Genelec Case Study: The Image & Sound Factory
ABOUT
The Image & Sound Factory is a studio in Dendermonde, Belgium that offers a wide range of services. The main focus is on audio for both TV and movie productions, involving location (set) recording, mixing, and postproduction. Music recordings are facilitated by their large recording room aptly named “The Hall”, offering the possibility to record large ensembles.
THE APPLE TREE ROOM
The Apple Tree Room is one of the 5 fully equipped 5.1 Audio Post Production Studios integrated at The Image & Sound Factory studio complex in Dendermonde Belgium. The studio is used for tracking ADR/ Dubbings, Sound Design on various Film & TV Projects and as a Mix studio for Broadcast projects.
This studio has a visual connection with a recording booth and is therefore used as standard with this recording space.
The Apple Tree room where the speakers are located is the companies favourite Sound Design Studio.
As main distributor of Genelec speaker systems for Belgium, XLR provided a demo set to The Image & Sound Factory to help them decide if this was exactly what they wanted. In October 2015, their first Genelec setup was installed consisting of two 8351APM Smart Active Monitors and a GLM Calibration for the Apple Tree Room.
Later, beginning 2019, they extended the studio setup to a full 5.1 setup with 5x 8351APM Smart Active Studio Monitor, including 5x K&M 8000-400 Genelec Design stands and one 7360 SAM subwoofer.
When deciding on installing this specific room around a Pro Tools Ultimate/HDX setup with a DAD DX32 interface they were looking for studio speakers with digital AES inputs. The Genelec 8351APM was one of a kind as they also have the DSP on board to handle the needed subtle room correction.
This speaker setup is a honest and rock solid base to work on for the high-end projects we tend to deliver. It is a pleasure the work in this studio and it appears that the mixes translate very well on TV.
All speaker pairs have an AES run from the machine room and the GLM kit that is situated in the studio is connected with standard Cat5e cables in a serial loop. The GLM software runs on the Apple Host an worked right out of the box even with the USB over CAT5 extender that we have used.
The Genelec speakers are configured in a standard ITU circle around the central engineer position. The room is calibrated using the GLM software with a gentle room correction to smooth out a flat response. The GLM is also used to calibrate the speaker-levels according the display on the Collin Broad TMC-1 that directly controls the digital outputs of the DAD DX32 interface to match the dB-reading exactly. Because of the GLM-software, the listening experience is fully optimised within all frequencies. The GLM calibration was critical for such a small mixing and recording room and an extra reason to their decision for choosing a Genelec setup for The Apple Tree Room.
On a daily base we don’t have to touch anything and when checking calibration on the start of a project they never seem off. This makes this studio very reliable for our in-house and freelance engineers.
About the studio
The Image & Sound Factory NV
Zandstraat 111A, 9200 Dendermonde, Belgium
info@image-sound.com | www.image-sound.com
