KUMA Chooses PMC Monitors For its New Dolby Atmos Teaching Facility

The Korea University of Media Arts (KUMA) has chosen a PMC monitoring system for its new Dolby Atmos studio, which is being used by students to learn mixing and mastering techniques for immersive audio.

The 7.1.4 system features PMC6-2 monitors for the left, centre and right channels; PMC8-2 monitors for low frequencies and a combination of PMC Ci65 and Ci140 monitors for the surround and heigh channels. The studio will soon have an Avid S6 console, reflecting the fact that KUMA is the first university in Korea to become an Avid learning partner.

Professor Munyeon Yoo, head of the university’s Music & Sound Technology Department, says: “As an educational institution, we felt it was important to provide students with reference points. Therefore, our aim was to construct a studio for Atmos home entertainment using monitors that were suitable for OTT and Music. Through demonstrations, we experienced PMC’s wide dispersion angle and precise monitoring capabilities. In addition, the inclusion of passive speakers for maintenance influenced the studio’s overall design.”

Located in Sejong City, KUMA is one of only three Korean universities to offer sound production courses in content production and live sound.

“What sets us apart from other universities, especially internationally, is our emphasis on sound engineering,” Professor Yoo says. “We collaborate closely with departments involving performers and artists during our classes. After graduation, our students pursue careers in various fields of the entertainment industry, such as theatre, live touring, maintenance engineering, mixing and mastering engineering, and distribution of audio equipment.”

KUMA’s Music and Sound Technology department has a total of four studios, including the Dolby Atmos room. PMC monitors are present in two other studios – an SSL Duality-equipped recording and mixing studio, which has PMC IB1S AIII stereo monitors, and an Avid S1-equipped 5.1 mastering studio, which has PMC6 monitors covering Left, Centre and Right channels.

“As an institution dedicated to training professionals, we recognized the need for appropriate educational facilities and constructed the studio to accommodate this need,” Professor Yoo adds. “To produce immersive content, sound technology is essential. Among these technologies, we aimed to swiftly adopt Dolby Atmos, which has gained significant popularity thanks to the increasing availability of devices (such as Apple products) that allow the general public to experience immersive audio.”

Professor Yoo adds that the university has already developed a 360-degree surround microphone and applied for a patent. It has also established a close relationship with Korean distributor Music Metro, which supplied the monitors and has extensive experience in building Dolby Atmos studios in collaboration with Dolby Korea.

“Music Metro, a sister company of our school, has been a leading domestic supplier of both PMC and Avid technology for several years, and we were delighted with the help we received from Music Metro Director Kim Young-sik and Technical Support Team Leader Cha Jun-yeop,” Professor Yoo says. “They placed great importance on the sequential serial numbers during the speaker acquisition process, and their active support in meeting these stringent conditions has significantly contributed to completing our system.”

To ensure that the new Dolby Atmos studio always delivers exception audio quality, Professor Yoo and his team carry out regular maintenance using Smaart.

“The PMC speakers have excellent response, allowing for sufficient calibration through the Avid MTRX Studio’s spk EQ,” he says. “The balance is so accurate with minimal deviation. We’re thrilled that a short film, which was mixed in the room, has been invited to compete at this year’s Jeonju International Film Festival. It’s particularly gratifying knowing that the results of our work in the Dolby Atmos studio can be accurately reproduced, even in a cinema theatre.”

Since the opening of the new Dolby Atmos studio, students have benefitted from a special seminar delivered by Grammy award-winning producer David Rideau and PMC’s Senior Export Business Development manager, Dan Zimbelman.

“This was a great source of inspiration for the students, and it is fulfilling to be able to provide them with such an incredible experience,” Professor Yoo says. “While we regularly invite top-class engineers from within the country for mentoring sessions, hosting top-class engineers from overseas is a first for us. Personally, I also own recordings produced by David. Such experiences will undoubtedly leave lasting memories for both myself, and the students.”

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About PMC
PMC is a UK-based, world-leading manufacturer of loudspeaker systems, the tools of choice in all ultra-critical professional monitoring applications, and also for the discerning audiophile at home, where they provide a transparent window into the recording artist’s original intentions. PMC products use the best available materials and design principles, including the company’s proprietary Advanced Transmission Line (ATL™) bass-loading technology, cutting-edge amplification and advanced DSP techniques to create loudspeakers that present sound and music exactly as it was when first created, with the highest possible resolution, and without colouration or distortion. For more information on our clients and products, see www.pmc-speakers.com.