Genelec Monitors Promote Professional Audio Learning in Shanghai

With the purpose of educating the next generation of audio talent, the Shanghai Professional Training School of Contemporary Music have installed the monitors Genelec SAM, calibrated with your management software GLM, throughout the complex.

The Shanghai Professional Training School of Contemporary Music (China) arises with the help of the Shanghai Municipal Government, in order to create a complex of studies that were the basis of high-level learning to educate students oriented to the labor market.

To ensure that students have equipment adapted to this professional level, For this project, intelligent active monitors have been installed. Genelec throughout the premises.

During the previous stages of development, Alex Wei, digital technology director of the local company SunYart, planned a basic layout for the installation of the equipment and continued to refine the plans together with the technical director, Zhang Minggang.

The technical execution has been carried out by He Weier, together with the world-renowned acoustic designer Sam Toyoshima, since one of the key factors was to create an installation that combined acoustics and aesthetics. “Mr. Toyoshima is an acoustic designer full of aesthetic design,” Wei emphasizes.. I wanted this project to meet the acoustic requirements and have a visual impact that would give the effect 'wow’, so our ideas fit together”.

The design choices perfectly matched the high-tech and minimalist design of the monitors. General SAM, precisely calibrated with your monitor management software GLM.

Unique teaching spaces

The project has not been without challenges, since one of the pillars of the installation is a large recording studio of 300 m2 with time variable reverb. The space has more than seventy rotating columns, with different heights and diameters, as well as different sizes of sound absorption holes that are used to achieve a variable reverberation time between 0,8 y 1,2 seconds.

The control room For this space it has a pair of main monitors of the model 1236, that have been inserted into the window that occupies the entire wall. Staff perceive monitors as floating on glass, although challenges had to be faced with the weight of the monitors and their installation.

To find the best solution, Wei worked with Toyoshima design, calculated the angle, the center of gravity and friction of the base accurately and compared various construction materials and methods, so that the two Genelec monitors 1236 were installed stably, with an angle of 6º of inclination with respect to the glass.

Besides, three coaxial nearfield monitors 8351 have been located on retractable supports, that do not hinder the sound of the main monitors when lowered, but which can be raised mechanically to have a system 5.1 for mixing surround.

These teams are completed with dos subwoofers 7380 de Genelec. As Wei explains, “the monitors 8351 They give a very modern science-fantasy feel. When working together with subwoofers 7380 It's like you're piloting a ship! Star Wars!”.

'Staircase classroom design’

Another unique teaching space has been developed in the form of a 'staircase classroom', so that students sit on steps instead of chairs. On one side of the classroom there is a large window that occupies the entire wall with views of the study.

When the teacher is working, Students can access the studio to observe what he is doing through the large window.. On the mixing board, a high definition camera shows the teacher in action through a screen, while the Genelec three-way monitors 1238 transmit the audio to the class.

For this project, they have also been created four recording spaces, including a mastering room on the ground floor, equipped with stereo monitors 1238 and a system 5.1 con 8351 and a subwoofer 7370.

Plus a multifunctional teaching studio 5.1, which has monitors 8260 and a subwoofer 7370, and two other smaller ones located in the basement of the school, each of them equipped with a pair of monitors 8351.

The staff at this center rate the results as “better than we imagined” and Wei is clearly proud of the innovative complex that has been created.. “We have achieved excellent sound quality and very precise positioning of the sound image - he assures -. The school teachers, those at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and teachers at other schools think it is the best studio they have ever seen”.

In this line, Toyoshima emphasizes: “I believe that the high-quality equipment and creative atmosphere that the school provides can form a future-oriented group of sound engineers, better and faster”.