Based in London’s Ladbroke Grove, Eastcote Studios was founded in the 1970s by Chaz Jankel from Ian Dury & The Blockheads and engineer Philip Bagenal. It is now owned by producer and musician Martin Terefe and has hosted a diverse range of artists.
Eastcote’s mastering studio has been completely revamped to accommodate a new Dolby Atmos music mixing room. 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, 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,” said Dyre Gormsen, Director and Main Engineer at Eastcote Mastering.
“When I first came across Dolby Atmos for music and realized the power of immersive sound on headphones, there was no way back for me,” he said. “This format is extremely attractive for the listener, both on headphones and speaker systems.”
For this new way of mixing, Eastcote’s mastering studio was upgraded from a normal stereo setup to a 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos system. The entire 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 said. “We worked closely with Dolby to ensure that the room fitted their Atmos specifications and it was a very exciting and eye-opening project. Throughout the process, HHB … offered plenty of advice and expertise on the technology behind Atmos. PMC came in quite late during the design process, but were efficient and helpful in finding the right combination of speakers for my room.”
Gormsen added that he is happy with the results of the collaboration between Dolby, HHB and PMC.
