Immersive Design Labs Demonstrates Direct-to-Immersive Capture at The Village Studios in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, CA, February 26, 2026 — During NAMM week, Immersive Design Labs (IDL) hosted an immersive audio showcase at The Village Recording Studios, bringing together artists, engineers, producers, and industry professionals for an evening of live performances, Atmos listening sessions, and a panel discussion featuring Willy Porter, Mai Bloomfield, Justin Gray, Ryan Ulyate, and immersive audio consultant Ceri Thomas. The program centered on IDL’s direct-to-immersive recording approach using its 7.0.4 Immersive Recording Array and microphones.
While immersive mixing has been at the center of industry conversation for several years, immersive capture has largely remained the domain of more experimental workflows. The panel examined how immersive music can be captured at the source and how that shift influences artistic decision-making, benefiting both the creative process and ultimately the music itself.
The IDL 7.0.4 Immersive Recording Array was developed to support that approach. Built around eleven calibrated omni microphones arranged in a spatial configuration, the system captures the full acoustic sound field during live performance. Throughout the event, demonstrations and immersive listening sessions showed how this method preserves artistic intent by keeping performance and arrangement decisions at the center of the recording.
For Porter and Bloomfield, recording in this format shifted how they approached performing within the space, with the acoustics becoming an active instrument. It influenced how parts were divided between players and how subtle dynamic changes translated once heard back in immersive playback.
“When we went into the booth and heard it back, I had goosebumps. I was crying. I felt the music. The lightest touch on the bow was massive through the surround, and that blew my mind,” Bloomfield said.
Porter noted that the experience changed how he prepared and arranged the music prior to the performance session.
“It really brought pre-production to the forefront. Being able to rehearse and work on dynamic range, and decide who was covering which frequency range, meant that when we captured something live, it was as full a photograph as we could make it.”
Grammy-winning immersive mixer and composer Justin Gray discussed how immersive recording encourages spatial decisions to be made during tracking, allowing placement and balance to become part of the composition itself rather than adjustments made later in the process.
“The idea of capturing every single layer according to the way it was composed in space is what makes recording with an immersive array so exciting for me.” If I know the brass are behind me, I can record them that way. I can place them behind the array and capture the reflections in the space according to where they’re supposed to be, because nothing can reproduce the micro timing of a real moment.”
Gray emphasized that technology should remain in service of the music, noting, “The intent must come first, and the technology should always serve that intent. When it does, that’s when you get magic.”
While Gray focused on compositional intent, immersive audio consultant Ceri Thomas placed the discussion in a broader historical context, arguing that immersive sound is not a new invention but a return to how humans have always listened.
“Sound has never been two-dimensional,” Thomas said, noting that stereo is “an artificial format” layered onto a fundamentally three-dimensional listening experience. For him, immersive recording restores the primacy of story and emotion, allowing technology to transmit performance more faithfully rather than impose a format onto it.
Producer and immersive mixer Ryan Ulyate emphasized that immersive formats expand the creative canvas for arrangement and sound design.
“In stereo, you’ve got a bunch of instruments fighting each other in two speakers,” he said. “In immersive, you’ve just got more room — a bigger canvas to paint on.”
For Ulyate, the additional spatial depth allows dense textures and environmental elements to coexist without compromising clarity, reinforcing the idea that immersive recording is not simply about format but about dimensional storytelling.
Ulyate also pointed to playback environments as a critical part of the immersive equation. Drawing a parallel to the traditional “car test” for stereo mixes, he described recent experiences listening to immersive recordings in properly tuned automotive systems, where spatial depth and placement translated in a way that felt immediate and communal. For him, the success of immersive recording depends not only on how music is captured, but on how faithfully that spatial information is reproduced in real-world environments.
The event reinforced the idea that immersive sound is shaped during performance, influencing how music is prepared, arranged, and ultimately experienced.
To watch the full panel discussion, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gP5brX7gcM
About Immersive Design Labs
Immersive Design Labs (IDL) is redefining the future of immersive audio by grounding its products, methodologies, techniques, and research in the core principles of sound physics and human psychoacoustics. The company’s approach merges cutting-edge technology with a deep understanding of how humans perceive sound, creating innovative solutions for the next generation of immersive audio experiences.
To learn more about Immersive Design Labs and its approach to immersive recording, visit www.immersivedesignlabs.com
Hunter Williams
