significantly simplified. Our experience with Dolby as a company during Atmos projects in a number of countries also helped greatly in the creation of this truly world class space and their help is gratefully acknowledged.’

The final part of Wave’s transformation is when Studio 5 comes back on line. All of the other studios are already operational, including the Dolby Atmos room where Senior Engineer Tony Rapaccioli recently completed the company’s first mix in the new format – for Leo Burnett’s NSPCC spot Alfie the Astronaut.