Facilities for Audio Engineering and Music Production

The facilities at IAR are designed to support a broad curriculum that covers the latest digital recording techniques as well as vintage and current analog systems and methods. Almost half the classroom time is spent in labs and workshops working with the school’s 70-plus Apple G5 and G4 computer stations, Digidesign’s ProTools DAW, Reason synthesizer software, analog and digital outboard equipment and studio gear.

The Recording Complex: The Control Room

The IAR control room has two Sony DMX-R100 digital consoles interconnected via MADI to total 96 inputs. The digital output of the consoles goes to a ProTools HD3 Accel DAW running on an Apple G5 dual processor Power PC. The extensive list of plug-ins includes VocalAlign, Antares Auto-Tune, Eventide Harmonizers, and high-end filter banks and compressors. Recording and mixing is done at state of the art high resolution bit depths and sampling rates.

In addition to modern digital gear, the control room outboard rack has an impressive array of vintage tube gear like Teletronix LA-2A and LA-4A compressors, UREI 1176 and 1178 compressors, Pultec tube equalizers, highly prized Lexicon PCM 42 digital delays and industry workhorse Yamaha and Sony DSP reverbs. And for that analog tape sound, a session can be recorded on our Studer 2” 24-track master multi-track recorder and mixed down to a 1/2” 2-track mastering deck.

The Recording Studio

The studio has all the musical “toys” necessary for current and future music genres. The Walter-Storyk designed room has a recently purchased Yamaha grand piano, a “mighty” Hammond C3 organ with Leslie Speakers, Ampeg tube guitar and bass amps, and a full drum set.

The mic cabinet has a wide range of microphones from classic tube Neumann condensers and RCA ribbons to models from AKG, Shure, Audio-Technica, and Sennheiser, to name just a few.

Computer Labs

IAR has over 70 Apple G5 and G4 iMac and Power PC student computer workstations all loaded with up-to-date versions of the latest and most popular digital audio production software. Students work with Digidesign’s ProTools audio production software and Propellerhead’s Reason synthesizer applications well as Microsoft Word and graphics software to help you get your finished work “out there.” In addition to the virtual sounds inside Reason, each MIDI lab workstation has a full-size MIDI keyboard and external Roland JV-1010 sound module.

Signal Processing/Mixing Labs

IAR has 24 Yamaha AW4416 digital workstations that are used by students in their mixing classes. These units combine a 16-track digital multitrack hard disk recorder, 24 input channels with equalization, dynamics and automation, and 2 industry standard DSP effects engines. It even has a CD burner so students can burn copies of their mixes or create backup data to work on in a later session.

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