Based in London’s Soho, Dean Street Studios started out as a film audio facility in the 1950s and then became a music studio in 1976 when David Bowie producer Tony Visconti opened Good Earth Studios. Much of Bowie’s early catalogue was recorded at the studio, along with major releases ever since from the likes of T-Rex, The Smiths, Dusty Springfield, Ed Sheeran, Paul Weller, Robert Plant and Noel Gallagher.

 

In 1989, Visconti sold the lease to a music production company who developed the premises into music recording and production suites but left Visconti's legendary Studio 1 intact. In 2007, it was taken over by mother and daughter partnership Suzanne Lee-Barnes and Jasmin Lee (daughter of Ten Years After’s Alvin Lee), who created today’s Dean St. Studios.

 

The revamped Studio 1 control room for Dolby Atmos Music production features PMC’s flagship IB2S XBD-A active monitors covering left and right main channels, an IB2S-A for the centre channel, 10 discrete Wafer2 loudspeakers for surround and height channels and four sub2 subwoofers. Dean St. Studio’s set up exactly replicates the PMC system initially designed for Universal Music and installed two years ago at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles. Thanks to its almost limitless headroom, power capabilities, pin-point accuracy and sonic fidelity, the PMC system goes well beyond Dolby’s minimum requirements, making it the reference for Dolby Atmos music mixing.

 

PMC was chosen for this installation because it has such a strong reputation for delivering prestigious Dolby Atmos facilities, particularly in the USA.

Jan Stan Kybert, technical and creative director at Dean Street Studios says, “The PMC system is an integral piece of the Dolby Atmos puzzle and has been very user friendly from the moment we switched it on. The Dolby Atmos journey provides a lot of creative and technical opportunities and PMC made some bold promises, which they delivered on. It is early days, but I could not be happier with the sound and the support we have received from the team at PMC.”

 

Chris Allen, PMC’s business development manager, adds, “We are delighted to be bringing this statement Dolby Atmos system into the UK for the first time and could not be more pleased to be spear-heading it alongside a facility with so much heritage and positive reputation as Dean Street Studios. The system is incredibly pleasing and respectfully, and easily, reproduces all genres of music consistently at all levels. We are looking forward to hearing the first commercial releases so that home users can experience Dolby Atmos Music on their PMC speakers, sounding just like it did in the studio.”

 

Suzanne Lee-Barnes says, "A love of music is at the heart of everything we do at Dean Street and the creative possibilities of Dolby Atmos are incredibly exciting. Immersive audio allows consumers to feel truly part of the music by putting them right in the middle of the sound and right in the middle of a band or an orchestra. Who wouldn’t want to experience their music like that – especially in this post Covid world where live events are currently off the agenda?"

 

Dean St. Studios is now working with producers, artists and record labels to introduce them to the creative possibilities of the new format.

 

 

Photo Credit: James Robinson