🎃 October 2025 Favorites

Written by Jonathan Garcia and Danielle Starz Garcia 

Happy first day of November! This is a particularly special time of year! Halloween kicks off a series of fun and family/friend-oriented holidays. It's hard to believe how quickly this year has flown by. The weather has officially turned CHILLY, and the vibes have been spooky! October was an incredibly busy month filled with exciting music and movie releases, shows, and a variety of fun projects we were privileged to work on. Here's a list of some of our favorite things from this month that you should check out if you missed them: 

1. Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl Album 

We're definitely big Swifties here (especially Dani), and this album has been playing non-stop at home, in the car, and at the gym, all day, every day! We adored The Life of a Showgirl! We attended the release party at AMC and enjoyed her music video premiere for “The Life of Ophelia,” along with all the amazing lyric videos and learning about each track. This pop album is so much fun, a no-skip album, with Dani's current favorites being “Honey,” “Eldest Daughter,” and “Wood”! If you haven't had the chance to listen yet, go check it out. Taylor Swift rocks the house once again. 

2. The Robert Kerr Ensemble, Songs Beyond the Mirror

Congratulations and best of luck to the Robert Kerr Ensemble on this fantastic album and for being considered for this year's Grammy awards in the categories of “Best Contemporary Instrumental Album” and “Best Arrangement, Instrumental or Acappella.” The album features a beautiful arrangement of Disney classics. Jonathan served as the immersive mixing engineer for 9 tracks and the immersive mastering engineer for the entire album. If you haven't listened yet, be sure to enjoy the album and follow them on Instagram! @robertkerrensemble A big shout out to everyone who contributed to this amazing project!

3. Tron: Ares in Dolby Atmos

If you missed this review on the blog, go give it a read! We dive into all the fun details there. This was by far the best Dolby Atmos film we watched this month and probably the best Dolby of the year! If you’re a Tron fan like us, you’ve been waiting years for a new movie from this franchise. It was truly an exciting and fun watch, but the Dolby Atmos took this movie experience to the next level. It was above and beyond. The attention to detail and care that went into the Atmos was top tier. The acting and graphic design was amazing. The music, soundFX, sound design, score and DOLBY ATMOS made this film just an unbelievable experience. It’s a must see for Dolby Atmos lovers!

4. Avid Sony 360 Reality Audio

Earlier this month, Avid announced their integration with Sony 360 Reality Audio! This could be transformative for creatives in the immersive field. As the popularity of immersive audio grows, it's only right that users have more tools and formats to explore. This update breaks new ground by allowing existing immersive mixes to be converted to Sony 360RA with only a few clicks! We haven't tried this integration yet, but we'll keep you updated!! Sony 360 Reality Audio is a music-based immersive format using Sony’s object-based 360 spatial sound to place the listener and creator within the music, allowing positioning in front, above, behind, beside, and below. Currently, you can experience 360 Reality Audio from DSPs like Amazon Music Unlimited, Nugs.net, & Deezer. The only distributor we've found that supports 360RA uploads is "Tully App" or "Tully Distribution" (shout out to Joyner! IYKYK). If you know of any other distributors with 360RA & Dolby Atmos distribution capabilities for independents, let us know! We'll keep you posted on the 360 adventure!

5. The Notebook The Musical 

Dani loves both the book and the movie "The Notebook", so watching this was an obvious choice. Jon had never seen the film before, but we both thoroughly enjoyed the Broadway musical version of this classic love story. The music, composed by Ingrid Michaelson, was incredible. The story transitioned smoothly and was effectively adapted for the stage despite the numerous time shifts. Various actors were cast to portray the characters at different times, which was a really great choice. One of the highlights was how they managed to create a rain effect on stage! It was stunning and incredible to witness live, a unique feature we hadn't seen in a Broadway show before. The singing was outstanding, and the acting was excellent as well. Overall, we highly recommend seeing this musical if you have the chance. It's a deeply emotional story that will move you to tears (ifykyk). 

6. Twilight in Concert 

We absolutely love attending orchestra performances, so merging two of Dani's passions (Twilight and the Orchestra) was a dream come true. This month also marks the 20th anniversary of the book's release, which is really fitting! We thoroughly enjoyed the show. If you ever have the chance to attend an event like this, do it. It's super fun to watch a movie you love with the music played live by real instruments. The feeling is indescribable. It's so immersive that you almost forget it's not prerecorded. They execute it perfectly every time. This show even featured a singer performing all the popular songs from the movie. The stage was beautifully set with candles, and the audience was lively and interactive. We laughed and cheered for all of our favorite characters. This was another thrilling and fun experience from this month. 

7. MixWave Hazelrigg VLC

The MixWave “VLC” is a plugin I've found that’s made its way on every mix and found a permanent place in my template! The VLC is a digital recreation of the iconic Hazelrigg tube Microphone Pre-Amp & EQ hardware unit. I was recently in LA and had the VLC in the studio so an AB test is what everyone does right? I was very impressed comparing the hardware unit to the plugin. Testing several sources like vocals, bass, drums, and synths the plugin feels like the hardware. Delivering the characteristics, tone, drive, and shaping that the hardware VLC has, MixWave did not miss a step with their work on nailing this! I am definitely going to be trying more of their plugins and if you have any plugins from them or any other company you recommend, let us know in the comments below!