Los Angeles, CA (December 6, 2022)—Gold-Diggers in Los Angeles has transformed two of its seven studios into immersive audio music mixing rooms with the installation of more than three dozen speakers from PMC.
“A lot of the major players have outfitted their Atmos studios with PMC, so for us, it just made sense,” says Gold-Diggers managing partner and studio manager Simon Horrocks. “We’d always loved PMCs, but when we built this facility in 2016, we were installing seven studios, all of which needed to be completely outfitted from the ground up. Quite frankly, budget was a factor at that point. However, the new line of products from PMC have made it possible for us to invest in their monitoring systems, and between Studio 6 and Studio 9, we now have a total of 39 PMCs.”
The Gold-Diggers complex, in the E. Hollywood neighborhood, has a storied history, having been a strip club, hotel and home to B-movie director Ed Wood’s company. It was also a rehearsal facility that hosted The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Slayer and Hollywood Rose, the predecessor to Guns n Roses. Horrocks, who was moving from Atlanta to LA and needed a new project, heard about the property and quickly realized its potential. In conjunction with media and hospitality entrepreneur Dave Neupert and producer Dave Trumfio, the owner of Kingsize Soundlabs, he set about transforming the derelict building into a bar, a venue, a boutique hotel and seven studios.
Gold Diggers Reinvents the Destination Studio
The decision to reconfigure Studios 6 and 9 was reportedly prompted by Apple Music’s 2021 announcement that it was embracing spatial audio, and in particular Dolby Atmos. Studio 6 was already supporting Sony Electronics’ 360 Reality Audio and was designed to showcase the format to artists and producers.
“That was our introduction to the world of immersive audio, and it progressed into us mixing projects in 360RA for labels and DSPs supporting the format,” Horrocks says. “Studio 6 now supports 9.1.4 Dolby Atmos and 5.5.4 360RA, while Studio 9 is just for 9.1.4 Atmos projects.”
Studio 6 has three PMC 6-2 for LCR and 19 PMC ci45 monitors for the surround channels, powered by Crown DCi 8|600DA amplifiers. There are also two PMC twotwoSub 2 active subwoofers. Studio 9 has PMC 6 for LCR, 10 PMC ci30 monitors for surrounds and two PMC twotwoSub 2 active subwoofers. Both systems were supplied by PMC’s specialized dealer RSPE, who also provided additional equipment, system design, integration, and installation.
There is also a third PMC-equipped studio, which is used for stereo mixing.
