Audiokinetic, developer of audio solutions for the video game industry, and the Conservatory of Recording Arts today announced an educational partnership that is the first of its kind in the industry. The Conservatory teaches Audiokinetic’s Wwise software platform in its Audio for Games curriculum and will further develop an authorized Manufacturer Certification for the product. The Conservatory is the first educational institution in the world to teach with Wwise, and will now become an official trainer for the software not only at the CRAS, but across the game industry. More details on the new program will be released at the upcoming Game Developer’s Conference in March. Visit the Conservatory at the show at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, Booth #859. The full press release, outlining the alliance, appeared today on Audiokinetic’s website.

photo caption: Ben Widmer, Joey Cicak and Eric Boyer in the Blue booth at NAMM

The National Assocation of Musical Merchant’s (NAMM) show in Anahiem is the biggest musical trade show in the USA. It hosts literally every manufacturer of musical instruments worldwide, including guitars, amps, basses, drums, brass, percussion, software and audio gear. The show is becoming more and more of an audio show as years go on with manufacturers like SSL, Apple and Digidesign having a large presence. This year’s show was attended by various CRAS instructors and students and the school was also well represented in the booths on the floor. For instance, Blue microphones, makers of the Blue Bottle, Dragonfly, Mouse and many other great mics, had their booth manned by three Conservatory grads. Ben Widmer, Joey Cicak and Eric Boyer were all on hand, Eric being Blue’s Vice President of Manufacturing. The school has many grads working throughout the industry with companies like Waves, SoundToys, Grace Designs, Skywalker Sound and Universal Audio.

photo caption: Conservatory staffers and student Q-tipping the Neve VR console over the holiday break

The CRAS is all audio all the time, except over our yearly 2-week holiday break. In that window of calm, both locations are upgraded, painted, cleaned and polished in preparation for the new year. This year, the cue systems in our Gilbert location studios were upgraded, heads re-lapped on our Studer A827 24-track 2″ machine and the Tempe SSL was fitted with replacement capacitors.

photo caption: Students setting up the Trinnov SRP array and mapping out an ITU template on the floor of Studio D

Cycle 8 and Cycle 10 students recently recorded Sax and Percussion in surround with some of the latest gear from Trinnov and LatchLake. The Cycle 8 surround recording class used the Trinnov High Spatial Resolution Surround Recording Platform (SRP) to capture various passes of Bari, Tenor and Alto Saxophone in the Conservatory’s Studio D. The system uses 8 omni microphones in a horseshoe configuration to capture a room’s signature, which is then sent to the SRP which delivers a 5.0 output respecting the ITU standard. The Trinnov hardware translator allows the user to manipulate the room’s size either while you’re recording, or after the fact during mixdown.

Students mounted the array on the LatchLake micKing boom stand. The stand uses non-traditional hardware to adjust the boom arms, clutch and counterweight allowing the user to position a mic, or mics, in a wide variety of stable positions. The micKing can be expanded using various length Xtra Booms which can carry any number of other microphones. The LatchLake stand was also utilized in the 8th Cycle advanced drum recording clinic and Cycle 7 Post scoring class where it held a Decca Tree of three Blue Omni Mouse microphones.

photo caption: Andy Cook, CRAS Director of Ed. Kevin Becka, Nick Shilling, Mark Altin and Joe Kiempisty

Digidesign’s Training and Education Program visited the Conservatory recently under the auspices of the Pro Tools Go Mobile Tour. Digi shipped six rolling cases and a pallet containing all the gear neceessary for the weekend event. Go Mobile was open to students and local residents interested in learning more about Pro Tools LE. CRAS instructors Phil Nichols and Brandon Hickey helped Digi trainers set up and implement the training which took place in four separate one-hour classes on Pro Tools 7 software. Each of the 20 hands-on workstations featured Dell Precision M65 Mobile workstations featuring dual-core Intel processors running the Microsoft Windows XP operating system. The Conservatory offers its own Pro Tools Completion Certificate along with Digidegisn’s 210M Operator’s Certificate.

Thanks for checking out the Conservatory of Recording Arts’ new blog. We’re very excited about this opportunity to bring you up-to-the-minute news and events from the school, and audio in general. There are a lot of exciting things going on here at the Conservatory and we don’t want to keep it a secret! We welcome your comments and requests for future posts. What would you like to see or know more about the school? We want to know. In addition to subscribing here, you should also check out our monthly podcasts. We’ve had some great guests including Rupert Neve, Front of House engineer Eddie Mapp (Evanescence, Taking Back Sunday) and an insider’s view of the concert setup for Nickelback. Watch here for regular updates. See you soon!