Connect everything quickly and…get to work!
With digiStudio® we implement the 2.0® versión of our working system. Nowadays, the study patterns of recording and postproduction in both analogic and digital systems are changing,, even though they still keep the same philosophy regarding optimal conditions related to the room and the environment. Today is even harder to find rooms exclusevely dedicated for audio recording. Nevertheless, there is still a clear growth of homestudios and postproduction rooms, but normally they are used for very specific activities. Our current project consists in building a recording and postproduction room in the customer’s home. We provide it with all the tools that the customer needs, making routine more simple and mechanic. It also grants confort, order and precision in every process. By these principles and along with our “Luthierians” developments we built the 2.0 version of our workbenches. The system allows the ultra-rapid connection and the patching of the equipment without practically leaving your seat. It incorporates the MIDI and OSC protocols, including the DLio® protocol, that allows the direct connection with our Digital Luthier® peripherals.
Adapted geometry
Our current project is placed in a room on an attic. Due to this there were no needs concerning the roof isolation, although the floor, partition walls and air panels were isolated from the walls and adjacent elements, in order to build a completely independent box that has enough mass, elasticity and air tightness that can reach the desired values in our calculus. It was built on the basis of floating concrete floor above which walls were installed along with the floating roofs. Then we proceeded with the acoustic treatment of the room, based on the LEDE construction techniques, that combine the dead area with the diffused area, adapting the absorption of the room to the desired reverb times and trying to mitigate the number of corners with closed angles and parallelism between wall partitions.
All the connections
One of the main tools of the system is digiPatch® by Digital Luthier®. It is a panel that has absolutely all the ins and outs of the work station so it is very comfortable to connect and disconnect peripherals, and both signal and supply wires. It also has lines of sucko sockets on both sides of the table. Basically, the patch has analogic and digital audio and video ins and outs, USB and Firewire, connection for OSC, MIDI and DLio® protocols, as well as a switch on the upper left side, to turn on and off the whole system. It also has a high power halogen lamp to light adjacent hardware equipment, or just thedigiPatch.
Analogic warming
This work station has two analog-sign processor units, specifically two old LT3000® models from the WESTEC®, replicas of the old analog Solid State Logic® from the 80’s. This equipment allows changing of the sign that is sent to the recording exit and the speaker into a pure analog one, but with the same consistency, synchronization and current band widths. The result is close to perfection: deep and round bass sounds and clean and present high-pitch sounds. Besides, in each of the units we have “digitalized” some of the buttons and remotes of the Westec so now, for an example, we can control the track volume of any software (ProTools®, Live®, Cubase®, Logic®, …) and at the same time increase the control of the the signal processed by the knob, allowing the choice of logarithmic or lineal performances.
Painstaking detail
The initial setup was designed over a main table and an auxiliary one. Both are gifted with wheels and can be easily moved, since they have all the elements and wires integrated to allow free movement. On the main table one can find all of the devices, while the auxiliary table can be used to work with certain equipment that is required at a specific moment. In its lower-level the work station has a ventilation system that is specially designed to hold the main video processing unit Adrenaline® of Avid®, along with the Avid Media®Composer and ProTools® software that make the ensemble of this work station.
Total integration
The work stations that Digital Luthier® designs and develops have all of their elements integrated in one board that is completely mobile. Therefore, it is possible to change the position of the board in the room in an easy way, without the need of dragging wires or plugs, because that problem has already been solved via the installation of an additional mooring system. The board also has additional lightning with high power LED lamps.
Total control
The main audio out system is handled via masterKontrol®. Manufactured by Digital Luthier®, it controls general parameters such as master and auxiliary volume, stereo channels balancing, fast audio muting and mono phase sum, which comes in very handy when we are in the mastering phase. With the exception of the digital monitoring system, all the elements used in the conception of this device are of the hard wearing type, to avoid the coloring of the signal in the final result.
Ergonomic position
The position of the Digital Luthier® work stations are adapted to work for long hours in suitable physical conditions. Its conception incorporates ergonomic elements but, above all, it was made after studying the most common user processes. The placing of the devices, connectors and remotes have been chosen to suit the importance of their use. As it can be seen, the working position is practically continuous in front of the two screens, which are set one above the other avoid constantly turning the head like with equipment with horizontal lineup. Everything is at hand just by stretching your arm. Besides this, it has an auxiliary table that can be moved and adapted according to one’s necessities, although most of the time it is very useful to place auxiliary equipments. In this way the user spends most of the time sitting in a vertical position and is frontally aligned with the elements, so all the forced postures are reduced. The position where the operating chair is placed is the listening spot of the system, that has total symmetry with the speakers and the contiguous room limits.
