The Walters-Storyk-designed studio, named after a street Rettig once lived on, specializes in radio and television broadcast production, audio/video post for commercial and industrial applications, custom music, digital editing and music recording.
Professional Audio Design (www.proaudiodesign.com) provided Cotton Hill with a Digidesign ProTools|HD3 Accel system, along with a Trident 80C analog console and an Aviom Pro16 monitor mixing system.
“We decided that the best scenario for us here in this facility was to have some type of a large format analog console along with a digital recording system,” says Rettig. “Among other modifications, PAD created a card that is inserted into the back of the console to take the audio signal from the Trident 80C and output it to the Aviom gear and the other digital equipment.”
The card, created by PAD’s senior technician Coleman Rogers, turns four channels of unbalanced audio into balanced audio and four channels of balanced audio into unbalanced. Six of these level-adjustable cards were installed as fully balanced pre-fader inserts in the monitor section. The first sixteen channels of these tape monitor insert sends are normalled directly into the Aviom headphone system. One of these balanced conversion cards is also installed in the master section, balancing the mix and control room outputs, and unbalancing the stereo tape returns.
In addition, PAD’s director of technical services, Brandon McHale, designed and installed a four-output, silent-switching speaker selector. The upgrade also included Langevin and PAD-enhanced Focusrite mic-pre/EQ modules and compressors.