Thursday, August 27, 2015

ESPI 10.29 Studios in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Mexico


The main control room at ESPI 10.29 Studios, located in the Marina neighborhood of Mazatlán in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. The studio was outfitted by the Malvicino Design Group with gear sourced through GC Pro. Photo courtesy of the Malvicino Design Group. © 2015.

— Equipment purchase and installation was carried out by GC Pro Affiliate Program member Malvicino Design Group —

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, August 26, 2015 — Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users, recently collaborated with GC Pro Affiliate Program member Horacio Malvicino of the New York-based Malvicino Design Group, on the design, outfitting and commissioning of the private production facility for Mexican regional music star Espinoza Paz. The vast majority of the multi-room facility’s audio equipment was sourced for the Malvicino Group through Javier Willis, Account Manager at the San Diego, California GC Pro office. The facility, named ESPI 10.29 Studios, is located in the Marina neighborhood of Mazatlán in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. The new three-story construction houses Paz’s private offices, a lounge and a large kitchen and dining room seating two dozen on the ground floor; two control rooms and a large tracking space with three isolation rooms on the second floor; and guest accommodations on the top floor.

The main control room is outfitted with a 48-input Solid State Logic Duality mixing console, a 48-track Avid Pro Tools|HDX3 system and a Studer A827 Gold Edition 24-track analog tape machine, Ocean Way Audio HR2 main monitors and racks of outboard processing. The second control room houses a 24-fader AMS Neve Genesys mixing console and another Pro Tools rig.



Views of the 24-fader AMS Neve Genesys mixing console and other gear in the second control room at ESPI 10.29 Studios, located in the Marina neighborhood of Mazatlán in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. The studio was outfitted by the Malvicino Design Group with gear sourced through GC Pro. Photo courtesy of the Malvicino Design Group. © 2015.

“My idea was to come up with a studio on par with anything in the U.S. I think it’s some of my best work,” says Malvicino, who has more than two decades of experience providing acoustical, architectural and technical systems design to recording studios and other production facilities around the world. Malvicino says that he was given carte blanche by the artist regarding equipment choices as well as room layout and technical, acoustic and interior design.

“I’ve been in the Latin music business for many years and I’m connected with a lot of producers,” Javier Willis reports. “In 2013 one of my producer friends brought me to Espinoza’s manager, who was in the process of shopping around. We hit it off and started ordering the equipment. We then brought Horacio in for the studio design and the equipment integration and installation.”

Malvicino notes, “Banda music requires a lot of people playing live, so I wanted to build a room that allowed a lot of people to record together, with variable acoustics. The panels on the side wall swivel; they have absorption on one side and reflection on the other side. You can change the RT [reverberation time] in the room by about 25 percent.” TADI, the Mexico City-based exclusive manufacturer of acoustic treatments for Malvicino’s projects worldwide, supplied the acoustic treatment at this new facility and additionally acted as the general contractor and interior designer. “The live room ceiling is 21 feet high, so we outfitted it with condenser mics hanging in specific locations so that they can not only use close miking but also the room. And they can bring in a couple of large format P.A. speakers, feed them the mix, crank up the listen mics and use the studio as a live chamber,” he said.


ESPI 10.29 Studios, located in the Marina neighborhood of Mazatlán in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. The studio was outfitted by the Malvicino Design Group with gear sourced through GC Pro. Photo courtesy of the Malvicino Design Group. © 2015.


A view of the tracking room (background) and console (Solid State Logic Duality mixing console), main monitors (Ocean Way Audio HR2 main monitors) and other components in the main control room, at ESPI 10.29 Studios, located in the Marina neighborhood of Mazatlán in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. The studio was outfitted by the Malvicino Design Group with gear sourced through GC Pro. Photo courtesy of the Malvicino Design Group. © 2015.

Malvicino elected to install Ocean Way Audio HR2 monitors, driven by Lab.gruppen and QSC Audio amplification, in the main control room. He consulted with Ocean Way founder Allen Sides to ensure optimum performance in the space, which is 32 feet deep with a 21-foot ceiling. “That’s the first time I’ve done soffit-mounted Ocean Way monitors,” says Malvicino. “They sound incredible—so good that the engineers are having a hard time working on the near fields.” Both control rooms feature Neumann KH 310 near field monitors with KH 810 subwoofers; ADAM and Yamaha NS10 speakers are alternatively available.

“The outboard gear is what you would expect,” he continues, including rack units from Empirical Labs, GML, TubeTech and Universal Audio. “They like a warm sound so I included a bunch of Chandler EMI compressors and mic preamps. There’s Bricasti and Lexicon reverbs, and a lot of 500 Series modules—API, Burl Audio, Grace Audio, Little Labs and SSL.”

For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.

===

About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

Metro City Church Expands with D.A.S. Audio


The view from the front-of-house position at the new Riverview, Michigan campus of Metro City Church, outfitted with A/V components sourced through Guitar Center Professional.

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, August 24, 2015 — Several years ago, Metro City Church, located in the Detroit metropolitan area, outfitted its 900-seat sanctuary with a system of Aero Series 2 products from Spanish manufacturer D.A.S. Audio with assistance from Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Building on the success of that project, the church recently returned to GC Pro to purchase a second D.A.S. system for a new campus and its touring praise band.

Metro City Church is a very modern organization, employing the latest technology and media, especially music, to engage its congregation, which reportedly numbers about 1,500 people each weekend. According to Paul Johnson, GC Pro Senior Account Manager in Detroit, “Music plays a vital role in their worship services because it’s a great way to be relevant to their congregants. They have a praise band—Alive—that reaches out to hundreds of high school students.” Alive is also the name of the church’s high school division, which meets every Sunday night and addresses the local Downriver community of ninth through twelfth grade students.

Toward the end of 2012, Johnson, together with Paul Long, a Guitar Center Sales Associate based at the Southfield, Michigan store, in collaboration with Steve Trimble, D.A.S. Audio Regional Sales Manager, designed and installed a new sound system for the church after carefully considering the available options. Long, who is also on staff at Metro City as the church’s lead sound engineer, explains, “The church is very active with music, bringing bands in as well as it sending its own bands out, for probably 10 years now, so we see a lot of the equipment that’s being used. There were really three major companies—the top three brands that we’ve worked with on tours—that we were looking at, including D.A.S.”


The new Riverview, Michigan campus of Metro City Church, outfitted with A/V components sourced through Guitar Center Professional.

The sanctuary at the church’s original campus in Taylor, Michigan, features D.A.S. Aero Series 2 powered line array components flown in an LCR configuration—three cabinets in the center with six hung at either side of the stage. Two D.A.S. LX-215A powered band-pass subwoofers and eight LX-218CA dual-18-inch high performance powered subwoofers are stacked to the left and right and are configured in cardioid arrays in order to reduce standing waves on the stage. A similar setup was ordered for the church’s new campus, located in the southern Detroit suburb of Riverview, including a total of 15 D.A.S. Aero 12A line array modules flown in an LCR configuration, and 12 LX-218CA dual-18-inch subs, along with dbx DriveRack VENU360 speaker processing. The systems at both the Taylor and Riverview campuses are similar, says Long, “But one thing that is a bit different is that we originally sold them Aero 12As and they have since modified and upgraded the system to include Aero 38As as well as Aero 12s. So it’s more of a hybrid system now.” The powered three-way Aero 38A module houses two 12-inch and two 10-inch speakers plus a 1.5-inch high frequency compression driver.
The latest upgrade also includes four Sennheiser G3 Evolution 900 series handheld mics, a pair of G3 wireless body pack transmitters and rackmount receivers and three DPA d:fine 4088 miniature cardioid headset mics. This purchase also includes band equipment, including Meinl cymbals and an Ampeg SVT head, and a variety of instrument microphones, most notably Shure Beta52A, Beta56A and Beta91A dynamics and an Audix DVICE drum mic mounting system.
In appreciation, the church made its facilities available to Guitar Center for multiple GC Pro Live Sound Expos in 2014 and 2015, featuring the latest products from many high-end manufacturers. “Metro City Church was the first to partner with us to do one of those events,” says Johnson. “That was a big deal—they opened up their church to us.”

For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.

===

About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.

House-of-Worship Technology Seminars: Chicago, Detroit


WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, August 12, 2015 — Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users, is holding a series of seminars across the country focused on audio, video and lighting for house-of-worship facilities.

Upcoming events include two scheduled for September. The first, serving the Chicago area, will take place in Palatine, Illinois, at New Life Church (1200 W. Northwest Hwy.) on Wednesday, September 9, 2015, from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.

The event serving the Detroit area will take place in Taylor, Michigan, at Metro City Church (21080 Penn St.) on Friday, September 11, 2015, from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Join us for a technology seminar, covering the latest techniques and products in stage lighting, sound reinforcement, audio mixing and video for house of worship live production. GC Pro personnel will be on hand to lead the event and answer questions.

There is no charge and everyone is welcome to attend.

For more information on Guitar Center Professional's House of Worship events, visit this link.

===

About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.