The next step was to experience a professional Dolby Atmos system in person, so we visited the PMC showroom in London for a demonstration of their immersive monitoring room.

I already knew the room was going to sound impressive. PMC manufacture some exceptional monitoring systems, so even in stereo there was little doubt that the experience would be good. But Dolby Atmos was something completely different.

Heff from PMC talked us through the system before we sat in the listening position. One of the first tracks played was Imagine Dragons' Believer, a song I knew extremely well.

Almost immediately it felt different. When the chorus arrived, the scale of the presentation completely changed. Instead of simply listening to music coming from speakers in front of us, we were sitting inside the production.

The emotional impact genuinely surprised me. It was one of those rare moments where hearing music through a new format completely changes your perception of what is possible.

We left the showroom and headed to a nearby restaurant with the SX Pro team. Over lunch, we started pricing the system, discussing the room and working out a realistic schedule for the build.

There was then roughly a month between committing to the project and beginning construction. After hearing Atmos properly, going back to stereo alone suddenly felt incredibly restrictive.

Eventually the build date arrived. We completely cleared the room and coordinated equipment deliveries with SX Pro so that each stage could happen at the right time while keeping studio downtime to an absolute minimum.

A professional Dolby Atmos studio requires extremely careful planning. Speaker locations, listening position, angles and room dimensions all have to work together correctly.

We designed the studio around the required geometry and worked to extremely tight tolerances throughout the build. Measurements were checked repeatedly because mistakes made during construction would become considerably more difficult to correct once the speakers, acoustic treatment and fabric walls were installed.

Construction started by effectively building a room within the existing room. A new isolated floor was installed before constructing all four internal walls.

The structure used OSB board with approximately a 100 mm cavity filled with acoustic mineral wool, followed by a layer of 18 mm MDF. This created a substantial internal shell designed to significantly reduce the amount of sound escaping from the studio.

The ceiling was constructed using a similar principle to the walls and floor, with additional consideration given to the overhead speaker positions.

Voids had to be incorporated into the structure so that the ceiling speakers could eventually sit in the correct locations. At the same time, we ran the wiring for six lights that would later sit between the acoustic ceiling clouds.

The ceiling was then boarded using 12 mm OSB. We deliberately chose OSB rather than heavier MDF to reduce the overall load on the ceiling structure while still creating the solid construction we needed.

Next came one of the most physically demanding parts of the entire project: installing Tecsound across the walls.

Tecsound is a dense acoustic membrane used to improve sound isolation. It is extremely effective, but it is also incredibly heavy. Much of this stage was completed by myself, so the material had to be cut into manageable sections before being installed.

Every wall was covered to create another layer within the isolation system.

With the acoustic membrane installed, the room-within-a-room shell was completed with acoustic plasterboard.

Because another acoustic structure would eventually sit in front of these walls, the finish didn't need to be visually perfect. This allowed us to reuse some remaining plasterboard from previous studio builds.

The walls and ceiling were completely covered and sealed, effectively sandwiching the Tecsound between the plasterboard and the solid structure behind it.

With the isolated shell complete, we could move on to the more enjoyable part of the project: constructing the internal acoustic treatment.

We started with three large acoustic ceiling clouds. Two run along either side of the room, while the third runs through the centre above the listening position.

Channels were deliberately left between the clouds to accommodate the overhead Dolby Atmos speakers.

Once the clouds were built, we could finish the ceiling, paint the structure and install the lighting.

Four dedicated openings were left for the overhead speaker brackets. These positions were carefully incorporated into the ceiling so that the speakers could be suspended at the correct height and angle relative to the listening position.

At this point the room finally started to feel like a studio rather than a construction site.

Acoustic underlay was installed before laying the carpet. Once the carpet went down, the days of covering the room in sawdust and wood chippings were over and we had to start treating the space like a finished environment.

SX Pro went the extra mile during this stage of the project. The main speaker delivery was still a few days away, but we needed the physical cabinets in the room so we could accurately construct the surrounding frames.

Although we had the published dimensions, having the actual speakers available meant there was no guesswork whatsoever.

Dale arrived with PMC CI140 and CI65 monitors so we could temporarily position them, check every measurement and build the structures around the real cabinets.

We could now mark the speaker positions on the walls and begin constructing the frames.

This was one of my favourite stages of the project. It required a considerable amount of measuring and calculation because the frame dimensions and speaker angles all needed to correspond precisely with the listening position.

The easiest approach would have been to place the monitors on conventional speaker stands. We wanted something much more integrated.

Our aim was to create a room where the monitoring system felt like part of the architecture, with the speakers positioned within large fabric-covered acoustic walls.

That meant constructing sections of the room at specific angles so every monitor could be aimed accurately towards the listening position while remaining visually integrated into the studio.

With the frames complete, Dale arrived with the remaining PMC speakers. SX Pro personally delivered the system and stayed to help us begin getting everything into position.

After a long day of building and installation, we stopped for a well-earned break before continuing with the remaining speakers.

The next stage made one of the biggest visual differences to the room. We began wrapping the acoustic structures in fabric and permanently securing the speakers in their final positions.

Until this point, the room had still looked like a complex construction project. Once the fabric started going on, the finished studio suddenly became much easier to visualise.

We continued working our way around the room, installing more speakers and finishing each section of the acoustic walls.

This was the point where I remember standing back and thinking, “Wow, this looks unreal.”

We started adding the finishing trims to cover the joins in the acoustic fabric, along with the plasterboard sections that would eventually house the integrated lighting.

The room was now approaching completion. The main structure, acoustic walls and surround speakers were all in place.

All that remained was to finish the trims, install the overhead speakers and move on to the control surface, amplification and final system setup.

Then came the day we had been waiting for: getting the system operational and finally hearing the completed room.

One of the first jobs was assembling the Avid S4 control surface. Dale from SX Pro came down again to help connect the speakers to the amplification and configure the monitoring system.

The S4 installation went surprisingly smoothly. We initially positioned the master module slightly differently, but once everything was wired Dale suggested moving it one position to create more practical desk space for the mouse and MacBook.

It was a small change, but exactly the sort of detail that makes a difference when you're working in the room every day.

With the ceiling speakers installed, the monitoring system connected and the Avid S4 operational, the room was finally ready.

After weeks of planning and around two weeks of physical construction, we could finally sit in the listening position, open Pro Tools and begin working in Dolby Atmos.

A project of this scale isn't something you complete alone, and there were several people who played an important part in getting the studio built, equipped and operational.