That's what's taking place at Georgia Southern University, where the school's music technology department is moving forward with an innovative curriculum. The programme utilises eight RedNet 1 devices, which offer eight channels of line-level analogue I/O with Focusrite's precision 24-bit A-D and D-A conversion, to connect acoustical and electronic performances from the school's electronic ensemble. This allows students to manipulate the audio in real time, creating entirely new compositions in the process.
For instance, as John Thompson, the school's associate professor, music technology, explains, a performance by a clarinet in one of any number of venues across the campus, including a performing arts centre or a black-box theatre, can be routed via RedNet onto the school's local-area network and back to the program's recording studio. In the process, students can access that signal and apply a huge array of processing to it, using the original performance as a trigger for other types of sound generation, creating an entirely new work. All of this is made possible by RedNet's near-zero latency and highly flexible routing capabilities. And the entire campus can be the recordings' canvas, thanks to the RedNet's routing capability.
"We're routing everything through a Cisco switch, and using RedNet we've been able to create a very complex routing infrastructure with very little cabling," explains Thompson. "That ability to access the network, combined with the extremely low latency, is what makes this work. In addition to the interesting potential of networked audio in musical performance, we get the bonus of excellent converters in the RedNet 1s. The audio quality is outstanding with a crisp and focused image."
The RedNet devices, which were purchased through sales associate Jim Swain at Sweetwater, are central to Thompson and Georgia Southern University's ambitious programme achieving its goals. The university's hallmark is "a culture of engagement that bridges theory with practice," the school's website explains, and that's exactly what the music technology's programme's adventurous agenda does.
"RedNet really takes us to places few educational or musical programs can go," says Thompson. "It changes the mindset. Instead of letting us just find new ways of doing old things, RedNet lets us discover new ways of doing entirely new things. That's really an accomplishment."
(Jim Evans)
