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Dean St. Studios Opens UK’s First dedicated Dolby Atmos Mastering Room

Headliner can exclusively reveal that London’s Dean St. Studios has transformed its Studio 2 room into the UK’s first dedicated Dolby Atmos mastering room.

The development comes two years after Dean St. transformed its main Studio 1 control room into a Dolby Atmos recording and mixing room.

PMC monitoring features in both rooms, with the new mastering suite kitted out with a 9.1.4 surround system comprising PMC’s MB3-XBD-A monitors for left and right main channels, MB3S-A for the centre channel and Ci Series Ci65 monitors for surround and height channels.

Jasmin Lee, who along with her mother Suzanne Lee-Barnes, has owned Dean St. Studios since 2007, commented: “We were the first independent music recording facility in the UK to install a Dolby Atmos studio for music mixing and we are now also the first to recognise that this format needs a specialist approach to mastering. To that end we have built an acoustically accurate room that can cater specifically for this market, and we have equipped it with monitors that are so detailed and clear that our engineers can hear every nuance of the tracks they are working on, even at very low volumes.”

According to Lee, two things are vital when it comes to mastering in Dolby Atmos – having a room with a high end 9.1.4 monitoring system that is built specifically for mastering, and having engineers who understand surround mastering and can apply that expertise to mastering projects in immersive audio.

Right now, Dean St. is ahead of the trend. Jasmin Lee, Dean St. Studios

“It is a new format and there is definitely a learning curve involved when it comes to tackling these projects,” she explained. “Right now, Dean St. is ahead of the trend on both counts because we were one of the first facilities in the UK to tackle Atmos for music projects and therefore our staff have a wealth of experience to call on. The amount of Atmos work we are attracting means we need a second studio that can cope with it, but what really makes our new room unique is that we can master in stereo, 5.1 and Atmos using the same equipment, which ensures accuracy and delivers a much smoother workflow.”

Kurt Martinez, Dean St. Studios’ Atmos engineer, will be overseeing both rooms. In recent months he has been working on an array of Atmos mixes for music releases, live concerts and podcasts.

“These are exciting times, and it is very gratifying to see how much demand there is for this format,” he said. “I believe this will only increase, especially now that car manufacturers are installing Dolby Atmos systems in new vehicles, which will introduce even more consumers to the immersive audio experience.”

The iconic Soho-based facility boasts a rich musical history, having hosted sessions for the likes of David Bowie, T-Rex, Tina Turner, The Smiths, Dusty Springfield, Ed Sheeran, Adele and many more down the years.