University’s Renovated Recording Studio Reopening December 2008
TOWSON, MARYLAND, DECEMBER 16, 2008—The Recording Studio of the Towson University Department of Music (RSTUDM) has turned to Aviom for assistance in educating the next generation of music professionals. The RSTUDM is a newly constructed facility that was just completed as part of the renovation and expansion of the Towson University Center for the Arts. The Aviom gear in the RSTUDM will be used to teach students the fundamentals of recording, along with the importance of working both quickly and efficiently when dealing with professional recording artists.
The studio features a control room with a machine room, a main recording room, and three isolation booths. There are 72 audio inputs from the main room and the isolation booths, along with eight Cat-5 jacks in the recording rooms that provide connections for A-Net®, Aviom’s digital audio protocol, to the studio’s eight A-16II Personal Mixers.
Group or stem sub-mixes are prepared within the studio’s new Pro Tools HD TDM system and fed into the 16 available inputs in the AN-16/i Input Module in the control room to create a cue mix feed. The AN-16/i is connected to an A-16D A-Net Distributor that sends the headphone cue mixes to performers in the main room and/or isolation booths via the Cat-5 jacks installed in the walls.
The A-16II mixers in the recording rooms allow the musicians to adjust their own headphone mixes as they see fit. During the course of their study in recording techniques, students record various ensembles, ranging in size from four to 12 musicians. It is in these sessions that the Aviom Personal Mixers are particularly useful.
“Our students study the operation of the Aviom A-16II Personal Mixers and how to create sub-mixes in Pro Tools,” explains Christopher Ariza, pedagogical director of the RSTUDM. “During sessions, students prepare the monitor feeds and then quickly instruct each of the musicians on how to create their own headphone mix with the Aviom A-16IIs. This approach takes much less time than having the engineers in the control room preparing headphone mixes to meet the needs of the musicians.â€?
“Using the Aviom system saves time and distributes the labor of creating headphone mixes between the musicians and the engineers, permitting the students to focus on their creative work with microphones,” says Ariza. “The Aviom system teaches the students, during tracking or overdubbing, to make important decisions about what sub-mixes the musicians are going to need independent control of in their headphone mix while recording.”
In addition to its Aviom gear, the RSTUDM is outfitted with a dual Macintosh computer setup with a dedicated Pro Tools HD-TDM system and a native Digital Performer based system. The Digidesign D-Command is the main control surface, and up to 7.1 monitoring is available on Genelec powered speakers.
The RSTUDM was designed by Wilson Butler Lodge, Inc. and Design Collective, Inc., with audio consultation provided by Acoustic Dimensions. Installation was performed by Audio Design Solutions, Inc., and Maryland Sound and Image.
Creative projects at the RSTUDM have begun since its reopening on December 10, 2008. For more information, please visit, www.rstudm.org.
Aviom pioneered personal mixing with its Pro16® Monitor Mixing System and continues to break new ground with the revolutionary Pro64® Series of audio networking products. With tens of thousands of products in the field today, Aviom has set the standard for high performance, scalable digital solutions. All Aviom systems harness the power of A-Net®, Aviom’s innovative digital audio technology that simplifies system design while enhancing flexibility and fidelity. All Aviom products are designed, tested, and manufactured in the USA.
