Dweezil Zappa inside Hikari Studios with his ATM monitors. Photo Credit: Timothy Kuratek
Guitar hero, and son of elder Frank, Dweezil Zappa designed and built Hikari Studios from the ground up “in a secret location” in Los Angeles. Hikari is equipped with a 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos monitoring system composed entirely of ATC monitors: three ATC SCM45A monitors at LCR; eight ATC SCM12 Pro monitors at sides, back, and height; and five ATC SCM0.1/15ASL subwoofers (three across the front and two in back). You could say Zappa is at the vanguard of the immersive audio movement, recognizing it both for its limitless creative possibilities and for its ability to generate revenue streams for independent musicians outside of the current rent-a-song paradigm.
Giant racks of the world’s most coveted analog gear interface with the DAW via a 512 I/O analog router with instant digital recall, and the live room layout and acoustics are a dream come true. Integrated video production facilities make it easy to create professional documentaries on the magic behind the music creation process.Hikari Studios is one of the few that is set up to allow musicians to record in immersive audio from the very beginning. “You can plan the immersive experience for the listener and hear how it’s developing as you create it,” Zappa said. “It’s like an audio movie. You can choose the way something builds, where it’s supposed to go, where it’s supposed to take you. It’s a spatial drama, and you can plan for phrases and movements of a song. They can have themes, like certain instruments enter at certain places at certain times or move in certain ways. From the start, it sounds natural and purposeful because it was only ever designed to be that way. It’s not just a re-imagining of a stereo reference.”
DZ's artist-centered music platform, www.rewardmusic.com – which gives 100% of every sale to any artist who chooses to use it – is set up to handle multi-channel immersive audio formats like Dolby Atmos and Ambisonics. Artists stand to benefit from immersive audio both as a way to repackage legacy material and as a way to create entirely new songs in a format that sells directly to fans. Hikari Studios is set up for both of those modalities.