It’s always good to check in with mixer/ producer/educator Rick Camp. While best known as an A-list FOH engineer for the likes of Snoop Dogg, Destiny’s Child, Beyonce and many others, he also has a foot in music recording, audio postproduction and live sound education. For the past couple of years, he has been working in Dolby Atmos across all those markets.
When we last checked in with Camp in December 2020, he had just finished installation of a 7.1.4 monitor system in the main studio at his Master Mix Live facility in Las Vegas, based around a few rather unconventional choices from live sound: K-Array Kayman and Python speakers for LCR and the sides, with Tectonic PL 11 flat-panel units on the ceiling and ISP Technologies XMAX 218 dual 18-inch subs. A DirectOut Technologies Prodigy MP processor handles all signal routing, speaker management and Ravenna, MADI and Dante networking.
Focusrite, SSL Team for System T Control of RedNet MP8R
During the past year, however, while watching the rapid rise in Dolby Atmos Music mixing and the first small steps of Atmos Live in venues, he realized that he needed a new console that would work across any project for any type of distribution. After exhaustive research, he purchased a 48-fader SSL System T S300-48, a console marketed primarily for the broadcast industry but quickly finding its way into other types of production.
“I had maxed out my setup when I started mixing in Dolby Atmos, to the point that I just had to mix in the box,” Camp says. “That’s not my thing. I’ve always been a fader kind of guy; I’ve always been an SSL fan, from back in the ’70s, and last summer I started talking to them and reading up on the System. They loaned me one for about two or three months, and I fell in love with it. I thought, ‘This is the console for doing Dolby Atmos.’ It has a 7.1.4 bus, and no other console does that.
“My signal flow is out of Pro Tools digitally into SSL Matrix converters, which flips to MADI,” he explains. “Then I take MADI into the System T, and the System T flips it to Dante. Then it goes into the Dolby renderer, into my Beds or Object tracks, so I can use all of the processing on the console. I’m not in the box anymore.”
