{"id":6749,"date":"2019-10-11T10:22:40","date_gmt":"2019-10-11T10:22:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/atc.audio\/?p=6749"},"modified":"2019-10-11T10:33:42","modified_gmt":"2019-10-11T10:33:42","slug":"nashvilles-blackbird-studio-makes-no-small-plans-builds-out-for-dolby-atmos-music-with-15-atc-monitors-6-atc-subwoofers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atc.audio\/zh\/2019\/10\/nashvilles-blackbird-studio-makes-no-small-plans-builds-out-for-dolby-atmos-music-with-15-atc-monitors-6-atc-subwoofers\/","title":{"rendered":"NASHVILLE\u2019S BLACKBIRD STUDIO MAKES NO SMALL PLANS: BUILDS OUT FOR DOLBY ATMOS MUSIC WITH 15 ATC MONITORS, 6 ATC SUBWOOFERS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Blackbird Studio<\/a>\u00a0in Nashville, Tennessee is not known for half-measures. \u201cAt Blackbird, the bar is extremely high,\u201d noted John McBride, Blackbird\u2019s founder, owner and visionary. \u201cWe do everything we can to create a setting where artists and engineers are equipped and inspired to create music that can change the world.\u201d In that spirit, Blackbird is embracing\u00a0Dolby Atmos Music<\/a>, a fully-immersive, next-generation multi-channel playback system that has the backing of Universal, Netflix, Amazon, and other major content providers. Blackbird Studio\u00a0C, a large control room with incredible diffusion designed by George Massenburg, now contains three ATC\u00a0SCM300ASL\u00a0Pro<\/a>\u00a0monitors in front, six ATC\u00a0SCM100ASL\u00a0Pro<\/a>\u00a0monitors on the sides and rear, six ATC\u00a0SCM100ASL Pro<\/a>\u00a0monitors overhead, and six ATC\u00a0SCM0.1\/15ASL\u00a0Pro<\/a>\u00a0subwoofers. With less than a month\u2019s notice, ATC built and delivered the speakers and subwoofers.<\/p>\n

\"ATC_BlackBird_StudioC_Atmos_1080px\"<\/p>\n

\u201cImmersive audio is the future of the industry,\u201d McBride continued. \u201cIt\u2019s an incredible experience, and once you start listening in Dolby Atmos Music, it\u2019s hard to go back to stereo! For artists and engineers, the format opens up a whole new world of creative possibilities. There are consumer electronics manufacturers building sound bars to give listeners Dolby Atmos in their living rooms, engineers are hard at work perfecting headphones that will deliver Dolby Atmos, Universal has already committed to mixing several thousand songs in Dolby Atmos Music, and content providers such as Netflix and Amazon are incorporating the format into their new material. Of course, the potential for gaming and virtual reality is astounding. All in all, the industry has a lot of momentum behind Dolby Atmos Music, and I\u2019m thrilled to have Blackbird at the forefront of music creation for the format.\u201d<\/p>\n

Initially introduced in 2012, the Dolby Atmos specification accommodates traditional 7.1 surround sound speakers but then goes far beyond. It allows specific placement of sounds at precise locations along the sides and back, includes overhead loudspeakers, and permits flexible scaling of playback system size to include up to 128 discrete loudspeaker or subwoofer channels. \u201cThe first thing people notice about a Dolby Atmos system is the addition of the overhead speakers,\u201d said Zach Winterfeld, western regional sales manager with TransAudio Group and part of the team that installed and tuned the new system at Blackbird. \u201cJust as the experience of going from mono to stereo or from stereo to surround opens things up, the overhead speakers add a whole new dimension. Under the hood, the biggest difference is the use of \u2018objects\u2019 that allow the engineer to specify where in the room a sound should localize to. The Dolby Atmos playback engine decodes each object\u2019s location and places it there given the particular arrangement of loudspeakers in a given room. Two rooms can have very different loudspeaker setups, and the Dolby Atmos processing will localize a given \u2018object\u2019 to the same place in both rooms.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blackbird Studio\u00a0C already had a stereo pair of ATC\u00a0SCM300ASL\u00a0Pro<\/a>\u00a0three-way monitors, and ATC mains and near-fields are a fixture in the other studios at Blackbird. \u201cFor me at least, the higher the quality of playback, the more emotional music becomes,\u201d McBride said. \u201cI\u2019ve always loved ATC, and we\u2019ve been using ATC monitors at Blackbird since we opened up in 2002. I trust ATC monitors completely, and I love the people behind the product \u2013 they do incredible work with integrity and with a deep respect for music. Sitting in the middle of fifteen large-format ATC monitors and six ATC subwoofers is a life-changing experience!\u201d<\/p>\n

Ben Lilly, technical sales manager with ATC and another member of the team that installed and tuned the new system at Blackbird, added, \u201cOur monitors offer very low listening fatigue. This is important in all types of monitoring environments, but I feel it is even more important with the high channel count and higher than average sound pressure levels that audio professionals will experience in an Atmos mix environment. Also, the wide, even dispersion pattern of ATC\u2019s monitors help to achieve a larger \u2018sweet spot\u2019, a greater feeling of space, and solid imaging within the immersive mix environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lilly continued, \u201cBlackbird Studio\u00a0C was already equipped with stereo ATC\u00a0SCM300ASL\u00a0Pros<\/a>\u00a0so adding a matching center was a natural choice. The \u2018base\u2019 specification for Dolby Atmos music systems is 7.1.4 (7.1 plus four overhead \u2018top\u2019 speakers), but because Studio\u00a0C is larger than average, the surround speaker count was increased by four to make the system 9.1.6. The choice of surrounds speaker model and the number of subs was based on the room size, listening distance, and target SPLs at the listening position. Dolby\u2019s DART tool helped select suitable monitors based on the room and acoustic data input into the tool.\u201d Four of the ATC\u00a0SCM0.1\/15ASL<\/a>\u00a0subwoofers are positioned along the front of the room and two are positioned on the side walls closer to the back, as determined by a judicious combination of measurement and expert opinion.<\/p>\n

\u201cJohn [McBride] called me to describe a full ATC Dolby Atmos room at Blackbird, and I was impressed by his vision and also by the amount of gear it would require,\u201d recalled Brad Lunde, founder and president of TransAudio Group. \u201cThen he said he wanted it all delivered in two weeks to allow a week of installation ahead of a critical deadline. I love John, but I said, \u2018you\u2019re out of your mind, there\u2019s no way!\u2019 But of course I called ATC\u2019s UK manufacturing facility and asked if it would be possible to deliver six flyable\u00a0SCM100ASL\u00a0Pros<\/a>, six stand-mounted versions, a single center\u00a0SCM300ASL\u00a0Pro<\/a>, and six subwoofers. They would have to work miracles to get them all built, but they made it happen!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven how few Dolby Atmos mixing rooms exist in the world and given John\u2019s very high standards, it was strategically important to do an excellent job, with plenty of insurance against any conceivable problem,\u201d Lunde noted. In addition to Zach Winterfeld, who has deep experience with precision measurement systems, TransAudio Group sent Tony Marra, who operates the TransAudio Group in-house repair shop, to Nashville for installation and tuning knowing that between the two, they had the wherewithal to diagnose and repair anything that might need it. ATC sent Ben Lilly, who worked closely with the TransAudio Group team. The team dug into the analog processing capabilities of the integrated ATC amplifiers to make subtle adjustments to Blackbird\u2019s existing\u00a0SCM300ASL\u00a0Pros<\/a>, which had been in continuous use for nearly a decade, to match the new center channel\u00a0SCM300ASL\u00a0Pro<\/a>. Ceri Thomas and Christine Thomas from Dolby saw to it that all of the Atmos specs were dialed in to perfection.<\/p>\n

Following installation of the system, the studio has received a great deal of feedback on the format, room and the system. \u201cStudio\u00a0C was designed by George Massenburg and incorporates wonderful diffusion,\u201d McBride said. \u201cThat makes the imaging, which is already amazing with ATC, all the more lifelike.\u201d Aleks Bars, marketing manager at TransAudio Group, added, \u201cWith conventional surround sound technology, things are still focused in the front, and creative use of the rear channels kind of stands out. With Dolby Atmos, I felt like I was inside the track. I couldn\u2019t hear gaps between the speakers; it was really cohesive. The vibe from other listeners overall was one of excitement.\u00a0 You could sense how different the experience was for people, and a lot of people told me they were looking forward to jumping into Dolby Atmos as soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

A common refrain from the team of experts who installed and tuned the system, from John McBride, and from attendees at the listening party, was that it was fun to listen to remixes of classics but that they were most looking forward to new works created specifically for Dolby Atmos as the output format. \u201cA good example of how the output format matters is the Beach Boys,\u201d Winterfeld summarized. \u201cThey talked a lot about how they wrote and composed explicitly for mono. They would have made very different decisions if they had been creating for stereo. I would argue that so much of that older music that was done in mono is still best enjoyed that way. You get excited by different things and make different decisions when you\u2019re mixing for stereo versus mono. The same thing is true moving to Dolby Atmos. Tracks have so much more room to exist and there are so many possibilities with movement, space, and location. It\u2019s going to be exciting to hear what comes out of Blackbird Studio\u00a0C!\u201d<\/p>\n

Blackbird Studio<\/a><\/p>\n

Dolby Atmos for Content Creators<\/a><\/p>\n

Transaudio Group<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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