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From mixing legendary acts at London’s premier facilities to being shortlisted for the prestigious Music Producers Guild (MPG) Dolby Atmos Mixer of the Year award, Kurt Martinez has established himself at the forefront of immersive audio. Having previously held the role of Head Dolby Atmos Mix Engineer at Dean Street Studios, Kurt has worked with a stellar lineup of artists including Central Cee, Kylie Minogue, Perrie and Soft Play. Recently, he made the bold move to step away from commercial facilities to build his own professional Dolby Atmos mixing room right in his garden – with an Audient ORIA at its heart.
The MPG nomination stands as a major milestone in his career, providing massive industry validation for his dedication to the format.
“I was in complete shock when I saw the email land in my inbox to tell me I’d made the shortlist,” Kurt recalls. “I’ve been a fan of Andrew Scheps’ work for a long time; finding myself considered alongside someone of Andrew’s calibre was completely surreal.”
Beyond the professional nod, the awards night was a brilliant opportunity to share the milestone with his wife, who had been slightly worried that working from a garden room would turn him into a recluse. “The highlight of the night for me was taking her along and getting to introduce her to people,” he smiles. “It was just nice for her to see that I do actually have friends!”
Swapping the Commute for a Custom Build
The catalyst for transitioning to a home environment was a mix of lifestyle changes and the desire for independence. Long, unpredictable hours and a gruelling two-hour door-to-door commute into London meant prioritising family time became essential after the birth of his daughter.
Kurt settled on a compact 2.5m x 3.5m footprint in his garden and took on the entire DIY build himself, outsourcing only the electrics and internet. Situated in the quiet countryside, traditional heavy soundproofing was less of a concern than internal acoustic treatment. Kurt used a combination of naturally porous timber walls to absorb low frequencies, acoustic panels on the sides and ceiling, front-wall acoustic slat panelling and a large rear bookshelf for dispersion.
To make the space highly functional, he installed wood laminate flooring paired with thick acoustic underlay to reduce vibrations, allowing him to roll smoothly from his listening position to his gear racks. Armchairs and a rug in front of the shelves were added to provide a touch of extra acoustic absorption. Because this space is part of a short-term two-to-five-year plan rather than a forever home, the DIY route was the perfect way to get back into freelance life without a massive corporate budget.
For monitoring, he bit the bullet and invested in a high-end PMC system comprising PMC6-2 left and right monitors, a PMC6 centre speaker, an 8 Sub LFE and Ci30 heights and surrounds.
Streamlining Connectivity with ORIA
At the heart of his monitoring control sits the Audient ORIA, handling all room correction and routing out to his speaker array and headphones. Working in Pro Tools alongside the external Dolby Atmos Renderer, Kurt feeds his audio to Ginger Audio’s Ground Control SPHERE, which he controls via an Elgato Stream Deck+ on his desktop. This setup allows him to seamlessly switch between physical outputs, binaural re-renders, Apple Spatial re-renders and stereo references.
Having spent four years using an ethernet network system in commercial studios, Kurt was eager for a more dependable, straightforward connectivity option at home. He notes that the network system often required a degree in network engineering just to troubleshoot issues minutes before a client playback. With ORIA, the physical speaker outputs and AES connectivity provided a massive advantage.
Unlike other immersive interfaces that require complex expansion cards, adapters or custom-made cabling, the ORIA offered a direct, uncomplicated setup. Kurt simply runs balanced quarter-inch jacks straight out of the rear panel to the XLR inputs on his main monitors, and quarter-inch to bare wire straight to his amplifier for the heights and surrounds.
Once up and running, the ORIA allows him to switch between distinct speaker profiles at the push of a physical button on his Stream Deck+ or directly from the front panel interface. These profiles include a flat profile running native speaker DSP, a fully calibrated Sonarworks profile, a Dolby curve profile and a dedicated stereo profile that changes how the left and right speakers behave when not interacting with the rest of the room.
Creative Flexibility with the iD48
Alongside the ORIA, Kurt integrates an Audient iD48 into his system, dedicated entirely to managing his analogue outboard gear. Using a DB25 cable, the iD48 connects the interface’s analogue sends and returns directly into his main patchbay where his hardware lives.
While his mastering chain rarely changes, anchoring the iD48 to the patchbay gives him the ultimate flexibility to switch up routing or audition different pieces of hardware on the fly. When working in stereo, he runs his outboard gear as hardware inserts just like standard plugins. In Atmos, he applies those same hardware inserts to the left and right channels as a stereo bus, choosing plugin emulations if he needs that specific processing on objects pulled further into the room.
The standout feature of the iD48 for Kurt is its absolute sonics. The interface keeps the signal path completely transparent, ensuring he knows exactly what his boutique hardware is adding to the mix, even if he is just running signal through a unit for a bit of extra analogue flavour.
Absolute Trust in Translation
Moving to a dedicated personal workspace has completely transformed Kurt’s daily workflow and creative confidence. Before completing the room, he relied heavily on mixing on headphones and booking commercial rooms to double-check his work. Now, his workflow is entirely speaker-focused once more.
“The benefit of having a proper Atmos system here means I’m able to accurately gauge object placement in a 3D space, and know exactly how those movements will fold down for consumer systems,” Kurt says. To ensure his mixes translate perfectly to everyday listeners, he checks his work against Apple AirPods Max and a Sonos Home Theatre system.
The results speak for themselves: on his last FIVE full-length records, his mixes required absolutely zero tweaking after checking them in larger commercial rooms, receiving immediate first-time approval from the artists.
For other engineers looking to follow in his footsteps and establish an immersive audio space at home, Kurt offers a final piece of seasoned advice: “Don’t rush it! Work out your budget, work out your time frame and map out exactly what you need, not necessarily what you want.”