The Music Department’s Sound Recording Technology program has installed a new analog mixing console- which looks like it belongs in the Starship Enterprise - that will offer seniors and graduate students what Prof. Will Moylan calls “cutting edge” education.
Made by API (Automated Processes Inc.) of Jessup, Md., this new piece of equipment with its myriad of colored lights, switches and dials is more than seven feet long. The cost, including installation and options, was slightly more than $300,000.
“We’ve chosen to stay with analog technology because of its sound quality and its applications for teaching and research,” Moylan explains. “There’s more flexibility in this kind of high-end analog console – which is high-end to a factor of three or four compared with where the technology had been in previous iterations. It allows us to explore things in graduate courses and some undergraduate courses that we couldn’t on a digital-audio computer platform.”
The new unit, which has been installed in a refurbished room on the second floor of Durgin Hall, replaces one that was bought in 1989 and which, Moylan says, “was showing its very advanced age.”
Named “Vision” by its manufacturer, the new console has some old technology that is used in very progressive ways. It also can be interfaced with digital technologies.
“So we have the best of both worlds in a way that is very sophisticated in terms of sound quality -- and understanding various qualities of sound recording and reproduction is very essential to our program,” he says.
“It’s also the only analog device that’s been designed for mixing surround sound. That’s very significant. Surround sound has become a very important part of the film industry and multi-media experiences. So it’s very important for our students to have advanced skills in that area.”
API began the installation at the end of May and the work has progressed since then with significant contributions from Bill Carman, associate director of SRT Facilities, and a number of students.
Alactronics Corp. of Wellesley redesigned the control room, Durgin 213, to accommodate the new equipment and to make the space compatible for surround sound.
Although the refurbishing work was not completely finished, students were able to take classes there beginning in November.
This new console and surround sound capability “is one more way that the SRT program is staying at the forefront nationally in audio education – and one more way that we’re positioning ourselves to assist industry in the further development of technology and recording techniques,” says Moylan.
Printer Friendly
