|
|
| SYMNET NEWS |
 |
|
| December 12, 2006 |
|
SymNet Proves to be a Classic
ATHENS, GEORGIA:
A
recent renovation of the Classic Center in Athens, Georgia afforded an
opportunity to Technical Services Audio Visual (TSAV) to update several
room combining systems, dating back as much as ten years, into a single
integrated solution incorporating the latest technology. TSAV installed
a SymNet Network Audio Solution that integrates Symetrix DSP products
with proprietary technology, and combines flexible routing with
wireless control of signal processing anywhere within the multi-purpose
convention center.Pete Dugas, president of Athens-based TSAV, a
professional audio-visual systems consulting, contracting and
integration company established in 1991, describes the Symetrix setup.
The system is based around a SymNet 8x8 DSP unit and a series of SymNet
BreakIn12 and BreakOut12 expansion devices, used to create a 48x40
matrix that routes audio throughout the various ballrooms and breakout
spaces. "It's a pretty complex setup. We've created a control interface
that speaks to the Symetrix system via RS232 and recalls not only
preset configurations, but can take any input to any output or any
combination thereof." |
 |
|
Technical Services Audio Visual (TSAV) installed a SymNet Network Audio
Solution, including an 8x8 DSP unit and a series SymNet BreakIn12 and
BreakOut12 expansion devices to handle flexible routing and wireless
control of signal processing in the Classic Center, a convention
facility, in Athens, Georgia. |
|
|
| A major feature of TSAV's
value-added proprietary technology is the ability for event organizers
to take a laptop computer with a Wi-Fi connection anywhere in the
complex and control the audio on a virtual mixing console. "The
Symetrix equipment was key to that," explains Dugas, whose company
created a browser-based GUI that provides channel-by-channel control of
parametric EQ and input and output gains via the SymNet 8x8 DSP unit's
processing functionality. "It's really convenient for the operators,"
he says. "Rather than dragging a mixing board into one of these
breakout rooms, they can plug the microphones in and sit at the back of
the room with a laptop and control the sound from there wirelessly." Dugas
offers the annual Georgia Power training sessions as an example of the
ways in which the room combining system is expected to operate. "Twenty
or so different breakout spaces get content from one another at
different times. One room might be able to listen in on another, or
there might be a public address that goes to any and all combinations
of these spaces." Furthermore, he notes, "There is background music
that comes from everything from a CD player to a laptop, an iPod to a
satellite radio feed." According to Dugas, the recent major
renovations added nine new breakout spaces in the Grand Hall,
complicating the design brief to integrate existing audio and visual
systems in the new construction with the historic portions of the
facility. "Renovations over the last ten years have integrated room
combining systems into the ballrooms that had some effect and worked
pretty well," he reports. "The large Athena Ballroom was the original
installation. Then the standards that we put in place in the Foundry
Ballrooms over the last five years were expanded to these new rooms." The
Athena Ballroom, a 14-way space, and the later Foundry Ballroom
construction, which added four two-way divisible spaces, could have
remained as two separate room-combining systems with a third added for
the new Grand Ballroom. "But," he says, "this was an opportunity for us
to create a fully-integrated routing system that would take advantage
of some newer technologies that didn't exist back in the late 1990s." The
59,000 square-foot Classic Center is a flexible exhibit and meeting
facility that offers seating for 3,000 people or banquet facilities for
2,200. The complex also includes a performing arts theater. |
|
|
|
| < BACK |
|
|
 |
