Millikin University, Decatur, IL United States

Millikin University is a four-year undergraduate university in Decatur, Illinois with a student body of 2,400. Millikin’s mission is to offer an education that integrates the traditional liberal arts and the practical arts of the professions. The School of Music supports students by providing recording facilities, and as a second control room was being added to expand the Commercial Music program, digital solutions became the clear path.

Description

Millikin University is a four-year undergraduate university in Decatur, Illinois with a student body of 2,400. Millikin’s mission is to offer an education that integrates the traditional liberal arts and the practical arts of the professions. The School of Fine Arts is noted for the breadth and quality of its music offerings, which include both performance and business focused opportunities.

“Compared to our first installation, Dante saved us a lot of time and money… we plugged the card directly into the board and there was one Cat5 cable that ran from the Dante card to the computer and we were up and going.”

Challenge

The School of Music supports students by providing recording facilities. As a second control room was being added to expand the Commercial Music program, Assistant Professor of Music Ronnie Dean looked to digital solutions as the clear path to the future. The older control room was still analog, but sported a ProTools™ HD recording workstation. Ronnie wanted a solution that would allow him to introduce digital mixers while preserving the familiar working environment of ProTools in a cost effective manner. He wanted to give students access to 32 channels of audio in a way that was flexible and would allow students to bring in their own laptops as they wish.

Solution

Ronnie contacted Ken Musselman at Milam Audio, from whom he has purchased much of the university’s audio equipment. Ken told Ronnie about Dante and the new Dante MY16-AUD card for Yamaha digital mixers, and Ronnie was intrigued.

He purchased a Dante MY16-AUD for the school’s Yamaha DM2000 Digital Mixing Console and was immediately impressed with the results. 16 tracks of pristine 48khz/24-bit was available to the studio computer as well as any student laptop simply by installing Dante Virtual Soundcard. Students could use the ProTools software in the studio or choose to use their own applications, from Cubase to Garage Band.

Ronnie then purchased a second Dante MY16-AUD to add 16 more channels of capacity. Because Dante uses IP-compliant networking standards, this only meant one more device attached to a gigabit switch and students could now access all 32 channels of the Yamaha DM2000 Digital Mixing Console with no additional hardware.

Professor Dean is now adding a video editing room, and will use Dante to power the audio workstations there.

Benefits and Savings

• Immediate compatibility with ProTools9
• Lower cost that other connectivity solutions for ProTools HD
• Lower cable costs using standard Ethernet
• Hardware-free solution for interfacing with any student computer
• Expandable, scalable for future growth