Located in his home near Victoria on Vancouver Island in British Columbia and prompted by the momentum of Dolby Atmos format in cinema, gaming, music and other media genres, owner Todd Hooge built his Sonic Forest Studios with the assistance of Dolby engineers, who helped him with acoustical advice and technology selections.
‘In recent years, it has become the de facto standard in home theatere, soundbars, other devices, and now in your car,’ he says. ‘Streaming services such as Apple Music, Tidal and Amazon HD are the latest to adopt this format for music. It’s the future – period.’
While Sonic Forest Studios has an enchanting look about it, perched on a glassed-in mezzanine beneath a vaulted ceiling, its infrastructure is all business, and relies on a Dante network and Focusrite Red and RedNet interfaces.
‘Investing in Atmos is no small thing,’ Hooge says. ‘So before I did it, I wanted to make sure that was the way the market is trending. I didn’t just read the pro audio magazines, but also the financial papers and magazines. I wanted to be absolutely sure this was the way to go, the thing to do. Like any major life decision, I wanted to do my homework.’
The reulting infrastructure component were carefully considered, and include a Focurite Red 16Line 64-input/64-output Thunderbolt 3 and Pro Tools HD compatible audio interface. ‘This is the main interface for the entire rig, and the hub for all the Atmos,’ Hooge explains. ‘After I decided I wanted to go with Dante connectivity for the whole studio, I saw that the 16Line was perfect, because all of the Focusrite gear units can also talk to each other over Dante. It’s my digital patch bay and through it I can reach any other device in all seven recording-enabled rooms of the house.’
The three RedNet HD32R 32-channel HD Dante network bridges support a full 128 objects, while a RedNet 5 Pro Tools HD bridge enables him to include an older Pro Tools rig in a tracking room. ‘It breathes new life into older gear,’ he says.
A RedNet R1 Desktop Remote Monitor Controller provides the flexibility to control a range of different monitor output set-ups, ranging from mono through to 7.1.4 surround, including Dolby Atmos and other immersive audio workflows. ‘I have a Yamaha RX-A8A Atmos receiver and with the R1 I can instantly switch to it to capture immersive audio, such as Apple Spatial sound, in the wild,’ says Hooge. ‘Also, the R1 has power over Ethernet, so it doesn’t need external power.’
A pair of RedNet X2P 2x2 Dante audio interfaces can be put to use anywhere in the house, as a headphone mixer enabling a singer in one of the rooms to be record remotely. Three RedNet AM2 stereo audio monitoring units are like the X2P, but without the mic preamps,’ Hooge says. ‘They always perform flawlessly as plug-and-play headphone devices.’
The 7.1.4 immersive monitoring uses 11 Adam Audio S3H Active Studio Monitors and a Genelec 7370A Smart Active Studio Subwoofer.
‘I’m not sure how I could have achieved what we have done here without RedNet,’ Hooge says of Sonic Forest. ‘It’s definitely part of the backbone of the studio.’
More: www.focusrite.com
