MediaHyperium (California) dives into immersive audio with Neumann

In early 2020, watching the coronavirus pandemic spread across Southern California, Herbert Waltl, a pioneer in spatial audio, moved the operations of its audiovisual production company MediaHyperium to an abandoned music school, where he equipped an old auditorium with a studio monitoring system made up of 18 speakers from the range Neumann KH.

System easily switches between immersive music formats Dolby Atmos y Sony 360 Reality Audio, without having to change the position of the speakers thanks to the combination of nine height speakers and three floor speakers with 7.1 distribution.

Herbert Waltl, award-winning producer, musician and technology champion, founded MediaHyperium in 1996 and was already planning to set up a new studio before the pandemic. He had been focused on his work for years at Skywalker Sound, in the San Francisco Bay Area, where for the last five years he collaborated with Eric Schilling, broadcast recording engineer and audio mixer who has received numerous Grammy and Emmy awards. But when the new virus forced everyone to confine themselves and closed the music school, “we thought that the best thing, the safest thing, because of the pandemic, was to work from here,” says Waltl.

Configuration 7.1

The 7.1 monitor configuration consists of seven Neumann KH 420 midfield triamplified and a couple of subgraves Neumann KH 870 with bass management. Five monitors Neumann KH 310 Stand-mounted near-field triamps (three in front, and left and right channels high) reproduce the overhead channels of Sony's 360 Reality Audio object-based system. Hanging from the ceiling and positioned a little closer to the mix position, as recommended by Dolby Laboratories, four Neumann KH 120 bi-amplified nearfield speakers reproduce the aerial zone of Dolby Atmos mixes.

In a way, Waltl took a leap of faith in choosing the Neumann system for MediaHyperium, although not without reason, as he had spent many hours working with a particular model on several projects. “I had heard the KH 310s at Skywalker and other studios I worked with. I was very impressed,” he says.

“I had never used the big ones, the KH 420,” says Schilling. Like Waltl, he adds, "I've only used 310s before. In this room I'm about eight feet from the speakers. What I like most about the system is that it's very detailed and you don't have to play it at full volume to hear it. I work at a fairly moderate gain most of the day. If not, I'd get too tired. I'm running the system at about 20 percent of its capacity in terms of volume, which leaves me a lot of headroom. And it's nice to have two subbass, because then the bass is somewhat more uniform. That is to say, it is a system that is not tiring and has great richness of detail.

A faithful reproduction

Until now, efforts to introduce formats beyond stereo have failed commercially due to consumers' reluctance or inability to install many speakers in their homes. However, today, manufacturers offer simple and low-cost solutions, such as sound bars and smart speakers capable of offering immersive playback. And for this reason, Waltl says: “We have another room, a listening room, in which we have put a sound bar Bring it on of Sennheiser. “Now we hear how audio is played on a sound bar.”

Y aunque el formato inmersivo de Sony, basado en la tecnología MPEG-H de Fraunhofer, se concibió inicialmente para reproducir música 3D en los auriculares, “La barra de sonido AMBEO de Sennheiser ya es compatible con el formato Sony 360, y hay receptores que enviarán la señal a un sistema de altavoces”, describe Schilling.

As Waltl also points out, "Sony's format calls for three floor speakers in the front, but it's impossible to get an accurate, faithful representation if there's furniture or mixing desks in the way. That's why we set up this room, specifically for immersive sound," he explains. The room has only the essential furniture to place the mixing controls and Pro Tools display screens.

“Mixing immersive music in a stereo control room is challenging because there's a huge console between you and the subwoofer,” agrees Schilling. "It's not impossible, but it requires a lot more work to figure out where to put everything. This room is much more like a mastering room, because my controller takes up so little space."

Schilling adds that “We considered installing a bar system in which we could move the overhead speakers, but it is more efficient and faster to have different sets of speakers.” Schilling has created templates to quickly route and switch between Dolby and Sony immersive formats in the mediaHyperium mixing room.

“The room was practically ready for use,” says Waltl. “The walls and ceiling already had acoustic treatment, because it had been an auditorium.” That said, Schilling recommended additional treatment that included bass traps. Now, Waltl concludes, “The sound in the room is magnificent.”

Recording with the greats

Schilling ha estado trabajando en la mezcla del repertorio de Alicia Keys, en los formatos Sony 360 Reality Audio y Dolby Atmos, en colaboración con el productor e ingeniero George Massenburg y bajo la dirección de Ann Mincieli, ingeniera que lleva muchos años con Alicia. “He grabado casi 30 canciones para ellos en esta sala”, cuenta Schilling. “Empezamos con la más reciente, Alicia, y hemos ido retrocediendo en el tiempo. Hicimos el álbum entero Here, de 2016; recién masterizado. El siguiente proyecto era Songs in a Minor, pero tuvimos que acabar el otro primero, porque en junio se cumplía el 20º aniversario de su lanzamiento”.

Schilling continues: "For Alicia Keys' first album, I had to use outboard gear because without it I couldn't get certain sounds. I had to use outboard compressors. Plug-ins are great, but they don't work exactly the same. But between the two of us we have a good amount of gear that I can use when needed, so it's more of a hybrid room."

According to Waltl, other Sony 360 Reality Audio hits coming out of MediaHyperium include the salsa album by Victor Manuelle 25/7, from 2018 and awarded a Grammy; two albums with organ works by Bach; and Hauder Plays Morricone, a tribute album to the work of film composer Ennio Morricone, transcribed for cello and orchestra and performed by Stjepan Hauser.

“We always want to be faithful to the original stereo release,” explains Waltl, who has spent the last 20 years remixing music for immersive and immersive formats. "Our motto has always been that we want to create the same feeling as the stereo mix. I don't want it to be surprising, it's not a DJ remix. However, we have to take advantage of the possibilities that the space offers us, and I don't want to be too conservative with the immersive concepts. We have a whole series of creative tools at hand and we developed the original vision. Therefore, the immersive mix should be a real alternative listening experience to the stereo version. You have to keep an open mind and explore fully. It's a possibility that we should all take advantage”, he concludes.