Having been individually and jointly involved in mixing some household names in the music industry, the latest venture shared by Lewis Chapman and Geoff Swan combines a closer partnership with a desire to move into Dolby Atmos mixing.
These goals have resulted in an new Atmos room opening at The Ranch Production House near Southampton – which features a Merging Technologies and Neumann solution that is quickly proving successful.
The Ranch is integral to the history of Swan and Chapman. Both had a background in bands, and both became intrigued by what happened behind the glass when recording. Chapman’s internship at the Ranch was where he encountered Swan who co-owned the studio – Swan having previously interned and then run Pete Abbott’s studio in Salisbury. Swan subsequently set up The Ranch with Neil Kennedy.
Although Chapman and Swan spent a number of years working in London on a variety of projects in different studios, they kept in touch. Swan worked with Mark ‘Spike’ Stent for five years from 2012, which enhanced his reputation as a mixer and producer of choice for numerous musicians. Chapman was freelancing in studios across town and while working with Andy Wright and Gavin Goldberg in early 2020 he became involved with The Qube, first in West London and then at the newly opened East London site. In the process of setting up the Qube studio, Chapman met Paul Mortimer from Emerging who came to demonstrate a Trinnov system that Chapman says transformed the studio.
This was also where he became aware of the Merging Technologies networked converters. Although not installed in Qube, he kept in touch with the Merging developments. Further shared projects and the emergence of Dolby Atmos, propelled Chapman and Swan to set up their own room, rather than using somebody else’s. Locating it at The Ranch was serendipitous.
They arranged the room calling on their prior experience, with the acoustics sorted from the beginning, leaving just the choice of monitoring to be finalised.
Merging+Anubis offered build quality and high-quality converters as well as flexibility. The bonus of being able to connect it to the Merging+Hapi to gain additional channels without compromising on quality, made it irresistible. Once installed along with a set of Neumann loudspeakers the set-up was approved by Neumann and Dolby.
‘Another key advantage of Anubis is the number of EQ bands and delays on the speaker outputs,’ Mortimer offers. ‘There are 336 EQ bands as standard, and this is perfect for storing the Dolby alignment parameters.’
Chapman enjoys the routing options and possibilities that Anubis gives him to optimise his workflow and creativity. It allows him to spend less time being concerned about the renderer, monitoring the binaural fold down and complex routing to monitor Apple’s spatial audio through logic in real time, with just a few button presses.
‘What I love, apart from the amazing audio quality, is that when I turn it on in the morning, it will recover the settings and the patching,’ Swan adds. ‘Being able to store presets has been so useful and nothing feels like a chore. I am just blown away with the Anubis and there is really no comparison to some of the other units we looked at.’
The ability to work with artists on Atmos has proven to be a huge benefit. It means that everybody involved can discover what works and what doesn’t together. Sending mixes to other producers and mixers who have their own systems is also illuminating, because they may hear something differently and this all feeds the learning experience. The wisdom of having this dedicated Atmos mixing space provides opportunities to work with other Ranch clients to understand the possibilities of spatial mixing.
‘You need to be able to try things out, but the importance of relating to the history of the track is paramount,’ Swan says. ‘What might sound plausible with the full speaker set, falls apart in binaural because of poor phase relationships or inappropriate mixing. After all, binaural is the format most likely to be heard by the fan, so it must sound right.’
Although the room is purpose-built for Dolby Atmos, it does not have to be exclusive:
‘We are mainly mixing and mastering so we are currently using the Monitor Mission on the Anubis, but excited to experiment with Music Mission and multitrack with the eventual addition of an A/D card for the Hapi,’ Chapman explains. ‘There is an amazing mixer in Anubis and you can assign it to what you want and away you go. Anubis is super flexible.’ Swan adds, ‘The Merging mic amps are simply stunning, so it seems a shame not to use them.’
Many studios are adopting Atmos but few are set up with the care and experience evident at The Ranch. With a shared vision to tread mindfully into the immersive world, Swan and Lewis are adamant that the music comes first, and the technology must be an appropriate support to the original concept of the track. They have a point…
More: https://emerginguk.com
