Abbey Road Institute Mumbai Students Visit Dolby Laboratories – A Hands-On Introduction to Dolby Atmos

A recent highlight for our students was a visit to the Dolby Laboratories headquarters in Mumbai, where they experienced both theatrical and home entertainment Dolby Atmos setups and got an introduction to what it means to mix in Dolby Atmos in the real world.

We were hosted by Atharva Kulkarni, Content Engineer at Dolby Laboratories, who generously walked the group through the listening environments, the underlying concepts, and the practical mindset shift that comes with immersive audio.

Hearing the difference – theatrical vs home entertainment

The visit was structured around listening first, then unpacking why the experience feels the way it does.

In the theatrical Dolby Atmos setup, students could immediately hear how scale, headroom, and spatial translation work differently in a cinema environment – not just “more speakers”, but a fundamentally different relationship between dialogue, music, effects, and space.

In the home entertainment Dolby Atmos setup, the conversation moved towards translation and decision-making: how you retain intent when the playback environment is smaller, closer, and more variable from room to room.

A key takeaway was that immersive mixing is not about making everything move – it is about placing elements with intention so the story, groove, and emotion land consistently across formats.

An introduction to mixing in Dolby Atmos

For students who have mostly trained their ears in stereo, Dolby Atmos introduces a few important mindset changes:

• Thinking in space, not just left-right – placement becomes part of arrangement and clarity
• Prioritising translation – making choices that hold up across different playback systems
• Understanding intent – what must remain anchored, and what can be expanded to support impact
• Resisting novelty – movement and width only matter if they serve the mix

Atharv’s walkthrough helped connect these ideas to practical listening – what to focus on, what to ignore, and how to recognise when a mix is impressive versus when it is actually communicating well.

What our students took back to the studio

Beyond the technical learnings, the biggest value of a visit like this is context.

Students got to see how a major audio technology ecosystem thinks about playback, consistency, and listener experience – and how those considerations should inform creative choices upstream, during production and mix decisions.

Thank you

A sincere thank you to Atharva Kulkarni and the team at Dolby Laboratories Mumbai for hosting our students and making the session both accessible and genuinely insightful.

For prospective students

Industry visits like this are a core part of how we teach – connecting listening skills and studio technique to how the work is actually experienced in the world. If you’re considering a serious pathway into music production and audio engineering, you should expect your learning to happen in real rooms, around real workflows, with a clear focus on employable, repeatable skills.

Book a visit to our campus, a guidance call with our senior team, or speak directly to team member now on +919892937097