Dolby Atmos mixing studio · The Shuttle Bay · Fallbrook, CA
A 9.1.4 Dolby Atmos mix room in North San Diego County, one of a handful in the county. Your song in every direction, mixed by our chief engineer, and demoed free on every studio tour.
Get ahead of the pack
Apple Music, Amazon Music and Tidal all stream Dolby Atmos today, and the headphones, phones, cars and soundbars that play it are already in your listeners' hands. More than nine in ten Apple Music subscribers have tried Spatial Audio, and a third of what they play is spatial. The artists who mix in Atmos now are the ones the format will be built around.
— Apple Music pays up to 10% more on tracks that have an Atmos version
— Your Atmos mix plays on AirPods and any phone, no special gear needed
— Stereo and Atmos are delivered together; nothing is lost
— Most independent releases still have no Atmos mix. Yours can.
9.1.4
Speakers around and above you in the Shuttle Bay
1 in 3
Apple Music plays are now in Spatial Audio
+10 %
Apple Music royalty for tracks available in Atmos
15 M
Songs already mixed in Dolby Atmos
150 +
Car models shipping with Atmos, 35+ brands
Apple Music and Dolby figures, 2024 to 2026. The royalty bonus applies whether or not the listener picks the spatial version.
What Dolby Atmos is
Stereo gives you left and right. Atmos adds above, behind and around, and treats each sound as an object that can sit still or move through the room.
01
Speakers overhead open the ceiling. Vocals sit in front of you; reverbs, pads and crowds fill the space above.
02
Any sound can be placed or moved in three dimensions. A guitar can start beside you and end across the room.
03
One Atmos master folds down for AirPods and phones, soundbars, cars and the full room. The listener gets the best version their gear can play.
The Shuttle Bay
We built the Shuttle Bay as a dedicated 9.1.4 Dolby Atmos room: nine speakers at ear level, a subwoofer and four overhead, driven by the Dolby Atmos Renderer and Pro Tools HDX on an Antelope Galaxy, and calibrated to Dolby's studio guidelines. You will notice you cannot see the speakers. That is the point: spatial audio does not come from a box in front of you, it surrounds you, so the room is built to disappear and let the music come from everywhere. It is one of a handful of Atmos mix rooms in San Diego County, and one of the few places in North County where you can sit in the sweet spot and hear your own song move.
— 9.1.4 monitoring on Yamaha HS series speakers, hidden in the room, calibrated to Dolby's studio guidelines
— Chosen on purpose: not the most exotic monitors, but an honest match for what your listeners actually hear on
— Dolby Atmos Renderer, Pro Tools HDX, Antelope Galaxy conversion
— Binaural check on AirPods before anything ships
— A comfortable writing room for collaborators between passes
Also in the Shuttle Bay
The two egg-shaped monitors on the desk are Munro Sonic Egg 150s, designed by the acoustician Andy Munro. Their shape removes the cabinet edges that smear a stereo image, and they are rare now: a coveted, no-longer-easy-to-find pair reviewed by Sound On Sound, Mix and MusicTech. They make the Shuttle Bay a serious stereo mix room as well as an Atmos one, and the 90-inch 4K screen turns it into a full post-production suite between mixes.
— Traditional stereo mixing on the Munro Eggs
— Film and picture score development on the big screen
— Video editing suite with a 90-inch 4K monitor: cutting, colour correction and grading, graphics and effects
— ADR (automated dialogue replacement) and post-production audio for picture
— Live-stream control room for events happening in the main studio
— A comfortable writing room for songwriting, co-writes and collaborative sessions
Munro Sonic Egg 150 monitors, the Shuttle Bay
How it works
Already mixed in stereo somewhere else? Send the stems. Recording here? Atmos is one more pass with the same engineer.
01
Or record and mix the song here. Either way Kai, our Pro Tools Certified chief engineer, works from the multitrack, not the stereo bounce.
02
Placed and automated in Atmos on the 9.1.4 system, checked against the stereo so nothing drifts.
03
Sit in the sweet spot and sign off, then check the binaural fold-down on AirPods.
04
ADM BWF master for Apple Music, Tidal and Amazon Music through your distributor, plus a binaural MP4 to share.
Pricing
Every Atmos mix is different: a sparse vocal-and-guitar track is a few hours, a dense production with stems from three studios is not. We quote per song after hearing the stereo and seeing the session. Bring references to your tour and you will leave with a number. Recording clients get the best rate when the Atmos pass follows their session.
— Per-song quote, no package to decode
— Discount for EPs and albums mixed together
— Stereo and Atmos deliverables included
— Distribution help if your aggregator is new to Atmos
Inside the Shuttle Bay
Every tour includes the Atmos demo
One song in stereo, then the same song in Atmos, in the sweet spot. It takes four minutes and it is the only argument we need to make.
