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| T.C. Williams High School in Virginia starred in the hit Disney movie "Remember The Titans". Its flagship new building has an audio installation to do it justice. |
T. C. Williams High School in Alexandria,
VA, which found Hollywood fame
in the 2000 Disney blockbuster
Remember the Titans, presented an
unusual challenge to the designers of its
new sound system – plenty of space for the
new loudspeakers but very little time to fit
them.
Sure, it wasn't quite as tough as the
struggle faced by Denzel Washington's
football coach character in the movie, set
in 1971, who builds a team for the freshly
integrated Alexandria Virginia high school,
overcomes inter-racial tensions and the
loss of one of its stars, goes on to win the
state championship and becomes national
runner-up.
But it seems every job has a
few unique wrinkles, and this one was no
exception.
ALEXANDRIA'S NEW FLAGSHIP
The real school recently moved into a
new building designed as the flagship of
Alexandria City Public Schools.
The facility
includes an 880 seat auditorium with
a proscenium stage up front and two
lecture halls in the rear. To provide sound
reinforcement for both school meetings
and cultural events like theatrical |
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productions and concerts, Alexandria City
Public Schools Director of Construction
Mark Burke called the district's long-time
provider Corbett Technology Solutions, Inc.
(CTSI).
How much of a problem could one little
auditorium be for CTSI (a firm that handles
with AV, IT, multimedia and networking
solutions for the complete spectrum
of corporate and government customers)?
"On this project, the school district
needed a 30 day turnaround from contact
to completion," CTSI Senior Vice President
Gino Ruta explains. "It was pretty clear
there had been very little planning for
audiovisual systems, as indicated by the
minimal amount of conduit available."
There was, however an existing opening in
the ceiling.
CTSI's search for systems that could
provide full coverage of the room from
that location quickly centered on Renkus-
Heinz's Reference Point Array (RPA) range
of pre-configured arrays.
Their designers
specified an ST9/4-3(T), a self-powered
RPA of three ST9/44 full-range loudspeakers
with integral PM3 tri-amplifiers and
System Specific Processing. |
The RPA package
also includes matching hanging hardware
and all interconnecting cables. Two
extra STX2M CoEntrant Midrange modules were added as downfill.
"Because the cluster is self powered,"
Ruta says," we could pull a single audio
input line from the booth, minimizing the amount of conduit and time required."
Along with speed and simplicity, quality and
reliable delivery were key criteria in this
purchase decision. The entire system was
built, prepped and tested at the Foothill
Ranch, California factory, and air freighted
overnight to meet the extremely tight
project schedule.
PERFECT BALANCE
A Biamp AudiaFlex is CTSI's main front
end for the system. CTSI's programming
and custom control panel offer a choice
of three main modes of operation. Simple
Automix mode is for use with voice-only
presentations using up to eight microphones.
Simple Manual Mixer mode allows
manual level control over eight mics,
intended for musical performances and
similar events. |
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Auxiliary Mixer mode comes
into play when the school needs to pull out
a Roland Digital Snake and a full analog
FOH console with effects and dynamics
equipment for plays, musicals or other
events require a full audio production with
lots of input channels on stage.
"We were
looking for the perfect balance between
simple audio control for the administrators
and the advanced processing of a full audio
system for the technical operators," says
Ruta.
It looks like CTSI found that perfect
balance.
"The client was very pleased with
the system, and especially the sound quality
of the ST9/4-3 RPA, which was well
beyond what they expected."
Based in Chantilly, VA, CTSI serves
healthcare, educational, government,
houses of worship and corporate customers
with customized, integrated technology
solutions including healthcare and education
specific communication, audiovisual,
fire detection, security, professional sound
and multimedia, voice and voice/data internetworking
systems, as well as certified
premise wiring |
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