Douglas Battle on SoundBetter

Recently co-mixed Stewart Copeland's (The Police) 'Police Beyond Borders' in both stereo and Sony 360 - alongside 2x Best Immersive Album Grammy-winners Herbert Waltl and Eric Schilling.

I spent the last several years cutting my teeth as an assistant to several of the top Dolby Atmos and Sony 360 mixers in the world - recently contributing as an assistant to one project that is currently nominated for the this year's Best Immersive Album Grammy.

My experience as an assistant to many of the greats has shaped my radical yet musical approach to immersive mixing. I always strive to take full advantage of the creative possibilities offered by immersive formats as I believe these formats - when used properly - can enable artists to achieve fully achieve their creative vision without compromise.

Whether mixing in stereo, Dolby Atmos, or Sony 360, it's always a joy to help bring an artist's creative vision to its full realization. I'd love to hear your music, learn about the vision for your project, and begin a conversation on how we can collaborate in achieving the sound you hear in your head.

Please contact me through the green "Contact" button above, and let's get to work!

Would love to hear from you. Click the contact button above to get in touch.

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Interview with Douglas Battle

Q: Tell us about your studio setup.
A: If I'm in the studio, I'm in a Dolby Atmos room with 7 x Neumann KH 420 mains, 2 x Neumann KH 870 subwoofers, and 5 x Neumann KH 310 height speakers as well as 4 x Neumann KH 120 height, and 3 x KH310 floor speakers (Sony 360). My home setup is completely in the box featuring a plethora of plugins from Universal Audio, FabFilter, Waves, and many other great plugin companies. Almost all of the mixers I look up to work entirely in the box with the same tools and techniques. Neumann MT48 is my interface because of it's crazy good converters and my home speaker setup is currently the Neumann KH 150s. I rotate between a number of high end headphones and have learned to use those as a reference regularly as such a large number of listeners are listening exclusively through cans.
Q: What other musicians or music production professionals inspire you?
A: I listen to a wide array of genres and consequently have lots of influences. One example is Illangelo's work on The Weeknd's After Hours album. He took such an intentional and manual approach to each sound. I can tell when a producer or an engineer is cutting corners and am inspired by those that go above and beyond to set their work apart.
Q: Tell us about a project you worked on you are especially proud of and why. What was your role?
A: In 2020, I wrote, produced, and recorded my own EP. Seeing my own vision come to life inspired me to leverage my gifts toward helping artists do the same.
Q: If you were on a desert island and could take just 5 pieces of gear, what would they be?
A: Assuming all cables are included, I would take a specced out MacBook Pro with all plug-ins loaded into it (FabFilter only if I get one brand), a Neumann MT48, a Chandler REDD Mic (love it's versatility), and 2 Neumann KH420s, Honestly living on an island with these things sounds ideal.
Q: What was your career path? How long have you been doing this?
A: I began producing in GarageBand as a 5th grader. By 8th grade I was recording and editing in Pro Tools. After over 15 years of home recording growing up, I stepped into the professional recording world with my own EP in 2020. That's when I fell in love with the process of doing the little things to make a home recording sound polished and professional. I started out as a recording engineer, self-taught Dolby Atmos as soon as Apple began to popularize the format, and the rest is history.
Q: What's your strongest skill?
A: Attention to detail. I am committed to every millisecond of every song I play a part in and will go above and beyond to help a recording achieve its potential.