Grammy-Winning Engineer Justin Gray Explores the Next Frontier of Immersive Recording with Immersive Design Labs (IDL)
The veteran mixer details how IDL’s microphones and array bring accuracy, speed, and musical intention together
Toronto, Canada, February 4, 2026 — Justin Gray is a Grammy-winning and Juno Award–winning artist, engineer, and producer who has been at the forefront of immersive music production for over a decade. For a recent project, he turned to Immersive Design Labs’ microphone array to support a workflow that keeps the session centered on the performance and allows him to capture immersive recordings at the source, creating deeper, richer, and more authentic sound.
The IDL 7.0.4 Recording Array is an 11-microphone system, with seven microphones dedicated to capturing the horizontal soundfield and four positioned above to reproduce height information for immersive formats such as Dolby Atmos and Sony 360 RA. Its layout and intent closely mirror techniques Gray has been using with large-format and micro-immersive arrays, so he brought the system into a recent session for an upcoming project slated for release in 2026.
What first drew him to Immersive Design Labs was its ability to help capture sound exactly as he envisions it at the source. “Based on my experience as a spatial remixer, when we try to take something recorded for stereo and stretch it around a space, we’re already fighting a battle,” he explains. “Sometimes it works, and sometimes I just wish I could go back to the source and capture the sound and its relationship to the space around it.”
The IDL array, he says, makes that possible. “It makes it much easier for engineers to capture immersive recordings natively at the source. The microphones are beautifully calibrated, sound great, and the setup comes together fast and precisely. As a producer and engineer, it got me to making music faster and made the technology more invisible to the artists. In the end, what matters most is the music.”
For Gray, the music always comes first, and he believes the technology behind immersive recording should never overshadow the musicianship. “There is a moment when a musician is warming up and you can tell they are ready to perform,” he explains. “The worst thing you can do is not be prepared to capture that. A good producer will say, ‘Wherever the microphone is, we are hitting record,’ because the music comes first.”
That philosophy made the IDL array immediately appealing. “What struck me was that it was not only precise and great sounding, capturing the timbre of each instrument accurately and transparently while maintaining musicality, but also fast to set up,” he says. “Immersive Design Labs is offering something that makes immersive recording a realistic part of modern music production without requiring double the setup time.”
His Grammy-winning project, IMMERSED, exemplifies an approach to recording as a form of composition. Every note was conceived, recorded, and mixed with immersive intent, reflecting his belief that spatial audio can shape not only how music sounds but how it is written and experienced.
In his view, the tools and studio themselves have become as much a part of the composition as the melodies and harmonies they help bring to life. “The technology is actually a compositional tool, because I can balance perspective,” he says. “I can layer multiple passes of a vocalist or write parts for percussion and tabla that fill all fifteen speakers in a way that simply could not be played live.”
Gray also believes technologies like those from IDL build on the ongoing evolution of immersive recording, offering engineers new ways to refine their craft. He often speaks about the importance of continual learning and growth in this field.
“There’s still more to learn, for me and for everybody,” he says. “At the end of the day, it really is all music-driven. But I do think we’re at a stage where all immersive mixers and engineers would do well to continue to deepen our foundational skills.”
Those words reflect his humility and commitment to the process of discovery. They also echo the philosophy behind Immersive Design Labs, whose technology is developed not to replace intuition but to make immersive recording more intuitive and intelligent for both the next generation of engineers and those already shaping the field.
To learn more about Justin Gray, visit https://justingraysound.com or follow him on Instagram and YouTube.
To learn more about Immersive Design Labs and its approach to immersive recording, visit www.immersivedesignlabs.com and follow the company on Instagram and YouTube.
Header image credit: Sean O’Neill
About Immersive Design Labs
Immersive Design Labs (IDL) is redefining the future of immersive audio by grounding its products, methodologies, techniques, and research in the core principles of sound physics and human psychoacoustics. The company’s approach merges cutting-edge technology with a deep understanding of how humans perceive sound, creating innovative solutions for the next generation of immersive audio experiences.
Hunter Williams
