“ORIA is at the heart of my studio. It’s on for some 20 hours a day and works flawlessly,” declares musician, composer, recording and mix engineer Bert Smorenburg. He runs his successful Atmos for Music business from this studio which is located at his home.
Based in Rotterdam, Bert has been in music his whole life, but it was in the last four years that he caught the Dolby Atmos bug. “I started really studying it and I thought: this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.” After making this groundbreaking decision, the idea to design and build his own 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos music production studio made perfect sense to him.
ORIA “on for some 20 hours a day and works flawlessly”
With a clear idea of what his core business was going to be – music production, mixing in stereo, 5.1 and Dolby Atmos, programming, composing and gear reviewing – it was important that it was all going to be possible from this one room. Once he’d earmarked the space at the back of his house, Bert was a man on a mission. “I designed it from the ground up, then I had it built,” he says. Once the construction was complete, the next stage was perfecting the isolation. Air conditioning was installed on a separate electricity circuit then the room needed treatment. “The room is relatively small, so it was pretty tricky.”
It all came together well, and the studio has now been up and running for a year and half. ORIA arrived at just the right moment for Bert, who talks about his search for an audio interface/monitor controller. “There really isn’t much choice, especially not in this price range. The other two options are MUCH more expensive. The alternative way is to improvise a setup and measurement with whatever you can find. ORIA certainly did come at the right time, and literally did everything I needed it to.”
“the headphone amps sound amazing”
This included connectivity with his large collection of hardware. Utilising ORIA’s ADAT inputs with a smart analogue to ADAT mixer means his synthesisers can all be plugged in. The sound quality of the ORIA itself is also something he highlights. “ORIA sounds incredible. I use the mic pres a lot for bass or vocals. The headphone amps sound amazing.”
He describes the integration of Sonarworks SoundID Reference into ORIA as “a match made in heaven. I suddenly had a small but very efficient production room completely configured and calibrated for Dolby Atmos!” Bert’s ears might just be tinged with gold, as he is confident he knows what a good room sounds like. “In my previous studio it took about a year before I could really hear what I wanted to hear. This current studio has been great since the room calibration.” He adds, “I can tell things are working fine because I can be here for ten hours and not get exhausted.”
ORIA “literally did everything I needed it to” says Bert Smorenburg
This is no bad thing for Bert as he’s got a lot of work coming in. “After ten years of working for tv, commercials and films, I am happy to say that I have been getting back into music production. At the moment I’m writing for a star musical artist Willemijn Verkaik, mixing music for several clients, working on a classical orchestra that I recorded in immersive, programming the intro music for a tribute band called Queen Must Go On and writing reviews for Interface magazine. I’m also preparing for a Dolby Atmos masterclass I’m running in the world-famous Wisseloord Studio – using ORIA obviously.”
Well, that’s quite a to-do list! Check out Bert’s perfectly tuned Atmos For Music studio here, find out more about what he’s up to on his personal website here and follow him on Instagram and LinkedIN! You can also see Bert in his studio chatting about ORIA here.
