I’ve been getting into Dolby Atmos for the past four years and it’s been a really exciting journey. When we were originally setting up Eastcote Mastering for Dolby Atmos, it was a long and sometimes difficult learning process. At the time, finding the best solution that both I would be happy with – and that Dolby would also approve of – was tricky. I was lucky to have both the team from HHB and Dolby helping steer me towards creating one of the first Dolby Atmos studios in London.

It took a good six months from the inspiration to having the finished setup. It’s worth remembering that this was a time when DAWs were not like they are now. For example, I had to buy a refurbished 2017 i7 Mac to run the Dolby Renderer, as it was not working on the 2020 Macs at that point.

No! I got a kind invitation from Audient to go to the launch of ORIA and was told that I would not want to miss it. So I decided to leave my session at Eastcote Mastering for the evening to show up, not knowing what to expect. I love surprises…

When the presentation started, I immediately thought this might be something we could use in our Devon space as a simple monitor controller for both Atmos and stereo sessions.

The setup process was definitely an easy and satisfying experience, with quick and great results. Audient has just made everything easier. You can even see exactly where to plug everything in.

The Radar here in Devon is a relatively ‘raw’ room which we are slowly treating over time. I wouldn’t say it’s 100% finished, it’s an ongoing project. It’s more of an experimental space where we are regularly trying different speakers and configurations. In fact we recently added another couple of speakers and now it’s 9.1.6.

Using ORIA is absolutely perfect for our situation, because we need to be able to keep up the tuning of the room. It’s so easy to calibrate with the SoundID Reference microphone, too. You don’t need a team of specialists to get it right and it’s all laid out for you in the instructions.

The Audient ORIA is the main master interface at The Radar. Working with it here has become second nature for me. It has not let me down and really fits with my workflow and translates well from Eastcote Mastering. When I come down to Devon, I don’t have to change anything.

I also use Omnibus from Audiomovers to connect to other interfaces and laptops externally to ORIA. The great thing is that ORIA works with all kinds of interfaces – not just Audient using it in this way. It’s really easy and efficient for me and it’s also very easy to explain to engineers and producers working at The Radar. Everyone is super happy with this modern and user-friendly solution.

I really like the sound quality too. In fact, I’ve just picked up another ORIA for Studio B in Eastcote Mastering.

Eastcote Mastering was one of the first Dolby Atmos studios in London. It was borne out of a long process of learning and has really taught me a lot. It’s kind of like the ‘Bat Cave’ in there – full of high-end gear which cost me good money and all works perfectly. So nothing needs to change.

Yet I think ORIA is brilliant. If we were starting today and ORIA had been available I would have bought it from the get-go. It’s a much more straightforward solution and is far more cost effective.

It’s definitely a great tool for a modern digital studio workflow. It makes a lot of sense to me in many ways and is definitely one of the best products on the market for Atmos mixing that is within financial reach and sounds great.