Dean St. Studio converts to game-changing Dolby Atmos Music suite

The legendary Dean St. Studios has finished its refurbishment, converting Studio 1 into a new Dolby Atmos Music mixing suite.

The site has welcomed a number of prestigious music artists through its Soho doors over the years, with icons such as David Bowie, Adele, John Legend, Lady Gaga and T Rex a few who’ve recorded tracks at the studio.

Related: What is Dolby Atmos Music?

It had been closed for refurbishments during the pandemic, but has now re-opened and with its new Dolby Atmos Music suite artists can now create more dynamic tracks at venue, taking music beyond stereo and mono mixes and into a whole new immersive platform.

Dolby Atmos Music works in much the same way as Dolby Atmos does for film, turning vocals and instruments into “audio objects”, of which there can be up to 128 audio channels. These ‘objects’ can be accurately positioned within to produce a spacious and more engaging soundscape around the listener. Atmos Music tracks are currently available on services such as Tidal and Amazon Music HD. A number of artists have released work in the format, including Kraftwerk’s 3-D The Catalogue and John Williams’ Live in Vienna concert.

The new install exceeds the standard Dolby requirements, and is made of speakers from PMC including its flagship IB2S XBD-A active monitors that cover the left and right main channels, an IB2S-A monitor for the centre, 10 discrete Wafer2 loudspeakers for the surround and height channels and four sub2 subwoofers. The set-up at Dean St. Studio replicates the PMC system that was designed and installed for Universal Music two years ago at Capitol Studio in Los Angeles.

Jasmin Lee, Managing Director at Dean St. Studios, said: “I have grown up in the music industry and have seen a lot of advances and change over the years, but nothing excites me more than Dolby Atmos Music. This is a game changer for artists in terms of how they can create their music and engage with fans. I have listened to tracks in our new Dolby Atmos mix studio and my mind is just blown by it. This is music like you’ve never heard it before. We have a proud history of working with some of the world’s most successful artists and we can’t wait to offer them this new more immersive format which I’m sure will unleash a whole new creative journey for them.”

The installation of a Dolby Atmos Music mixing suite could genuinely be a game-changer, inviting artists to mix in new format of music that, from the listens we’ve had, is an improvement over the same tracks stereo. Dean St. Studios is now open for business, and will be working to introduce more producers and artists to work in the format.