Los Angeles, CA (March 3, 2026)—An event at the Village Recording Studios hosted by Immersive Design Labs (IDL) during NAMM week offered an evening of live performances, Atmos listening sessions and a panel discussion
The program centered on IDL’s direct-to-immersive recording approach using its 7.0.4 immersive recording array and microphones. Built around 11 calibrated omni microphones arranged in a spatial configuration, the system captures the acoustic sound field during live performance. Throughout the event, demonstrations and immersive listening sessions showed how this method preserves artistic intent by keeping performance and arrangement decisions at the center of the recording.
While immersive mixing has been at the center of industry conversation for several years, immersive capture has largely remained the domain of more experimental workflows. The panel—comprising Willy Porter, Mai Bloomfield, Justin Gray, Ryan Ulyate and immersive audio consultant Ceri Thomas—examined how immersive music can be captured at the source and how that shift influences artistic decision-making, benefiting both the creative process and ultimately the music itself.
• Grammy-Winning Producer/Engineer Talks Immersive Miking
Porter, a musician, noted that the experience changed how he prepared and arranged the music prior to the performance session: “It really brought pre-production to the forefront. Being able to rehearse and work on dynamic range, and decide who was covering which frequency range, meant that when we captured something live, it was as full a photograph as we could make it.”
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Grammy-winning immersive mixer and composer Justin Gray discussed how immersive recording encourages spatial decisions to be made during tracking, allowing placement and balance to become part of the composition itself rather than adjustments made later in the process. “The idea of capturing every single layer according to the way it was composed in space is what makes recording with an immersive array so exciting for me.”
Producer, immersive mixer and songwriter Ulyate emphasized that immersive formats expand the creative canvas for arrangement and sound design. The additional spatial depth allows dense textures and environmental elements to coexist without compromising clarity, reinforcing the idea that immersive recording is not simply about format but about dimensional storytelling.