CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: Douglas Jones, Chair of the Columbia College Department
of Audio Arts & Acoustics in Chicago, chooses his words very deliberately
when describing the program's educational philosophy. He is careful to avoid
the rhetorical noise of a "mission statement" yet doesn't shy away
from delivering a highly compressed positioning line if he has to. - "Teach
no equipment-specific skills."
"We take the distinction between education and training quite seriously,"
he
says. "We don't teach software. We don't train students how to use
equipment. We view ourselves as educating the next generation of
professional sound people."
Whereas most audio programs are part of a music department, Audio
Arts & Acoustics (AA&A) is an independent academic unit.
In the early 90s, the fledgling program moved into a defunct recording facility
three miles north of the campus. Since the Spring of 2003, AA&A's home has
been a newly built facility at 33 East Congress Parkway, a few blocks northwest
of college's main campus building.
AA&A students graduate with a B.A. and can pursue studies in five areas
of
concentration: Music Recording, Acoustics, Live Sound Reinforcement, Audio
for Visual Media, and Sound System Contracting. AA&A's studio, lab, and
recording spaces offer everything a student could want. Jones calls it, "a
dream facility." Its teaching spaces - four main control rooms, recording
studios, and seven lab/classrooms - are all connected over two internal
networks which include one for file sharing, and the other for digital audio
and video.
Though the program focus is decidedly not on gear or training, equipment and
software, API, Midas, Neve, Martin, Lexicon, Pro Tools, ATC monitors, are
essential classroom teaching tools. ("We don't teach a class in Pro Tools,
but we do teach digital audio editing," says Jones. "And we use Pro
Tools.")
The most recent addition to the facility's long list of equipment are
monitor packages from ATC (Acoustic Transducer Company, located in the UK)
in the complex's four main studios. In Studio D equipment includes a 5.1
surround sound far-field monitoring system comprised of SCM20ASL Pro two-way
active monitors; Studio C utilizes a pair of SCM50ASL Pro three-way active
monitors. And Studios A and B each include a pair of SCM50ASLs. In addition,
four "mini" studios are also outfitted with stereo pairs of ATC SMC10ASL
Pro
two-way near field monitors.
The decision to make ATC monitoring the "backbone and common denominator"
as Jones put it, of the multi-room teaching facility, took place over a long
evaluation period, culminating in six months of auditioning the ATCs against
other prime candidates by faculty, staff, and students. "Our goal was to
find speakers that met both our objective and subjective criteria... that is,
speakers that measured well, and were also enjoyable to listen to. Brand name
wasn't an issue for us as we had no clientele we needed to impress." The
ATCs met these criteria and, Jones adds, provide a, "consistency of sound
across the range... Of course, the different models sound different, but each
exhibits similar sonic characteristics and quality."
ATC monitors were chosen for the four main studios in
Chicago's esteemed Columbia College. Doug Jones (left)
Chair of the Columbia College Department of Audio Arts and Brett Johnson, Chief
Engineer and Systems Designer for the new facility.
Monitors from other manufacturers share space in their control rooms - a
total of five different loudspeaker systems in the "teaching control room"
(Studio C) alone. But, says Jones, that's part of the point of a teaching
facility. Monitoring options allow students to compare mixes.
Among the features of this unusually comprehensive academic program is that
all AA&A majors take required general studies courses in math and science
dealing with the physiology of hearing and psycho-acoustics, and
electronics, in addition to departmental core courses.
"We offer courses in acoustic modeling as well," says Jones. But,
as might
be expected, course work does not concentrate on the use of specific
modeling software. "We give our students the end-to-end experience of
modeling a system, installing it, measuring the system, then going back to
compare their measurements to the original design."
The acoustics concentration ("my favorite" says Jones) covers architectural
acoustics, environmental noise impact, and mechanical vibration studies (as
a predictor of failure modes in machinery). "A few years ago, some of our
students conducted a pioneering study of noise levels in the CTA [Chicago
Transit Authority]," says Jones. "Currently we're involved in an interesting
study of noise levels in nightclubs as they affect employees."
And last, but not least, in an abbreviated list of highlights, is the
facility's reverb chamber. Encased in three-foot wide, 3/4" thick
steel-plate walls with a massive circular door, the chamber was formerly a
bank vault. "We found it when we were first surveying the site," says
Jones.
"Our first thought was, 'What are we going to do with this?' Then we found
it had a natural reverb time of six seconds. So it became our reverb lab."
Students go through a module where they have to create reverb sounds using
the chamber. "Here's a closet full of acoustic treatment, some mics, some
loudspeakers, and a room... now, create your sound," says Jones.
The point of all this fits neatly into the program's educational philosophy.
"We want students to use their ears first," says Jones. "Instead
of
scrolling through a menu and picking a sexy sounding name for a reverb
effect, we want them to make audio decisions based, not on what they see in
a software program but, on what they hear."
ATC's drivers are manufactured in-house to exacting tolerances and are
legendary for their many design innovations, such as the innovative SL
magnet system and the company's renowned Soft Dome midrange driver, which
achieves exceptionally broad and even dispersion to produce a flat response
anywhere in the room. Situated in Aston Down in rural Gloucestershire,
England, ATC was established in London in 1974 by acoustics engineer and
musician Bill Woodman.
TransAudio Group, founded by industry veteran Brad Lunde, has quickly become
the premier U.S. importer/distributor for high-end audio. Success hinges on
specialized service to the Recording Industry far beyond the norm.
TransAudio Recording's product lines include AEA ribbon microphones (USA),
ATC Loudspeakers (UK), Brauner (Germany), Drawmer (UK), Geoffrey Daking &
Co. (USA), George Massenburg Labs (GML) (USA), Soundelux (USA), SoundField
(UK), and Z-Systems (USA).
ATC is distributed in the U.S. by the TransAudio
Group www.atc.gb.net
