Guadalajara, Mexico (September 1, 2022)—When audio post-production Semillero Estudios in Guadalajara opened its new Meyer Sound-equipped, Dolby Atmos-certified Sound Arts room late last year, it scored two significant firsts.
With the launch of the new room, Semillero Estudios became the first post-production facility in the state of Jalisco to offer Dolby-certified mixing in the Atmos HE (Home Entertainment) immersive sound format. In addition, the new mixing room is the first in Mexico outside Mexico City to offer the Atmos HE capabilities using a 9.1.6 Meyer Sound spatial sound monitoring system.
“Producers and music artists have been very impressed with what we can offer here in Guadalajara,” says Álvaro Arce, founder and director of Semillero Estudios. “A big part of that is the Meyer Sound monitoring system. You can take it to very high SPs, yet it never distorts. It sounds beautiful and it translates well into headphones, where much of the music content in spatial audio is heard lately. You can mix quickly and trust the system without a doubt.”
Arce, who established the company in Mexico City in 2013, principally for music recording, recalls, “At first, we were thinking of doing a smaller room with only 5.1 capability, and then expanding to an Atmos room later. But our architect Gabriel Beas, acoustic designer Alejandro Lepe, and Carlos Cuevas from Dolby convinced us it would be more cost-effective to go to a larger Atmos room in one phase. I’m glad we did. With the surging demand for immersive music mixes, thanks largely to Apple, we’ve been very busy.”
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The Sound Arts mixing room is equipped with three Meyer Sound Acheron Designer screen channel loudspeakers, with six HMS-5 surround loudspeakers for the laterals (wide, surround, and rear) and six more for the overhead front, mid, and rear. A single X-800C cinema subwoofer supplies low-frequency effects.
The mixing platform in the room is an Avid S6, with separate computers for Pro Tools and the Dolby Atmos rendering unit. A Focusrite ISA preamplifier and Neumann U87 microphone allow for the insertion of vocal or synth tracks during the mixing sessions.
“I’ve always liked Meyer Sound speakers for their amazing headroom and precise imaging,” Arce says. “I recall when we were using the Dolby tool for measuring sound pressure levels, to make sure we could reach the levels we needed in the subsonic frequencies. That’s when I realized a big difference with Meyer Sound, because with the other systems we considered we would have needed two — or even four — subwoofers instead of one.”
Arce adds, “I received a lot of help on design and speaker selection from Antonio Manzo, head of sales for Mexico, as well as from Magu [Mauricio Ramirez] and Oscar Barrientos, who have been friends for years. The Meyer team was incredibly supportive through the whole process, and that can be a real game-changer.”
