Delve deep into Walt Disney Imagineering’s sprawling and surprisingly modest Glendale campus, and you’ll eventually find Studio C.
This is where Imagineering mixes audio for its attractions, but when I recently stepped inside, I quickly realized it’s much more than a recording studio. The room is lined with dozens and dozens of speakers designed to recreate the sound field of Disney attractions, allowing Imagineers to hear a ride well before guests.
During my visit, I watched a live mixing session for Zootopia: Hot PursuitShanghai Disneyland’s trackless dark ride, and the experience was almost eerie. The sound moved seamlessly around the room, following the vehicle as if I was actually inside the attraction.
This same room became the testing ground for one of Imagineering’s most unusual engineering challenges: figuring out how to mix audio to Soaring across America.
The reimagined version of Disney’s iconic flight simulator debuted this summer at EPCOT at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, and at Disney California Adventure in Anaheim, California, in celebration of America’s Semi-Quincentennial. Disney Unscripted a behind-the-scenes video confirmed that Imagineers used the Apple Vision Pro during the production of Soaring across Americabut that left an obvious question unanswered: why? That’s what I wanted to find out.
So I spoke with Greg Lhotka, senior director of audio media design at Walt Disney Imagineering, who walked me through the surprisingly complicated process behind mixing one of Disney’s most technically demanding attractions.
“For Soaring across Americawe used Studio C not only as a production facility, but also as a testing ground for a completely new approach to on-site mixing developed specifically for this film. On the sound design side, we partnered with Skywalker Sound and together used Studio C to prototype and validate a custom speaker setup that accurately reflects the unique audio architecture of Soarin’ Theaters.
If you rode Flightyou already know why this is important. Riders are lifted into the air in three stacked rows facing a huge curved projection screen, while sound travels not only around the room, but also above and below you. As Lhotka explains, the attraction uses a four-level speaker system (upper, middle, lower level and a dedicated floor array) creating a much more complex audio environment than a traditional movie theater.
Having now rolled Soaring across America several times, it is easy to appreciate the result. The updated film stretches from New York Harbor and the Grand Canyon to the hills of California and countless landscapes in between thanks to stunning aerial cinematography, practical effects, and a soundtrack that glides almost effortlessly alongside you. The audio changes as fluidly as the visuals, making each transition feel natural as the ride transports you through some of America’s most recognizable landmarks and vistas.
Studio C could simulate much of this during production, but not all of it.
“For Flight “For films, mixing historically required constructing scaffolding inside the theater to achieve the appropriate listening height for final mixing decisions,” Lhotka explained. “Even then, the process was far from ideal, as the ride canopy significantly influences the acoustics. For this project, one of the key requirements was that the theater remained fully operational and open to guests throughout the production, completely eliminating the possibility of scaffolding.
How do you mix a show with over 1,000 audio tracks and an extremely complex panning matrix while sitting in a ride vehicle?
This constraint forced Imagineering to rethink its entire workflow.
“The challenge was clear: how to mix a show with over 1,000 audio tracks and an extremely complex panning matrix while sitting in a ride vehicle? The solution came from an innovative use of new AR technologies. By leveraging advanced screen sharing capabilities, we were able to remotely control our production system – directly connected to the theater – while seated in the ride vehicle itself. This allowed us to place virtual screens within our field of view, effectively integrating the mixing console in the theater environment.
How Disney Created the NEW Soarin’ Across America | Unscripted Disney – YouTube 
Look on it
Before anyone tested it inside the attraction, Studio C became the test lab.
“Studio C once again played a vital role as a testbed. Over the course of a week, we evaluated several setups to confirm that things could be controlled in precisely this way and that the AR headset’s external cameras would allow us to clearly see the film in the low-light conditions of the theater while simultaneously monitoring the virtual screens. The final setup exceeded expectations.”
Once validated, the workflow moved from experimentation to production.
“This workflow was ultimately used as a solution – and became the method by which Soaring across America was mixed. The result is a soundtrack that has been shaped directly from the guest’s perspective, using tools and techniques that reflect our ongoing commitment to innovation, immersion and storytelling.
Having experienced Studio C myself, this revelation immediately hit home. The room is already designed to recreate the feeling of sitting inside a Disney attraction with remarkable precision. But even a specially designed installation could not perfectly reproduce Flightunique acoustic sound. The only place left to complete the mix was inside the attraction itself.
It’s an elegant solution that solves two problems at once. Customers never lost access to Flight during production, and Imagineering’s audio team was able to shape the soundtrack based on the exact seat each future pilot would occupy. Rather than approximating the experience of a scaffold or even Studio C, the final mix was designed where it mattered most: inside the attraction itself.
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