Nexo’s educational arm innovates in Japan and US
- Details
Nexo’s ETC training programme was launched in 2013 and hosts free seminars globally to educate, train and certificate audio engineers of all levels. The sessions are organised in three levels – ETC1 (introductory), ETC2 and ETC3.
Two recent ETC seminars, held in Japan and the USA, demonstrated the diversity of audience, as well as the expanding syllabus of the ES Division’s training experts.
Hand in hand with the Yamaha Music Japan team in Tokyo, an inaugural ETC2i specialist course was presented in the Yamaha building on Ginza, which has 16 floors dedicated to musical instruments, education, auditorium and rehearsal studios.
Led by Nexo’s ES Division director François Deffarges, the seminar used the chronological timeline of an installation to guide its audience of professional engineers. The course began with the tendering process, using real-world examples, before taking the class through acoustic, mechanical and network/management design. A dedicated session of NS-1, Nexo’s proprietary modelling and prediction software suite, prepared students to design systems for live performance venues.
The ETC2i course syllabus covered sound system integration and installation, as well as a number of system and acoustic measurements, RT60, STI, Max SPL, and transfer functions. To complete the process, Deffarges and his team took the class through system check and tuning, the full acoustic and system measurement process up to reporting and invoicing.
Deffarges comments: “We want to approach this subject as a story, following an installation from beginning to end, integrating technological topics such as network design and system management alongside mechanical issues such as cabling and power requirements. Thanks to a super-professional approach from the Yamaha Music Japan team, everything was perfectly prepared and even though we were doing everything through translators, we brought the two-day course in on time and on schedule.”
In Orlando, Florida, Yamaha Commercial Audio (Nexo’s distributor in the USA) organised an ETC1 seminar with Full Sail University. ETC was presented in their sound stage, which had enough ceiling height to use a genie tower to fly a Geo M10 line array system. The session was so well-attended it had to be repeated - the two-day seminar was conducted by Nexo’s Nicolas Poitrenaud and YCA colleagues Preston Gray and Mark Rush for more than 60 Full Sail students and their teachers, as well as other invited audio professionals.
“Enthusiastic students, happy to learn,” reports Poitrenaud. “Together with teachers and invited professionals were all amazed by our teaching program, the skills and level of Nexo’s technology and the sound quality of our systems. This was a huge step forward in terms of Nexo’s image and reputation, thanks to a charismatic tutoring team.”
ETC training sessions take place on all four continents and are completely free to students. Places can be booked through local Nexo distribution agents, or via the Nexo website.
(Jim Evans)
