Charlotte, NC (January 3, 2024)—Multi-studio complex GAT3 in Charlotte, NC, has transformed a former stereo tracking room into a 9.1.6 Dolby Atmos mixing space equipped with 19 PMC Ci series monitors.
Established 27 years ago by Glenn A Tabor III and his wife, Susan, GAT3 has five studios handling a range of audio projects, from music recording, mixing and mastering to voice overs, ADR and post production for film and TV. It also has two sound stages, two video stages and a recording academy. The new Dolby Atmos Sapphire Room will soon be headed up by mix engineer and Dolby Atmos expert Richard Chycki, who is relocating from Toronto to join the company.
“We decided to upgrade the Sapphire Room to Dolby Atmos because many of our customers were asking for album projects to be mixed in this format and we needed a state-of-the-art facility that would allow us to satisfy these demands,” says Glenn A Tabor III. “The decision to install a PMC monitoring system was an easy one to make. I’d heard PMC speakers in many other studios and had always loved them because they are so precise. As an audiophile who has been into HiFi from a very young age, I felt there was only one brand that could deliver the accuracy of a mastering room without sacrificing musicality, and that was PMC. It’s a very fine line to balance, but PMC manages to achieve it perfectly.”
He adds, “Maurice Patist (president of PMC USA and head of pro global) helped with all these decisions and with the installation and setup, and his input was invaluable.
The ‘Astonishing’ Dream Theater
Tabor continues, “The Sapphire Room is by no means small, but space is still at a premium and I wanted to maintain as much of it as possible so that the room didn’t feel claustrophobic. We stripped the room back to its bare bones, and with advice from Maurice and Dolby, we rebuilt it to ensure the acoustics were absolutely right for a Dolby Atmos setup.”
GAT3’s PMC system comprises Ci140 monitors for the LCR, four Ci140 subs and 12 Ci65 monitors for the surround and height channels. “We chose PMC Ci140 speakers because we wanted the entire front wall to look curved,” Tabor says. “I’m a big fan of soffit-mounted monitors and what we have achieved is, in essence, a soffit-mounted look. The monitors, however, are actually floating inside the wall, on springs and in their own stand-alone cabinets.”
On Patist’s recommendation, Tabor opted for three of the new PMC power 750-8 eight-channel amplifiers. GAT3 is the first studio to install the new amps.
