Meet Amol Kitwadkar | Dolby Atmos Producer & Engineer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Amol Kitwadkar and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Amol, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
No one in my family or my friend circle has ever ran a business. So this was never even a thought in my sub conscious. What I grew up with is “Study well and get a good job.” So I was running my life on autopilot with that in the back of my head. Since I was 15-16 I always wanted to be a singer. But growing up that wasn’t really a desired career option by the family. So I studied well, became an engineer like the rest of my family. The moved to the US to do my masters. I started my band Unified Diversity during grad school with the idea of bridging the gap between Indian and Western music theory. The band continued for years after I graduated and we kept doing one or two gigs every year. But years later the itch of being a musician never quite went away. Modern music industry is so complicated and so competitive that as you are starting out every musician basically has to become an entrepreneur of their own and also have to have multiple sources of income as a musician. A lot of your success in the music industry is also dependent on who you know in the industry. As we started to write more of our own music for Unified Diversity, I constantly kept thinking, how do I separate myself from the noise of 50-60 thousand songs that get released on streaming services every single year.
During the pandemic, A R Rahman, one of the best music composers from India, used to do a YouTube podcast with musicians from India and all around the world. During one of the episodes I watched in September 2020, he talked about the film, 99 Songs, which he wrote himself. He also mentioned that he composed the music for this film specifically for Dolby Atmos and there is nothing like it when you hear it in a full system. That caught my attention and I started researching more about Dolby Atmos. There weren’t very many studios that did this kind of work. So I thought having an access to a technology like Dolby Atmos would set me apart from a lot of artists. Because this technology is so new, I also thought that I could make a lot of connections through Dolby and hopefully it will all help me towards my own goal of becoming a touring artist. I also thought providing mixing and mastering services as well as film post production services through my studio would also act as an additional income source. Since we had just come out of the pandemic, I was also thinking if anything like this ever happens again and I can’t tour, maybe the studio will support me financially.
As I thought through different scenarios, logically it made all the sense.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
At Blue Marble, we strive to bring clarity, strength and the true emotion out, that artists envision for of their music. We specialize in Dolby Atmos and Stereo mixing & mastering where sound moves and breathes around you and above you.
With a combined expertise of over 30 years, we are known for our hands-on approach, working closely with each artist to make their unique vision a reality.
What makes me proud is knowing that we provide a safe space where every artist, no matter their style, feels empowered to voice their opinions so that together, we can take their art to the next level and create something that’s timeless and sounds competitive.

One of the biggest struggles we have been having is to get local artists to believe in the fact that this technology is not only for big artists signed by major labels but it’s easily accessible for their projects as well. We make sure that the price for working in Dolby Atmos format is comparable to the price for working in the traditional Stereo format. A lot of artists come to our studio for a demo, feel completely overwhelmed by this new way of consuming music, the speakers all around you and assume that this must be out of their price range and we never hear back from them.
One of the things that happened with the emergence of Dolby Atmos for music is that it proved to be a major revolution in music production and consumption in over 60 years. We went from Mono to Stereo in the 60s and didn’t really evolve further. Of course there were other multi-channel formats after that like quad and 5.1, but they never took off because the ecosystem for wider adoption wasn’t there. This is the first time in decades where all the stars have aligned for a multi channel format to take off. What I mean by that is you can experience Dolby Atmos on headphones without having to have a fancy system at home and no one has to re-purchase their music again. Because of this it felt like gold rush for audio engineers. Very few audio engineers are able to afford to install a full system at their studio because of the massive costs of multiple speakers and the required audio gear. So in the first year of this format being adopted by music streaming services, no one knew anything and a year later it felt like the audio engineers who were able to get into this format knew everything and were not able to share anything about building a studio or working in this format with someone new in the business like us. Now that I understand the complexities of building a studio for this format and also what it takes to create a good Dolby Atmos mix of a song, I understand where they were coming from. I tried reaching out to so many experienced audio engineers on LinkedIn and also over email and hardly anyone responded back and whoever did were very reluctant to get into any details. I also started reaching out to audio engineers locally, so we can explore Dolby Atmos together and most of them either didn’t think this format was ever going to take off or they did not want to spend any time dealing with a idi*t newbie like me who invested in a very expensive studio without having any prior experience in the field what so ever! I felt lost for almost the whole first year.

One thing I have learnt is that if you want to be successful, there is no alternative to hard work and striving to do better every day. But you have to define what success means to you and let no-one tell you that you cannot achieve that. There will be some moments where you will feel so lonely because you are different from everything that is happening around you. Those are the exact moments you have to trust your instincts and decide to keep going anyways. There are always some short term pleasures you have to give up on for what you have envisioned for yourself. Talk to as many people as you can, be kind and take genuine interest in those people. You never know where a conversation is going to take you.

I want people to look at me and think “Everyone told this guy that trying to make a career in Music was a stupid idea but he went for it anyways and made it happen.” I want people to know my story and have only one takeaway, “Don’t let anyone tell you that you cannot make something happen. If you believe in it, you pursue it. Everything else is noise.”
From a more practical music perspective, I want people to remember me as the guy who never stopped experimenting and pushed the boundaries of music.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
If my friend is visiting from out of town, on day 1 I would take them to the CSU campus in Fort Colins and tell them the story of what it was like to be studying there, where I worked, my classes, labs and other hang out spots. That probably could be a day in itself. I would take them to eat lunch at College Cafe and then take them for dinner and a beer at Mayor of Old Town. I love the fact that they have 100 beers on tap.
Day 2, we would do a bike ride to the Howling Cow Cafe at the Noosa factory in Bellevue. We will ride our bike on the Poudre trail and take in the magnificent views. Then probably drive to the Mishawaka for lunch and hike to the Gray Rock.
Day 3 we will take it easy and only do a walk around old town Fort Collins in the evening, get a beer at New Belgium and Odells and get dinner at one of the amazing restaurants. Also get some ice cream from Kilwins.
Day 4, we would do a Denver day. Walk around donwtown Denver, RiNo. Possibly go to Denver Aquarium and Zoo. There are so many incredible restaurants and coffee shops in Denver now.
Day 5 could be driving along I-7o to one of the mountain town. Take a lunch break in Breckenridge and get some crepes at the famous crepe stand there, walk around some more. Take the gondola up the ski resort and spend some time.
Day 6 could be a hike to the Hanging Lake followed by a dip in the hot springs in Glenwood Springs.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I cannot thank my wife enough for the sacrifices and compromises she has had to make and also her constant support and companionship through all the emotional and financial struggles. I am very fortunate to have a business partner like Godfrey. I would not even have begun to think that this crazy idea could be a reality! He is incredible at providing me perspective to make the right decisions.

Altough my mom and my sister live all the way in India, they provided constant encouragement. I have to give all the credits to three of our engineers Russick Smith, Ian Kelsall and Maximos Hunter. We could not have been where we are without their support and hard work. I also want to thank our friends at Vivian and BBMC as they were some of the very first people to give us a chance to mix their music in Dolby Atmos. I would like to mention the very few people that helped us out to get to where we are today.
Karma Auger and Erich Gobel of Studio1LA, Los Angeles.
Brian Lucey of Magic Garden Mastering, Los Angeles.
Jonathan Luginbill of The Blasting Room, Fort Collins.
Ceri Thomas of Apple Spatial Audio, formerly Dolby.
Emma Brooks, Jonathan Lessner, Greg Chin and Erin Venables of Dolby.
Shawn Deeley of Sweetwater Studios, Fort Wayne.
Jonathan Garcia, Cincinatti.
Stefan Bock of MSM Studios, Germany.
Steven Ghouti of Yellow Cab Studios, France.
Matt Boudreau of Working Class Audio, San Francisco.

Website: https://www.bluemarblesound.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theatmosstudio/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100086455568387

Image Credits
ShutterJay Photo