Legendary mix engineer Kevin Madigan joins us to discuss his pioneering work helping create Santana’s live Dolby Atmos residency at House of Blues in Las Vegas and what it takes to reimagine one of rock’s most iconic sounds for a live audience. He also reflects on his work at Larrabee Studios in Los Angeles, building out the Dolby Atmos® room and mixing music from Santana’s landmark album “Supernatural.”

“The music felt 3D and you were immersed in it. And we do have a lot of elements to do that with the Santana band and within the music. There’s a lot of percussion, keyboards, B3, congas… So, bringing that out into an immersive feeling [for] the audience was kind of easy to do! And if there was cool moves to do at certain points in a song… it can do a rotation around the audience. It’s a really cool moment for the audience, but it’s not distracting, it’s not gimmicky… The audience got used to it pretty quick. It just sounded like a huge, immersive mix that’s really engaging and magnetic and draws the audience into the song.”

—Kevin Madigan, FOH Mix Engineer, Santana

Stay connected!

- Listen to Kevin Madigan's mixes of tracks from Santana's “Supernatural” album, as well as many other classic and contemporary artists in Dolby Atmos, on enabled streaming services.

Interested in creating content in Dolby Atmos? Check out our FREE resources to give you a jump start!

- Dolby Atmos Music Accelerator: https://www.dolby.com/creator-lab/music-accelerator/

- Dolby Atmos Essentials Course: https://learning.dolby.com/

- Dolby Atmos Music Support: https://professional.dolby.com/music/Professional-resources/

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Composer Daniel Pemberton returns to Dolby Creator Talks to discuss his inventive new original score for “Project Hail Mary.” In conversation with guest host Jon Burlingame, Pemberton breaks down how he built a custom musical language for the film using everything from wooden blocks, body percussion, treated vocals, bowls of water, and even a squeaky water tap recorded on his iPhone. He also reflects on balancing the film’s vast sci-fi scale with its intimate emotional core, and how experimentation, failure, and discovery shaped one of his most ambitious scores yet.

“Developing all your own sounds… I call it mixing your own paints. You've basically spend a long time mixing paint colors rather than buying it off the shelf. And that's how you get stuff that feels very original, like this. And I've got millions of these and most of them don't work. You spend ages when you experiment. When you have time to fail, you have time to create ... Hopefully there'll be something in there that'll work.”

—Daniel Pemberton, Composer, “Project Hail Mary”

Be sure to check out “Project Hail Mary” now in theaters in Dolby Vision® and Dolby Atmos®.

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You can also check out the video for this episode on YouTube.

Learn more about the Dolby Creator Lab and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.

Getting a project made in the entertainment industry can be a mystifying process. But one thing is for sure: nothing would happen without the Hollywood assistants who help champion them and assist (and, yes, sometimes cajole) the executives into getting a green light. To help shed some light on all this, filmmaker Carlos López Estrada hosts another insightful Satellite Session, featuring a panel of top executives, producers, agents, and assistants, to explain how Hollywood assistants work, and why they are so essential to the entertainment industry. As well as how it could be a pathway “in,” for those of you aspiring to build a career here yourselves.

Joining the discussion:

- Abhijay Prakash – President of Blumhouse

- Keenen Kunsh – Assistant to Abhijay Prakash, Blumhouse

- Christina Chou – Motion Picture Literary Agent, CAA

- Brendan Kim – Assistant to Christina Chou, CAA

- Mindy Ramaker – Creative Producer and Former Assistant to David Lynch

- Caroline Tsai – Assistant to Jenn Han (“The Summer I Turned Pretty”)

This is another installment of our ongoing “Satellite Sessions” series, which we’re bringing to you in partnership with Antigravity Academy and the Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment.

Follow @antigravityacademy and @capeusa for more information on even more upcoming panels.

Antigravity Academy

CAPE (Coalition of Asian Pacifics in Entertainment)

For more inspiring Satellite Sessions just like this one, be sure you are subscribed to Dolby Creator Talks wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also check out the video for this episode on YouTube.

Learn more about the Dolby Creator Lab and check out Dolby.com. Connect with Dolby on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn.