Under The Wire completed the installation of a Yamaha DM2000 digital console at The Creation Lab Recording Studio, Turlock, CA. Installation included wiring of 4- 96 pt TT patchbays and 4 racks of vintage outboard gear. Equipment includes Trident vintage channel strips, Universal Audio and Neve compressors, Otari RADAR, Pro Tools HD3 and Studer A800 tape machine.

The studio had been up and running for some time but had not been fully wired and there were many pieces of outboard gear that had not been hooked up. We decided the best way to tackle this project would be to remove the existing wiring and put it all back in from scratch. We wired up all the inputs and outputs of the outboard gear as well as the multiple recording formats that The Creation Lab offers. As usual, all inputs and outputs were tested with both electrical and audio testers.

The biggest challenge on this project was to make the switch from one recording format to another quickly. Tracking is usually done to RADAR through the analog inputs. Then the tracks are transferred to Pro Tools via AES. There are also times where tracking is done to 2″ tape and then transferred to Pro Tools. All of these setups require different routing configurations as well as different monitoring modes. The DM2000 provides the needed flexibility with its analog and digital I/O, as well as some creative custom wiring by Under The Wire. We installed a DB-25 patch panel to allow the RADAR and Pro Tools AES I/O to be routed through the console as needed. In addition, we created several Pro Tools Templates and some console setups that allow the engineer to do his job quickly.

Another task was to outfit the studio with audio for post capability. After installing an HD monitor, video output card and the needed Pro Tools plugins, the studio had made the leap into the audio post production world. (The studio was already outfitted with several Final Cut Pro systems) Now, having completed several video post projects, The Creation Lab has really established itself as a player in the central California studio market. Check out this article on Mike’s work:

http://www.modbee.com/local/story/350648.html