Flexible Recording / Pro Audio MEA

In the second part of Pro Audio Middle East’s Zorlu Center PSM series,

James Ling takes a tour around the performing arts venue’s recording and editing setup

WHEN YOU WALK INTO A state-of-the-art performing arts centre, the last thing you expect to fnd is a recording studio. But Istanbul’s Zorlu Center PSM is full of surprises.

One of the frst stops on Pro Audio Middle East’s tour of the venue is a high-ceilinged, exposed brick room with a bank of seating for around 100 people. 'This is our studio,’ announces George Andreou, assistant general manager of the Zorlu Center PSM for Nederlander World Wide Entertainment, the building operator. 'It’s a rehearsal space, it’s an events space, it’s a small concert space and most importantly it’s a studio.’

The room itself is only a short walk down the corridor from the wings of the Main Stage theatre, yet it feels like a completely different building. Everything from the acoustics to the decoration is in strong contrast to the rest of the site. But appearances can be deceiving. This room, as with every other performance space in the venue, is designed around function and fexibility.

'You can change the acoustics of the place with the curtains and the bass traps,’ continues Mr Andreou, ficking a switch to close the motorised acoustic curtains covering the brickwork and drastically altering the sound of the room. 'Each of the curtains are independently controlled so you can change the acoustics in the room. The acoustics have been very well designed and mathematically very well planned.

The main idea, which is true with everything that we do, is that you have to be very fexible. All the equipment is portable and very little is fxed. Everything is portable and everything is adjustable, everything is always changing.’

While a recording studio isn’t the most obvious addition to a theatre complex, there is solid reasoning behind the inclusion of the facility. The interconnected nature of the Zorlu Center PSM means that any signal from any room can be routed to any other. The studio is at the heart of this network, meaning that every space from the Main Stage to the rehearsal space can be turned into a dedicated recording facility. This is not just a performing arts venue, this is a recording studio on the grandest of scales.

'This is a studio that serves a specifc purpose,’ explains Mr Andreou. 'The purpose that we are looking to serve over here is for theatre and big orchestras. It’s not somewhere where Mick Jagger is going to come and spend three weeks - although if he wants to, he’s very welcome.’ Heading through the small seating area and upstairs to the balcony, Pro Audio Middle East is entering the nerve centre of the recording complex. Strangely, rather than heading straight for the recording suite, there is another very important room to see frst - the mechanical room. This is the brains of the venue and allows the recording options to be so varied.

'All the performance spaces are connected here and everything here is connected to the venues,’ smiles Mr Andreou. 'You can get your Pro Tools session and from here send it to the Main Stage or to the Drama Stage. Or you can automatically record any concert that is happening there over here.

'We have a huge network that does everything as fibre and Cat-6, so I can send everything to everywhere I want just from the bus of the desk,’ continues Mr Andreou. 'Our mechanical room is flled with patchbays, all of them are from Ghielmetti, they are the best ones. We have the new SSL matrix for Madi matrixing. Madi’s from everywhere come in here and go everywhere. We can patch any feed to anywhere from here.’

Leaving the mechanical room and stepping into the neighbouring main studio brings the site that will make any audio enthusiast smile. In the centre of the studio, the mix position is dominated by a large console. The desk in question is an SSL Duality 48 channel with TC Electronic TM9. Sat at the mix position, the engineer has a video screen to view the camera feed from whichever room is being used, fanked by a variety of monitoring options. While behind the position are racks of outboard gear from the likes of Bricasti, Millenia, Elysia, AMS Neve, Empirical Labs, Tube Tech, Thermionic Culture, Avalon, Crane Song and Universal Audio.

'Different people trust different brands, our job here is not to serve our own taste, but to serve everybody’s taste,’ explains Mr Andreou. 'That is why we have a huge collection of stuff, it’s why we have an SSL desk which is acceptable to everybody.’

Perhaps the most interesting embodiment of this attitude comes with the variety of monitors available. 'We have Genelec 1038Bs, Focal SM9s and Sub and Avantone Active Mix Cubes for monitors because different people want to hear different things,’ says Mr Andreou. 'Mostly classical people like Focal.

Avantone is a very different system, so if you can mix on that you can mix on anything. And in Turkey, Genelec is a very common brand, people like it.’ Leaving the main recording suite and heading through a small door at the rear of the room leads through a small lounge and into a second facility. 'The idea of this room is that this is the editing studio,’ smiles Mr Andreou. 'Over here we don’t do recording - it could be used for recording and there’s no problem doing that – but we do mostly editing. It’s a little bit of a more comfortable environment and artists will come here for hours to do editing.’ While the editing suite is smaller, it is no less well equipped. The same Focal and Avantone monitors are called into action, but this time it is an Avid C24 console which takes pride of place at the mix position.

Indeed, Avid is a brand at the heart of both studios – as can be seen by the rack filled with Avid gear in the mechanical room. The recording system is mirrored across both rooms and the manufacturer’s products are once again called into action. Avid HDX 3, Sync HD, Madi HD and Pro Tools systems form the bulk of the recording system with Logic Pro and Waves plugin bundles also put to use.

‘Both of these studios have an Avid Isis 5000,’ furthers Mr Andreou. ‘They are both connected to the Isis 5000 so you can work on the same project at the same time and all the advantages that Avid gives you for that.’

As Pro Audio Middle East leaves the recording studios to continue our tour, one issue sticks in the mind. While it is great to have this facility, in a city with countless recording studios is there a danger that it will be largely unused. To counter this, Mr Andreou points to the variety of spaces at the Zorlu Center PSM that can be used to accommodate large numbers of musicians, particularly the main theatre.

‘The theatre is a very quiet place, it is around 30dB when everything is quiet. Acoustically every rib in there has been designed to have a different angle, so the room is a huge diffuser. You don’t have any static waves, you don't haveany reflective  angles,’ he smiles. ‘We recorded a single pianist on stage for a five days in there, it’s that silent. We can record an entire orchestra in there.’

It is aspects such as this that make the Zorlu Center PSM such a unique proposition. It is equally an important part of its business model. Having the recording side brings in an extra revenue stream for the complex and gives it the flexiblity to meet multiply needs. It is the flexibility we will examine in greater detail in the final instalment of Pro Audio Middle East’s series on the Zorlu Center PSM when we focus on live production at the venue.