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Tucked away in the Hollywood hills in a cozy 1920s-era house, Mi Casa is dedicated to the art of preparing feature films and music for the home theater surround sound experience. The brainchild of producer/engineer/synthesist Robert Margouleff and musician/engineer Brant Biles, Mi Casa opened in 1997. Since then, it's evolved into a three-studio complex with an enviable, genre-crossing track record. Today, Mi Casa encompasses the full spectrum of audio for Blu-ray, DVD and digital delivery providing everything from original soundtrack restoration and, where necessary, additional production, to remixing and finishing in surround for such supplemental materials as deleted scenes, commentaries, documentaries, games, and menus.
From its inception, Mi Casa has specialized in high quality. To that end its all-digital studios are equipped with four Sony DMX R-100 consoles and a sophisticated recording, editing and restoration system that encompasses SADiE, Pro Tools and Sony technology.
The Mi Casa facility is a unique environment where the aesthetics of the company are reflected in the painstaking restoration and retrofitting of the Spanish Revival-style building which houses it. Inside, ambience blends with acoustics to create three discrete and distinctly contemporary "living room" listening experiences.
"Home theater is a very different animal than the movie theater," notes Margouleff, a Grammy Award winner, known for the four records he made with Stevie Wonder, including the classic Innervisions. "What we've created here are three typical, but different, listening environments. Each room has its own unique monitoring system, and we make sure that the end result works in all three rooms."
Margouleff's interest in surround sound dates back to the mid '70s and his work with the avant-garde artists of that era. With the advent of 5.1, both he and Biles were quick to see the format's potential for music and soundtrack mixing. "I started listening to DVDs, and they all sounded horrendous," he explains. "They were direct transfers trying to duplicate the movie house experience. I found it very frustrating, because I knew what the capabilities were. We started talking to movie companies, and were fortunate to develop a relationship with New Line Cinema, a company that wants every disc of theirs to represent the finest solution possible. Directors, realizing the difference we could make, started getting involved, then other companies quickly followed."
"For current films, we remix basically from stems," explains Biles. "But, even with carefully produced stems, you'd be surprised at the amount of noise and dropouts that can occur in the original material. You often don't hear these things in the theater. But when your monitors are six to ten feet away at ear level, the whole environment is different, especially in the surrounds. We take all of this into account. The result is not an imitation of a movie house. It's a different, much more detailed experience."
For Mi Casa's restoration projects, the process of tracking down original source material comes first. Next is cleaning and restoration with SADiE's Cedar Tools and Retouch programs. Additional sound design, such as the completion of deleted scenes with music and effects, is added where needed. The content, either from stems or from original sources, is then remixed to provide the best possible surround experience. Supplemental materials are also remixed, level matched, and finished in surround, and the whole package is encoded for Dolby and/or DTS. Mi Casa also provides new M and Es (Music and Effects stems) for creation of foreign language releases.
Noted architect John Storyk, with input from Margouleff and Biles, designed Mi Casa's studios, which are regularly voiced by world renowned acoustician Robert Hodas. Biles is responsible for overall technical design, with main construction by carpenter/musician Tony Clearwater and wiring infrastructure by Paul Cox and Company.
Studio A, the largest suite, features two "cascading" Sony DMX R100 consoles, with a Sony SIU100 AES/MADI interface for a total of 106 digital inputs and 48 analog inputs. Monitoring in A is on a Genelec 1032A system with a JBL 4645B 18-inch subwoofer. Studios B and C have single R100s; B is equipped with the innovative Geithain Model RL 903K monitors, and C with Genelec Model 1030As. Other equipment includes TC Electronic 6000 signal processors, Orion Junger mastering compression, and Z-System routers.
"What we are doing here is truly the convergence of motion pictures, television and audiophile audio," comments Margouleff. "The home theater platform is where all of them reside. At Mi Casa, we understand the importance of properly integrating all the audio elements for Blu-ray, DVD or digital delivery. We never take what we do for granted, and we never sacrifice quality for expediency. When people come to us, it's because of the audiophile level with which we treat their projects."
