Poland's future sound elite using DYNACORD
13 Jun 2012The Karol Szymanowski University in Katowice not only boasts one of the most famous music faculties in Poland but is also among the oldest and most highly respected educational institutions in the entire country. Since 1929, the university has been able to offer excellent learning and training conditions for its 850 students – not least because the governing body has evinced a determination to ensure they are provided with the finest possible equipment with which to work.
The sound systems in particular have been chosen with a view to ensuring the closest possible correspondence between the studying environment afforded the university's aspiring musicians and sound engineers and the environment they will encounter in their day-to-day work after graduating. Aside from the technical education, the declared objective of the new “Sound Engineering”-degree of the Department of Jazz and Stage Music Education is the communication and cooperation between sound engineers and musicians. These were the considerations that informed the recent decision-making process for a new and extensive sound reinforcement system for the university.
The decision came down in favour of systems from DYNACORD, these comprising all the components essential for a professional stage production: loudspeakers, monitors, mixing consoles, digital loudspeaker controllers, and remote amps (see below for details). The heart of the installation, which was performed by the university’s cooperation partner Tommex Zebrowscy Sp., is to be found in the theatre auditorium. It serves, on the one hand, to allow students taking the jazz course to hone and demonstrate to best advantage their performing skills, and on the other, to provide a realistic training environment for the sound engineers of tomorrow. For this reason alone, no compromise could be tolerated in terms of either the quality or the reliability of the systems used. "The stipulation was for nothing less than 'world-class equipment'," relates Tommex's Piotr Wosiek, "and we were determined to satisfy it in full." Together with the project director, Professor Henryk Gemabalki, and Tomasz Tamborski, the academy's technical director, we settled on the following solution: four DYNACORD CXM 15 stage monitors and two DYNACORD VL62 cabinets, complemented by two DYNACORD Sub18 enclosures to provide a solid foundation in the bass, serve the performers and audience, respectively, in the theatre. The mixing console is a DYNACORD CMS 1000. The speakers are powered by two H2500 and two H5000 power amplifiers equipped with RCM-26 remote control modules. These, in combination with the free IRIS-Net™ software, provide user-friendly remote control and supervision of all the power amplifiers from a single PC.
Watching and hearing the students working day in, day out, with the new equipment, Tomasz Tamborski is certain they made the right choice in opting for DYNACORD. "With this installation, we are offering our students a studying and training environment far superior to any they have encountered before. They are learning how to configure a professional sound system, how to mix the signals, and how to control and supervise the performance of the components involved – and all this with the finest available equipment." The academy was "fortunate and proud," too, says Tamborski, to have obtained the services of Tommex Zebrowscy Sp. to perform and help design the installation.
Comments Piotr Wosiek: "This is a reference that is bound to have repercussions on the Polish pro audio scene. After all, Karol Szymanowski is where Poland's sound elite have always learnt their trade. They are doing so now with systems from DYNACORD, and their positive experiences are bound not only to inspire and encourage but also to guide and influence them in the choices they make later in their professional lives."