Based in the heart of East London, this unique audio post-production company has added its third Dolby Atmos suite. King Lear are a music and sound company mainly working with the advertising industry and on feature films. Founded three years ago by Sarah Giles, Edward Downham, Jack Sedgwick, and Dugal Macdiarmid. Each founder has a passion for sound that can be heard through their work and seen in their studios. The success of their work has led the team to add an impressive third suite, and to do so they reached out to HHB Communication’s team at Scrub to support the expansion. The mix suite reflects the sound-first mentality of King Lear and is an impressive addition to the post house.
The mixing suite utilises much of the same technology as the original two studios. The studio runs on Nuendo by Steinberg, co-founder Dugal Macdiarmid credits this to the customisability of the DAW, “We could build a system that worked perfectly for our workflow. Our layouts are always changing and we’re constantly chipping away to make it slightly faster, slightly better, and slightly more integrated with how we work.”
For hands on control, they once again chose to equip the room with two Avid S1s and a Dock which map well to Nuendo. The flexibility of an Avid S1 provides an ergonomic way to work, rather than a bank of faders, a mix of multiple Avid S1’s can be placed as needed. The need for Dolby Atmos enabled and certified suites was never in question for the King Lear team. From the very beginning the team has been working in Dolby Atmos and continue to see the how the demand for this format continues to expand.
Though similar to the original two suites there are some key differences. One choice that betrays the team behind King Lear as the audiophiles they are is that Studio 3 is fully equipped with the Genelec Ones Series monitors. Many studios are equipped with the Ones but it is less common to use them for the height channels.
Dugal had this to say about the choice, “We’re passionate about sound. The one thing we didn’t want to compromise on was the quality of sound, so that was always at the forefront of every decision. We have known Genelec for many years and we really like the sound, and we trust the brand to always deliver. I personally think they are second to none.”
The room was measured and balanced by a Dolby technician ensuring it met all the Dolby Atmos specifications. The team were then able to use GLM™ technology to save the filter settings and use them across their different workstations, “We tend to work in any one of the studios or remotely. No engineer is tied to a particular room, so we need to make sure that when we switch rooms, the mix is going to translate. With the Ones I can sit down and immediately know where the mix is, and it feels completely natural when I go home.”
King Lear returned to Scrub to supply, install, and support this latest studio. Greg Wheeler, Head of Sales at Scrub worked closely with Dugal and the team for each build, “It is great to help a new customer set up or upgrade their studio, but return customers are the animating force of Scrub. The people behind King Lear are great to work with and we were thrilled to be asked to work with them on Studio 3.”
“Scrub have been incredible, we’ve relied on them from day one. It was just the four of us at the start, and with everything that comes with starting a company and building studios we needed to work with a company with whom we could trust. Scrub’s expertise was invaluable, and they’ve been fantastic – they don’t just get the kit installed and walk away. They go above and beyond in terms of setup and we will continue to use them,” says co-founder Dugal.
Another unique quality to King Lear’s studio 3 is natural light the windows. Working with audio often involves long hours spent in the studio and for many that means long shifts spent in artificially lit rooms with no sun or view to the outside world. For King Lear that was untenable and thus they sought the help of Clive Glover at Munro Acoustics. The biggest challenge is that the studio is on a very busy road so ensuring a completely isolated room would be hard. Stepping into the room you can immediately hear and see the results. Munro has done an amazing job, so much so the Dolby technician who certified the room noted how balanced the room sounded. Those working in King Lear’s latest suite get to enjoy natural light and a perfectly quiet room and VO booth. The isolation is so well done it is almost disconcerting to see emergency vehicles fly down the road with flashing lights but hear nothing at all.
With each decision, whether it be audio tools, room style, or location, King Lear represents a bold player in the London audio-post-production scene. Speaking of audio technology and the company itself Dugal had this to say, “We are excited by the future, we’re still a young company but we’ve found our feet. All of us are still very passionate about technology and love finding out new ways to manipulate sound.”
