Multi-Platinum Producer Finds His Groove With Dolby Atmos
MOW Music: ORIA CASE STUDY
Max Oude Weernink – aka MOW Music – is a Billboard #1, multi-platinum producer responsible for a multitude of chart-topping records worldwide. His keen ear and cutting-edge productions with the likes of Tiësto, Gucci Mane, Yellow Claw, Ty Dolla Sign, Tyga, DJ Mustard, DIPLO, Afrojack, Lil Xan and Imanbek have amassed an impressive 2.000.000.000+ Spotify streams.
Max was one half of electronic music’s most esteemed duo, Dirtcaps and now uses his Haarlem studio complex to propel a wide range of artists onto the scene. It’s here that he co-runs his Hi.Mood label, too. As a producer he also has syncs for brands like Vodafone as well as Hollywood movies The Good Boys, Step Up and Stepsisters.
Max is also a self-confessed studio nerd whose interest in immersive audio was piqued about a year ago after hearing the chatter about Dolby Atmos from other producers and engineers. He was keen to find out more.
Here he tells Audient how ORIA is a game-changer for him, saving both time and money, as well as helping maintain his creative flow…
Before ORIA
They said I should try this thing called immersive audio and at the same time they were telling me how expensive it was! The only thing I was hearing was that you need 16 outputs from your sound card. So I decided to get on that with some cheap gear to see if it would work. It didn’t. Somebody suggested I try it on headphones. I opened Logic – because that was the first DAW that had Atmos built-in. This wasn’t giving me what I was looking for though and I still wasn’t convinced. I was like ‘Nah, if this is it, I’ll leave it!’
Then he was approached by Apple who were starting to promote Dolby Atmos and wanted him to provide his label’s substantial music library in Atmos. To help change his mind about Atmos, they invited him to an Apple studio in Amsterdam.
It was a fully-stacked, super high-spec studio and …well, I was blown away by the whole sound.
That’s when I started looking into Dolby Atmos properly. I did see some producers making it possible for themselves, but I still didn’t believe that it should cost so much. The speakers they’re using, the converters – every element was expensive. I was like ‘You can’t tell me that is all necessary.’ Then came NAMM 2024.
Discovering ORIA
ORIA was all over YouTube and kept popping up on my socials during the NAMM show. I realised that what Audient has here is the whole solution. This saves me all the money I need to save and now I can actually try Dolby Atmos for myself!
So I’m using some very nice PMC speakers at the front: left, centre and right. Then – because I’m just testing this out – I bought a bunch of Alesis MK2 passive speakers and amps from THOMANN for the rest of the room. I always used to produce with these speakers when I was young. They’re not very expensive (and sound pretty good!) and I wasn’t up for spending loads of cash on this just yet.
“I’d recommend ORIA to anybody mixing in immersive… Many artists I’m working with are already curious and want to try it too!” ~ Max Oude Weernink
Producer & Engineer
Of course the Alesis MK2 speakers don’t sound as good as the PMCs, so I need the DSP on the Audient ORIA to do its work on the MK2s. That is really helpful: I’m using that menu a lot to balance things out; adding a little high and low here and there to make them sound better. Also, the information from SoundID Reference certainly helps provide added clarity when I’m listening to my mixes.
To be honest, it sounds so good that I’m not going to change it.
In fact, I’m almost sure I have one of the least expensive Dolby Atmos setups out there. The guys from the Apple studio in Amsterdam came over to listen recently and they reckon it sounds just as good as other studios – and they’ve spent ten times what I have on mine! That felt good.
ORIA Install. Sound. Look. Feel.
It was the easiest thing ever to install. If you compare it to *** (I have three of these) they need loads of drivers. The ORIA install is very simple: you get a pop-up, install the driver and you’re good to go.
And the sound quality was fantastic from the start – far better than my *** sound cards, even.
ORIA looks great, feels sturdy and blends in with the rest of my gear very nicely. The LED screen provides visual feedback from every button press on the unit which is a nice touch. You can easily switch speaker profiles for referencing, too.
The fact it integrates with the Dolby Renderer, giving me direct control of the Down Mix functionality from the hardware or software, means I can save a lot of time.
With the latest driver update, I have everything dialled in properly, now. It sounded pretty good before but now it sounds amazing – very balanced. I’m fully into the process!
ORIA In Production
My plan is not to be a mix master engineer. I’m a producer and I want to explore the whole producing side of Dolby Atmos. I want to start a production in Dolby Atmos instead of adding it as an afterthought, like as a second step. I think if you can consider Dolby Atmos in the first step, it could be very interesting.
A mix engineer makes choices based on the production…but now I can make these choices beforehand with the artist, rather than an afterthought with a mix master engineer. And this is exciting.
Also, I am so happy to finally be able to check if a track in Dolby Atmos is right! Before, my tracks were sent in Dolby Atmos but I wouldn’t be able to listen to it without travelling 50+km to someone else’s studio! ORIA is great for me in so many ways.
Final Thoughts
I’d recommend ORIA to anybody mixing in immersive. If you like music, you’ll like ORIA. Many artists I’m working with are already curious and want to try it too!
The ORIA audio interface is made for everybody. Not for someone who needs to geek out and spend loads of time setting everything up. You don’t have time for that if you’re a music producer. It will wreck your creative flow.
“This is plug-and-play – it just works great and sounds amazing.” ~ Max Oude Weernink
Producer & Engineer
This is plug-and-play – it just works great and sounds amazing.
Now I can get on with my plan just to produce bespoke music for artists in Dolby Atmos. I’m already starting to experiment in Dolby Atmos with my Lofi chillout music, so watch this space…
Check out Slomow on Spotify and Apple and MOW Music’s production page on Spotify and HiMood Records on Apple.
Multi-Platinum Producer Finds His Groove With Dolby Atmos
MOW Music: ORIA CASE STUDY
Website: mow-music.com
Instagram: @m.o.w_music
Max Oude Weernink – aka MOW Music – is a Billboard #1, multi-platinum producer responsible for a multitude of chart-topping records worldwide. His keen ear and cutting-edge productions with the likes of Tiësto, Gucci Mane, Yellow Claw, Ty Dolla Sign, Tyga, DJ Mustard, DIPLO, Afrojack, Lil Xan and Imanbek have amassed an impressive 2.000.000.000+ Spotify streams.
Max was one half of electronic music’s most esteemed duo, Dirtcaps and now uses his Haarlem studio complex to propel a wide range of artists onto the scene. It’s here that he co-runs his Hi.Mood label, too. As a producer he also has syncs for brands like Vodafone as well as Hollywood movies The Good Boys, Step Up and Stepsisters.
Max is also a self-confessed studio nerd whose interest in immersive audio was piqued about a year ago after hearing the chatter about Dolby Atmos from other producers and engineers. He was keen to find out more.
Here he tells Audient how ORIA is a game-changer for him, saving both time and money, as well as helping maintain his creative flow…
Before ORIA
They said I should try this thing called immersive audio and at the same time they were telling me how expensive it was! The only thing I was hearing was that you need 16 outputs from your sound card. So I decided to get on that with some cheap gear to see if it would work. It didn’t. Somebody suggested I try it on headphones. I opened Logic – because that was the first DAW that had Atmos built-in. This wasn’t giving me what I was looking for though and I still wasn’t convinced. I was like ‘Nah, if this is it, I’ll leave it!’
Then he was approached by Apple who were starting to promote Dolby Atmos and wanted him to provide his label’s substantial music library in Atmos. To help change his mind about Atmos, they invited him to an Apple studio in Amsterdam.
It was a fully-stacked, super high-spec studio and …well, I was blown away by the whole sound.
That’s when I started looking into Dolby Atmos properly. I did see some producers making it possible for themselves, but I still didn’t believe that it should cost so much. The speakers they’re using, the converters – every element was expensive. I was like ‘You can’t tell me that is all necessary.’ Then came NAMM 2024.
Discovering ORIA
ORIA was all over YouTube and kept popping up on my socials during the NAMM show. I realised that what Audient has here is the whole solution. This saves me all the money I need to save and now I can actually try Dolby Atmos for myself!
So I’m using some very nice PMC speakers at the front: left, centre and right. Then – because I’m just testing this out – I bought a bunch of Alesis MK2 passive speakers and amps from THOMANN for the rest of the room. I always used to produce with these speakers when I was young. They’re not very expensive (and sound pretty good!) and I wasn’t up for spending loads of cash on this just yet.
““I’d recommend ORIA to anybody mixing in immersive… Many artists I’m working with are already curious and want to try it too!” ~ Max Oude Weernink
Producer & Engineer
Of course the Alesis MK2 speakers don’t sound as good as the PMCs, so I need the DSP on the Audient ORIA to do its work on the MK2s. That is really helpful: I’m using that menu a lot to balance things out; adding a little high and low here and there to make them sound better. Also, the information from SoundID Reference certainly helps provide added clarity when I’m listening to my mixes.
To be honest, it sounds so good that I’m not going to change it.
In fact, I’m almost sure I have one of the least expensive Dolby Atmos setups out there. The guys from the Apple studio in Amsterdam came over to listen recently and they reckon it sounds just as good as other studios – and they’ve spent ten times what I have on mine! That felt good.
ORIA Install. Sound. Look. Feel.
It was the easiest thing ever to install. If you compare it to *** (I have three of these) they need loads of drivers. The ORIA install is very simple: you get a pop-up, install the driver and you’re good to go.
And the sound quality was fantastic from the start – far better than my *** sound cards, even.
ORIA looks great, feels sturdy and blends in with the rest of my gear very nicely. The LED screen provides visual feedback from every button press on the unit which is a nice touch. You can easily switch speaker profiles for referencing, too.
The fact it integrates with the Dolby Renderer, giving me direct control of the Down Mix functionality from the hardware or software, means I can save a lot of time.
With the latest driver update, I have everything dialled in properly, now. It sounded pretty good before but now it sounds amazing – very balanced. I’m fully into the process!
ORIA In Production
My plan is not to be a mix master engineer. I’m a producer and I want to explore the whole producing side of Dolby Atmos. I want to start a production in Dolby Atmos instead of adding it as an afterthought, like as a second step. I think if you can consider Dolby Atmos in the first step, it could be very interesting.
A mix engineer makes choices based on the production…but now I can make these choices beforehand with the artist, rather than an afterthought with a mix master engineer. And this is exciting.
Also, I am so happy to finally be able to check if a track in Dolby Atmos is right! Before, my tracks were sent in Dolby Atmos but I wouldn’t be able to listen to it without travelling 50+km to someone else’s studio! ORIA is great for me in so many ways.
Final Thoughts
I’d recommend ORIA to anybody mixing in immersive. If you like music, you’ll like ORIA. Many artists I’m working with are already curious and want to try it too!
The ORIA audio interface is made for everybody. Not for someone who needs to geek out and spend loads of time setting everything up. You don’t have time for that if you’re a music producer. It will wreck your creative flow.
“This is plug-and-play – it just works great and sounds amazing.” ~ Max Oude Weernink
Producer & Engineer
This is plug-and-play – it just works great and sounds amazing.
Now I can get on with my plan just to produce bespoke music for artists in Dolby Atmos. I’m already starting to experiment in Dolby Atmos with my Lofi chillout music, so watch this space…
Check out Slomow on Spotify and Apple and MOW Music’s production page on Spotify and HiMood Records on Apple.
Atmos just got easy
Meet ORIA, the world’s first audio interface and monitor controller designed specifically with immersive audio in mind. Built for creating immersive audio mixes for formats such as Dolby Atmos, ORIA lets you calibrate, control and monitor multi-channel speaker arrays from stereo up to 9.1.6 and everything in between. Perfect for music, film, TV, game and VR production.
Atmos just got easy
Meet ORIA, the world’s first audio interface and monitor controller designed specifically with immersive audio in mind. Built for creating immersive audio mixes for formats such as Dolby Atmos, ORIA lets you calibrate, control and monitor multi-channel speaker arrays from stereo up to 9.1.6 and everything in between. Perfect for music, film, TV, game and VR production.
