Atmos composing & mix room with vast synth collection features Focal Solo6 LCR, Alpha 65 Evo surround and height, and Sub6 subwoofer
Montreal, Canada — May 13, 2025 — Composer, synthesizer expert, and modular synthesis educator Chris Meyer has completed his purpose-built 7.1.4 all-Focal Dolby® Atmos™ studio. The studio has two distinct sections, one for composing and one for mixing. The 7.1.4 Atmos mixing area features Focal Solo6 for LCR, Alpha 65 Evo for the surrounds and height speakers, and a Focal Sub6 subwoofer. The rehearsal and tracking area utilizes a ‘quadraphonic’ arrangement of Alpha 80 Evo monitors, which mirrors the artist’s preferred live performance setup. The new personal studio space is built on top of the garage footprint in his Pueblo-style home in New Mexico and was specifically designed for Atmos. The new 670 square foot room with expansive windows and storage took over a year to plan and build.
When his mastering engineer, who was using Focal Solo6, suggested Meyer try them out, he did and realized, “I was hearing details I had never heard in my music before. I was instantly sold that there is indeed a difference when you go upscale in speakers. What I love about the Focal monitors is that they’re neutral,” adds Meyer. “They don’t have any falsely hyped bass. They don’t have any harsh highs in the name of being bright. They’re just a neutral, truthful monitor that I can trust. I hear details in the Solo6s I’ve never heard from other speakers. And that really helps me when I’m programming new sounds from scratch on synthesizers to make sure that I’m getting the blend of harmonic content that I really want.”
The studio “took a bit of an arranging of where it was going to be on the property to fit inside the building regulations for our neighborhood,” he reveals. “The height of the room basically determined where all of the speakers were going to be. I have what’s called an equidistant layout where all the speakers are the same distance from my listening position. I’ve gone to extremes to cut down early reflections, not to destroy the spatial field. Even the way that I had the speakers mounted is to cut down reflections,” says Meyer. The immersive monitor systems are controlled with an Audient ORIA that allows Meyer’s Sonarworks SoundID studio calibration software tables to be downloaded directly into the controller unit.
Meyer grew up wanting to play music but instead became an engineer and entered the music industry helping design and build iconic synthesizers at Sequential Circuits, where Meyer took over from the company’s founder Dave Smith in developing the MIDI specification, plus invented Vector Synthesis. Meyer’s first commercial synthesizer was a used Electrocomp EML 101 from Electronic Music Labs, an early American synthesizer that was semi-modular like an ARP 2600, with four oscillators. “People who were doing noise-based music like Pere Ubu were using Electrocomp synths back in the early 1970s and 80s,” notes Meyer.
Today he records and performs original synth music as ‘Chris Meyer’s Alias Zone’ and has released three albums and is now working on an Atmos immersive release in his new studio. His latest album “Finite Space” follows the “Water Stories” and “We Only Came to Dream” releases.
As a modular synthesis expert, Meyer also has an educational angle to his work in the music industry, his “Learning Modular” website and synthesis courses. “I remember what it was like to be a new synth user myself when I was a teenager and just realized you had to go to ground zero and just start from the very basics and learn from the ground up. And that’s where my online courses, glossary, and other information on my website, Learning Modular, came from. I take people by the hand and teach them how to use these modular synth instruments because that education is not readily available today.”
Immersive music is the future Meyer feels, especially for synthesizers, “I’m definitely thinking about the spatial mix when I’m working on music, partially because I found that working in spatial audio adds a lot of clarity to the mix. You don’t need to cram all these sounds down two speakers. Separating the sound out among multiple speakers – or multiple points in space – just helps add a clarity to multi-layered music that you can’t get out of stereo.”
“Music has become my encore career in life,” states Meyer, “after being an engineer and an educator and a computer graphics artist. I’m finally back doing what I wanted to do when I was a kid, create music.”
Find “Chris Meyer’s Alias Zone” synth music here: aliaszone.com
Explore Chris Meyer’s “Learning Modular” educational offerings at: learningmodular.com
Visit North American distributor Focal Naim America at: focalnaimamerica.com
About Focal Naim America
Born from the merger of Focal, a world leader in acoustic sound made in France, and Naim Audio, a world leader in British-made Hi-Fi electronics, VerVent Audio Group’s brand subsidiaries signal a new investment phase and direction for VerVent in the US and Canada. By creating its own distribution entity, the group is striving to turn the North American territory into the market leader for Focal and Naim. Focal Naim America also distributes Vicoustic, and Musical Fidelity. For more information about Focal Naim America visit their website at focalnaimamerica.com or call (800)-663-9352.
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