CHARLESTON, IL — Eastern Illinois University recently completed the expansion of its Doudna Fine Arts Center, and Symetrix’s SymNet is handling the digital signal processing for the audio system in its various performance spaces, linking the rooms to each other and to the Antoine Predock-designed building’s main concourse audio system.
Ben Bausher, a consultant with JaffeHolden, designed the system. Robert Galiardo, design engineer at AVI Systems, Inc., did the programming and testing with Jason Galvan, AVI installation technician. SymNet ARC interface panels were chosen for their ability to make the advanced system straightforward and intuitive.
The building’s 300-seat Theater, used mostly for plays, has a proscenium stage and an LCR audio system. The 600-seat Dvorak Concert Hall and 180-seat Recital Hall are for classical and jazz concerts. The 150-seat Lecture Hall, for presentations and film screenings, is equipped with a stereo/surround audio system. The Black Box Studio Theater has no permanent stage or seating, and is equipped with an adaptable speaker system that can hang from a lighting truss or sit on the floor.
Within each room, a SymNet Express 4×12 Cobra provides the crossover, EQ, filtering, dynamics, and delay processing for the amplifier and speaker systems, mostly gear from QSC and EAW.
Each room’s SymNet Express 8×8 and 4×4 Cobra units help send pages within and across venues and program material out to the concourse audio system. Using a SymNet ARC-SWK control interface panel, users can select output audio from either the mixer outputs, a permanently-mounted Shure VP88 stereo and Crown SASS microphones, or a blend of both, cross-faded from the ARC-SWK rotary pot.
“Unusually low latency sets the SymNet system apart from other DSP systems,” said Galiardo. “And that’s critical for live performances. The musicians or actors on stage get their monitor send through the SymNet hardware, and it’s fast enough to be essentially real-time.”
Galiardo was also pleased with the flexibility and breadth of SymNet’s DSP modules. “One box replaces racks of equipment and affords me the opportunity to tweak each aspect of the system to perfection. Suppose we didn’t anticipate needing a filter or an EQ for a particular speaker cluster, but while tuning the system I think it would help. It’s easy and no more expensive to include. I simply drop it in to the SymNet Designer software and it’s done.”
Noted Bausher, “The system can go even further than that if the users want to implement various routing, mixing, or processing schemes for recordings or live reinforcement. In addition, it can be implemented in a matter of minutes without the expense of purchasing additional equipment.”
The mix functionality in each of the venues typifies the Doudna’s flexibility: Users can position the Midas or APB-Dynasonics analog consoles in each room either at a typical FOH position or in a second-floor control booth.
The soundproof windows on the control room slide open for natural live mixing, or remain closed for creating mixes on a pair of EAW UB12SE playback monitors that will translate to other systems.
A SymNet Express 8×8 Cobra in each control room provides all of its requisite processing and routing functionality. SymNet ARC interface panels allow users to archive mixer output, live mic output, or a blend to CD-R, DVD-R, or computer hard disc.
“Each of these rooms would have been a big project by itself,” said Galiardo. “With five of them, the project was absolutely huge. While SymNet processing serves each room somewhat independently, the real power of the system comes from the way all the venues integrate. The fact that all of the SymNet hardware is designed around the CobraNet protocol made wiring everything straightforward and relatively inexpensive.”
Cat5 cabling ties all of the rooms back to a central location from which each venue’s green room and the concourse audio system take their feeds. Simply put, each venue provides an output to the concourse and a bank of ARC interface panels located in the box office which allows a manager to select which venue’s audio will play and at what volume.
In addition, any of the venues can page out to the concourse area using an ARC-MIC interface panel with integrated push-to-talk mic located in the control booth. For chimes, the system allows pre-recorded material (such as “in five minutes, the performance will begin in Dvorak Hall”) to be triggered from each venue.
Although this was Galiardo’s first experience programming SymNet, he found the process intuitive. “There was a slight learning curve,” he said, “but Symetrix helped me through it. In fact their technician, Ray Curtright, remotely accessed my laptop so we could go through anything I was confused about in real-time. Once I saw him do it, I was set to go.”
With almost everything in place, EIU’s Doudna Fine Arts Center held a rededication celebration on October 24th. “Previous to the ceremony, the students were already using the facilities for practice,” said Galiardo. “For me, it’s great to actually see the system I helped build come to life. It sounds great and the students are excited — and that’s ultimately what this is all about.”
Concluded Bausher: “This is certainly the biggest SymNet system I’ve ever designed, but it scales up to a project this size beautifully. Its power and flexibility all comes together to create one of the best sounding audio systems in the region. When we fired up the systems for the students and faculty after they were tuned, they were blown away, and even I was impressed. It makes me wish I could go back to school there so I could mix a few shows on their systems.”
For more information, please visit www.SymetrixAudio.com.
