Episode 286 Dolby Creator Talks

Mixing Carlos Santana Live in Dolby Atmos, with Kevin Madigan

April 2, 2026

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Legendary mix engineer Kevin Madigan joins us to discuss his pioneering work helping create Santana’s live Dolby Atmos residency at House of Blues in Las Vegas and what it takes to reimagine one of rock’s most iconic sounds for a live audience. He also reflects on his work at Larrabee Studios in Los Angeles, building out the Dolby Atmos® room and mixing music from Santana’s landmark album “Supernatural.”

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The music felt 3D and you were immersed in it. And we do have a lot of elements to do that with the Santana band and within the music. There’s a lot of percussion, keyboards, B3, congas… So, bringing that out into an immersive feeling [for] the audience was kind of easy to do! And if there was cool moves to do at certain points in a song… it can do a rotation around the audience. It’s a really cool moment for the audience, but it’s not distracting, it’s not gimmicky… The audience got used to it pretty quick. It just sounded like a huge, immersive mix that’s really engaging and magnetic and draws the audience into the song.

Kevin Madigan, FOH Mix Engineer, Santana

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