Recording · Mixing · Immersive audio · Berkeley, CA

Fool's Gold Studios

Feel at home in your audio process.

A 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos control room and a 450 square foot live room, a few blocks from North Berkeley BART. Bands, labels, game studios and anyone who needs a mix that works in more than two channels.

Plan view of the 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos control room Overhead diagram showing seven ear-level speakers, one subwoofer and four height speakers arranged around a central listening position. SWEET SPOT L C R LFE Lss Rss Lrs Rrs Ltf Rtf Ltr Rtr

7.1.4 — 7 ear level · 1 LFE · 4 height

Control room
7.1.4 Dolby Atmos
System
Pro Tools HDX2 + Carbon
Live room
450 sq ft, 5–8 piece
Getting here
North Berkeley BART

01 — Services

What we do here

Full-service from tracking to delivery, in stereo or immersive. Day rates and project rates both available — tell me what you're making and I'll quote it honestly.

Recording

Live band tracking in a room that fits five to eight players, with everyone hearing themselves properly.

  • 40-input Pro Tools Ultimate
  • Hearback, 7 personal monitors
  • Full backline provided
  • Foley and sound effects capture

Mixing

Stereo and immersive mixes for local and international artists. Attended or remote, your call.

  • Stereo, 5.1, 7.1
  • Dolby Atmos delivery
  • Recalls included
  • Reference mixes within 48 hours

Production

Arrangement, additional instrumentation and a second set of ears on a record that's stalled.

  • Pre-production and arrangement
  • Session guitar, keys and vocals
  • Horn and string charts
  • Programming and sound selection

Mastering

Finishing for release, with immersive masters prepared alongside the stereo where you need both.

  • Stereo and Atmos masters
  • Streaming-platform delivery
  • Sequencing and spacing
  • Revisions on request

02 — Immersive

Dolby Atmos, done in a real room

Plenty of people will sell you an Atmos mix made on headphones with a binaural renderer. This is a purpose-built 7.1.4 control room — seven ear-level speakers, four heights, and a sub — running Pro Tools HDX2 with a Carbon interface and preamps from Avid, Focusrite and Universal Audio.

That matters because immersive mixing is a spatial problem. You can approximate it in a virtual monitoring plug-in, but you can't hear whether an object actually sits above the listener until you put it there in a room and stand underneath it.

I mix Atmos for local and international artists, and I'm an alpha and beta tester for Avid, Krotos Audio, Plug-in Alliance, Sound Radix and SynchroArts — which means the tooling here tends to be a version or two ahead of general release.

Immersive one-stop shop

Composition, sound design, recording and mixing under one roof, delivered in Atmos. If you've got a stereo record you want brought into immersive, or a project that needs to be built that way from the start, both work.

Talk about an Atmos mix

03 — Game audio

Sound design & composition for games

Sound design, original score, implementation and session guitar for interactive projects. Wwise and FMOD literate, and I teach both.

Double Fine Kiln 2026 · Session guitar
Originator Inc Endless Learning Academy — Back to School DLC 2022 · Sound design, composition
Originator Inc Endless Learning Academy — Earth Day DLC 2022 · Sound design
Originator Inc Math Tango — Halloween DLC 2022 · Sound design, composition
Originator Inc Math Tango — Summer DLC 2022 · Sound design
Originator Inc Math Tango — Winter DLC 2022 · Sound design

Sound design

Original SFX built and recorded here, including Foley captured in the live room rather than pulled from a library.

Composition

Adaptive and linear score, written and performed. Live guitar, keys and horns where the budget allows.

Implementation

Wwise and FMOD integration, delivered as working middleware sessions rather than a folder of WAVs.

Prototyping

Building and testing audio prototypes — the work I do as an alpha and beta tester, applied to your project.

04 — Clients

Worked with

Alongside a long list of Bay Area bands and touring artists.

Meta
Google
Avid
Originator Games
Listen

Alpha / beta testing for Avid · Krotos Audio · Plug-in Alliance · Sound Radix · SynchroArts

05 — The room

What's in the building

A 450 square foot live room with a slew of microphones and backline, and a control room built around a 40-input Pro Tools Ultimate system.

Keys

  • Hammond A100Leslie Studio 12
  • Nord Electro 5 73
  • Sequential OB-6
  • Waldorf Iridium
  • Expressive E Osmose

Guitars & amps

  • Archtops, Les Pauls, Telecasters, Strats and some genuinely bizarre creations
  • Mesa Boogie Mark V 251x12 and 1x10 cabs
  • Egnater Tweaker 401x12 cab
  • Bugera V55HD headPeavey 4x10 cab
  • Fender Vaporizer 2x10
  • Fender Greta 1x12

Bass & drums

  • 1964 Ampeg B-15N
  • DW Custom kit

Control room

  • Pro Tools Ultimate, 40 inputs
  • HDX2 + Carbon
  • Preamps by Avid, Focusrite, Universal Audio
  • 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos monitoring

Monitoring

  • 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos monitoring
  • Hearback system7 × 8-channel personal monitors

Ribbon microphones

  • AEA A440
  • AEA R88Astereo Blumlein
  • AEA R84A
  • AEA KU5A×2, supercardioid
  • Cascade Fathead×4

Tube microphones

  • Warm Audio WA-47
  • Warm Audio CX-12×2
  • M-Audio Sputnik

Condensers — large

  • AKG C414
  • AKG P420×2
  • Aston Origin
  • Ear Trumpet Labs Edwina

Condensers — small

  • Warm Audio WA-84×2
  • Aston Starlight×2
  • Lewitt LCT 040×4
  • Lewitt LCT 140×2
  • Shure SM137
  • AKG P120

Dynamics & boundary

  • Shure SM57×2
  • Shure SM91boundary
  • Sennheiser e906×2, guitar cabs
  • Sennheiser e604×4, toms
  • Beyerdynamic M201
  • Warm Audio WA-19×2
  • Telefunken M80×3
  • Shure Beta 84 · AKG D5

DI & inline

  • Radial JDI×2, passive
  • Radial J48active
  • Radial ProD2stereo
  • Klark Teknik CT-1×6, signal boosters

Event series

Live at Fool's Gold

An intimate house concert, recorded as it happens. The live room seats an audience of 50 and fits a five to eight piece band, so you get a room full of people and a multitrack of the night.

Want to play one, or want to know when the next one is?

06 — Credentials

Who's behind the desk

Harry Gold — producer, sound designer, composer and Atmos mixer. Berklee-trained, and an Avid Certified Instructor teaching Pro Tools, Logic, Wwise, FMOD, sound design and composition for games at Foothill College, Pyramind and the Academy of Art University.

Co-author of Logic Pro 101 and Audio Production Basics with Logic Pro X, both published by Rowman & Littlefield.

Also a working blues and jazz guitarist and pianist, which is the reason session players tend to have a good time in this room.

07 — Book

Book a session

Tell me what you're making. I'll come back with availability and a real number, usually same day.

Or email directly — harry@harrygold.com
Fool's Gold Studios, [street address], Berkeley, CA — a few blocks from North Berkeley BART.