NEWS
THE RECORD FACTORY
KEEPS IT REAL WITH SSL
KOREA: A Solid State Logic AWS
924 hybrid console has been
installed at the Record Factory
Music Academy in Seoul, South
Korea. The desk will be used by the
college’s students as ‘an essential
component’ of the hands-on, realworld curriculum.
The school has been host to
more than 1,000 students since
it was rst established and has
increasingly gained a reputation
for its advanced programme and
knowledgable faculty. The goal of
the Academy is to provide practical
workshops covering everything audio
– from Midi production to in-studio
engineering and even music video
creation.
The establishment recently
opened one of the largest private
music production facilities in the
country at the Seoul Arts Centre.
But before jumping head rst into
buying equipment, time was taken to
explore the options.
‘We considered a number of other
consoles to equip Record Factory’s
studios,’ said Jong Hee Park, Record
Factory CEO. ‘But the AWS was
the only one that could meet our
expectations. Our mission is to give
students real-world experience in a
rapidly changing music scene, so we
needed to build a very modern and
innovative studio. The AWS is perfect
for our studio because of its hybrid
design that excels in both analogue
The Record Factory’s new AWS 924 in situ at the Seoul Arts Centre
and digital-based production. It’s like
having both an analogue console
and a very well made DAW controller
together. It allows our students to
concentrate on the sound, rather
than struggling with a mouse and
keyboard.’
According to Mr Park, the AWS’s
sonic quality was immediately
apparent to the engineers when they
routed previously recorded audio
through the console. ‘The difference
was obvious,’ he stated. ‘We actually
decided to remix some of our in-the-
box mixes because we love the extra
sparkle that we could only get from
the AWS. The clarity was so great,
it felt like we had removed curtains
between the mix engineer and the
speakers.’
Aside from the sound quality
and exibility that the desk offers,
practicality was a key feature. ‘The
console’s small footprint allowed
two additional isolation booths
to be added in the control room,’
continued Mr Park. ‘Our instructors
and students are amazed by its
clever ergonomic design, exibility
and, of course, signature sound,
which is absolutely amazing. We
especially love the high-input
headroom and pristine signal path.
The AWS de nitely has the warmth
and musical harmonic character that
we expect from a highly respected
analogue console.’
www.solidstatelogic.com
NEXO’S STM SUPPORTS JESSICA MAUBOY
dual con gurations. An additional
run of S118 subs were spaced
out along the foot of the stage, all
time aligned to match. ‘I wanted to
ensure the sub could throw further
back into the upper ranks of the
bigger venues, without smearing
the lower frequencies, so it made
more sense to y a few of them
above the STM B112 and M46
modules,’ Mr Bollenberg explaine d.
my main hang, which enabled me
to precisely predict the system’s
coverage from start to nish.’
Monitor City also supplied two
DiGiCo SD8 consoles for FOH and
monitoring for the entire tour. The
power requirements for running a
system of this size also impressed
Mr Bollenberg.
‘We did the tour with a 125A
power distribution system, but the
DiGiCo SD8 was the FOH console of choice
Jessica Mauboy performs
AUSTRALIA: A Nexo STM rig has
been used to provide reinforcement
for Jessica Mauboy’s recent
Australian tour. Monitor City, which
was placed in charge of production
for the event, also recruited
experienced Nexo system designer
and engineer, Mark Bollenberg,
to help modify the system for the
different venue types.
Jessica Mauboy has been a
rising star in the Australian pop
scene, and after winning the
Aria 2013 Best Female Artist
Award, she quickly embarked
on a summer tour across the
country. Serving up a selection
of R&B, Dance, Soul and Electro
music throughout the concert,
this provided plenty of differing
considerations for the engineers.
With several big entertainment
centres in Melbourne, Townsville,
Brisbane, Newcastle, Mackay and
the like being chosen for the tour,
various modi cations were made to
each design in order to maximise
performance with the space
available; a task well-suited to the
Scale Through Modularity concept.
‘The System sounded and
behaved amazing and precise at
every show,’ said Mr Bollenberg. ‘I
translated itself perfectly into the
live environment of each venue.
The ‘Scale Through Modularity’
philosophy behind STM’s design
is one of so many advantages that
are particularly great for this kind of
touring as we have the exibility to
build up or down as we need.’
Not wanting to limit himself to
Nexo monitoring
Jessica Mauboy on stage
have been using Nexo’s NS-1 to plot
every show/venue well in advance
and managed to get a great
comparison/result from theory that
merely moving ground stacks
through to three wide line arrays,
Mr Bollenberg decided to y S118
subs above the array in varying
12 PRO AUDIO ASIA July–August 2014
STM arrays delivered front of house
‘It worked really well and with the
correct alignment to the rest of the
system, it sounded excellent, clean
and punchy.’
Additionally, he used six PS8 for
front- ll and two Geo S1230 turned
90-degrees as L/R in- lls. ‘A lot of
local sound technicians actually
raised one of their eyebrows in pure
disbelief when I started laying out
my six Nexo PS8s.’
Mr Bollenberg, however, insisted
that this approach works. ‘Yes this
is all I need to cover the 3m of front
space between the stage and VIP
Seats on an 18m wide stage. The
beauty of the STM is that I have
such a controlled front pattern with
A Nexo PS8 front-fill
overall power consumption never
exceeded more than 12A per
phase, even when we accumulated
106 - 108dBA for the encore
songs,’ he stated. ‘In a nutshell,
we could have delivered the whole
show on one 32A if we needed to.’
www.nexo.fr