SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY FREES CREATIVE LEARNING PROCESS
WITH FULL SHIFT TO DIGITAL

—S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications Upgrades to 5.1—

BUENA PARK, CA (January 3, 2003)—Students graduating from the renowned S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, Department of Television, Radio & Film, leave with state-of-the-art audio production expertise, but first and foremost, they leave with educated ears and a strong grounding in aesthetics, techniques, business and other facets of the discipline.

The S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University recently upgraded to a fully digital environment with 5.1 surround capability. Installation was handled by the Newhouse tech support staff, and included three Yamaha DM2000 digital production consoles, DigiDesign ProTools 5.1 hard disk recording systems, a selection of monitors and Hafler amplifiers. All equipment was provided by Boynton Pro Audio of Kenmore, NY.

"The audio program is part of an overall production area which includes film, television, sound for picture, music recording and radio," explains Dr. Stan Alten, Professor and author of the leading audio production texts, Audio in Media: The Recording Studio. "It’s an integrated approach and we’re quite proud of that. Our philosophy is to build a solid foundation."

Modern production studios can be incredibly complex, from an equipment standpoint. However, Alten stresses that the department’s approach is to use technology as a means to the end and not simply to produce engineers. "The idea is to not only know the equipment but also understand the aesthetics behind the sound," he explains. "For example, computers don’t make poets. It’s the ideas that go behind the equipment operation and the final product that really matters."

While the school’s approach to teaching is not centered on the latest bells and whistles, students nevertheless have access to the most current technology. Recently, the department decided to standardize its facilities and upgrade to what they determined was to be the standard for some years to come: fully digital with 5.1 surround capability.

Key to the new setup (which debuted in August 2002) were three Yamaha DM2000 Digital Production Consoles, DigiDesign Pro Tools 5.1 hard disk recording systems and Yamaha center-channel speakers and subwoofers. All equipment was supplied by Boynton Pro Audio of Kenmore, NY.

The department utilizes seventeen studios that include two large TV studios, four AVID and eight Final Cut Pro postproduction facilities, plus three audio-only production and postproduction rooms. There is also an extensive array of TV, film and audio equipment available for location production.

The three audio-only production and postproduction rooms house the DM2000/Pro Tools systems.

The three audio-only studios house the DM2000 consoles and the Pro Tools systems. Some analog outboard gear and a 24-track analog tape recorder remain but, according to Alten, "all of the studios are now completely digital and capable of surround sound. In the past, each of our studios had a different array of equipment, including consoles, so that if a student took a course in one studio and then another course in another studio, they would have to be re-taught. We were spending too much time with the learning curves, so the idea was to make the audio facilities uniform."

He continues, "The studios were all originally analog, with Pro Tools systems added later. We figured that we really had to make the complete conversion to digital, not only for instructional purposes, but also to make our students more marketable.

"Analog is still out there, but when making a purchase as large as this one, we had to make sure that we’d be set for at least 4-5 years before we can get anything else. That’s why I decided it’s best to convert to digital. Our alums in the industry say that if the students understand how to operate digital equipment, particularly Pro Tools, they’re way ahead of the game. That’s also why we went to the digital consoles, rather than a sophisticated analog board."

Once Alten decided to take the digital path for the upgrade, he began to look at digital consoles that were affordable. "We got the materials on the DM2000 and compared it to everything else that was around, and it seemed to be the way to go," he explains. "The flexibility is extraordinary, plus the capability of having 96 channels in a compact chassis, the signal processing, the automation, and the ability to use SmartCards to save and restore settings. Also, the console’s surround sound capability was pivotal in the decision. Practically all of the features of the DM2000 are being utilized, except for the tape transport functions, which we don’t need because we use Pro Tools. The Yamaha Studio Manager software enables the students to either use the console or Pro Tools as their central platform, and work going one way or the other. When you combine the DM2000 with the Pro Tools 5.1, you’ve got an extraordinarily powerful production tool.

"The automation functions are also very easy to work with," he adds. "Some automated consoles are so complex that you forget what you just did. With the combined automation of the Pro Tools, there is more flexibility in deciding which automation to want to use and for what reason."

Although the Yamaha consoles offer 96-input capability, Alten feels that beginning students should be limited to 24 channels at first. "Working with more may be too overwhelming. In more advanced courses, they can obviously handle more [channels]. An important consideration in planning our courses is deciding what not to teach."

The DM2000’s joystick controller, panning and matrix functions allow the students to explore the new world of surround sound. However, Alten cautions that although movies and television are already more established, the aesthetic precedents in music recording are still in their formative stages. "We tell the students not to ‘gimmick’ their work," he notes. "Don’t use surround just because it’s fun to pan around and get whiz-bang effects; have some aesthetic rationale for doing you’re doing. The tools are wonderful, but once you overuse them, the effects are no longer ‘special.’"

Alten also notes that the staff has been very pleased with the console’s 24-bit/96k audio quality and onboard effects. "As far as we’ve been able to hear, the audio is superb. There are still things we haven’t done yet, but so far the sound quality is very clean. The array of effects available, and the ability to control the parameters is extraordinary. The gating, for example, is just so clean. Gates can be a big problem, and that’s the first thing I checked out. The preamps seem to be working well. With other consoles, we had to use outboard preamps.

"The ability to see the parameters of the waveform you’ve set is also useful, so that the students don’t have to go on ‘fishing expeditions’ to get what they want. Overall, everything is so logically laid out and user-friendly that we can allot less time next semester for students to learn it, leaving more time for production."

To complete the upgrade to surround, additional speakers were needed for center channel and subwoofers. The department was very happy with its existing KRK speakers but needed compatible speakers for the center channel and sublows.

"We found that the Yamaha NS-AC40X center-channel speakers and YST-SW305 powered subwoofers worked extremely well," he explains. "They were very compatible with the KRK’s. We won’t make any acoustic adjustments until we get a sense of how compatible all the speakers are with each other, and because we have three studios which are not the same size. We may bring in an acoustician to run some tests, and we also want to explore the possibility of putting variable acoustics in the studios."

Each studio is equipped with a Korg General MIDI synthesis system, and Hafler power amps were also part of the upgrade. "They’re very clean and provide plenty of power," Alten says.

The installation was handled by the school’s technical support staff and supervised by senior support technician Mark Schnell. "Mark is a brilliant technician who also understands the creative aspects of production," notes Alten. "Paul Fitzgibbons (Boynton Pro Audio) was helpful as there were a number of technical questions, and he was more than forthcoming in his assistance.

Although the equipment is now very cutting edge, Alten emphasizes that the school is a teaching facility that addresses process. "We realize that it’s the outcome that really makes the difference," he adds. "Equipment is ‘dumb,’ so we’ve got to teach our students how to use it to make sure their product has something to say. The ears are where it begins and ends. We respect technology, but we revere talent. [Industry veteran] Ham Brosious said it. It’s an epigraph in one of the editions in my book and that helps to guide us."

For more information on the S.I. Newhouse program, visit http://newhouse.syr.edu on the Web.

For more information, contact Yamaha Corporation of America, Commercial Audio Systems Division, P.O. Box 6600, Buena Park, CA 90622, telephone 714-522-9011, email infostation@yamaha.com or visit www.yamaha.com/proaudio.