South Africa - As part of Nike’s annual Air Max Day celebrations this year, Method x Madness studio in Johannesburg hosted a pop-up Dolby Atmos listening experience featuring a 7.1.4 monitor layout and Audient Oria. The event gave listeners the chance to hear each of the performing artists’ new music in Dolby Atmos - mixed by the studio - whilst finding out more about the newest Air Max Dn8 shoe.
Taking place in the old Sheriff’s building, the compact listening setup comprised the Oria immersive audio interface and monitor controller and Genelec speakers. Rici from Method x Madness studio described the setup as “nice and lean. The Genelec 9301 has digital AES audio out, so Oria was the perfect audio interface to finish off the setup and make everything integrate really smoothly.”
Nike took over five venues in the Braamfontein area and threw a huge party. The ‘listening experience’ featured artists from the South African electronic music space including genres such as Amapiano, Glom, Afro-House and Afro-Tech and four artists actually in the Dolby Atmos pop-up: DBN Gogo, Shamiso, Mateki2Shoes and ZVRI. “They all loved it,” notes Rici. “For most of them it was the first time experiencing working in Dolby Atmos and they were truly amazed and excited for what this means for their production process going forward.”
It was a compact space, but audience numbers were noteworthy, and feedback positive. “We had around 250 people come through the pop-up and listen to the music. Everyone had such a great time - we had been running for two hours and I remember heading to the door and there was still a queue of people waiting for their turn to have the experience, which felt really great.”
Method x Madness has been happily using ORIA in the studio for a while. “We love it. It has been rock-solid and super easy to use with its user friendly UI. We love that it starts up super-fast and it honestly is so feature-rich for Dolby Atmos workflows,” explains Rici. “My favourite thing about it - especially for pop-up events like the Nike Air Max Day - is that on set up day, we know we can get a solid Atmos setup up and running easily, no matter what challenges the space might throw at us.”
