For more than 20 years, the Ontario Institute of Audio Recording Technology (OIART) in London, Ontario, Canada, has committed itself to the ongoing success of its graduates. The school reports a job-placement rate of nearly 90 percent.
When it refit an existing studio to create a space for teaching audio post-production for HDTV and surround sound for movies, it chose a complement of Tannoy monitors: three VNET V12s for LCR, six EFX-1’s for surrounds and a VS-18 DR sub.
Completed just prior to the start of the 2007-08 program, Studio 5 was fully reworked to operate as both a fully functional state-of-the-art post studio as well as a lecture theater. “The refit was less about bringing the room up to standards than it was about providing the kind of leading-edge facility most schools just don’t have,” says Bob Breen, OIART Career Development and Industry Relations secretary.
The 1,000-square-foot room has theater-style seating for 35 to 40 students around the main console and screen. Because of this, OIART uses Tannoy’s VNET software to calibrate the system so students can get an accurate sense of the surround imaging throughout the space. “The sweet spot had to be huge,” Breen explains.
Chris Babin, senior lecturer in charge of technical maintenance, says that the Tannoy gear in Studio 5 allows him to take the speakers down, put them on tri-pods and use the VNET software to easily configure them for use elsewhere in the school. “It addresses our needs, and then some,” he says. “We were ready and willing to add additional acoustic treatments, but some minor tweaking with the VNET software and we overcame some anomalies that would have been cumbersome without that option.”
For more information, visit www.tannoy-speakers.com and www.oiart.org.
