The Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences (CRAS) has expanded its Master Recording Program with the opening of Broadcast Audio programme, and equipped its facilities to suit.

Established in 1980 and located in the Arizona desert, CRAS offers a comprehensive educational programme designed to prepare students for world of audio recording and sound engineering. Its latest venture has seen Studer Vista digital mixing consoles and JBL Professional LSR6300 Series studio monitors at the heart of a new studio to demonstrate workflows and technologies that are specific to live television broadcast. Students will use the CRAS Broadcast Audio Production Room as well as the CRAS mobile production trailer, and work hands-on with Studer broadcast audio mixing consoles.

‘Our programme has always required students to study onsite for 30 weeks and then go on a mandatory internship, but we expanded that to six more weeks in our programme and that includes the new Broadcast Audio phase,’ says Robert Brock, Digital Department Director at CRAS. ‘We want our students to understand the requirements of working in broadcast production – being able to focus while working under a director and handling the pressure that comes with live broadcast.

‘A lot of people haven’t had the exposure to audio for broadcast, so there’s kind of a feeling within the broadcast industry that there isn’t a passion for audio,’ he adds. ‘We want to make our students aware of the opportunities that exist for audio engineers in broadcast.’

While in the development stages of the Broadcast Audio segment, CRAS found an strong partner in Studer: ‘We never want to do anything halfway when it comes to technology, because we want to serve the students but also want to show the industry how committed we are,’ Brock says. ‘A lot of manufacturers offer educational discounts and that’s fine, but we really wanted an educational partner and something that was mutually beneficial to the manufacturer and to our students. And this is where Studer really stepped up, they really understood that we wanted a partner that had some vision of their own.’

This led to the creation of StuderBroadcastAcademy.com in partnership with Studer. The training programme is available to professional engineers but also provides the basis of the curriculum at CRAS. Students can operate a Vista 9 console in the audio production room, a Vista 5 in the mobile broadcast unit, or get training using the Studer Virtual Vista software.

‘When you sit behind the Vista 9 or the 5, the user interface with Vistonics displays makes it really intuitive once you have it set up and configured,’ Brock says. ‘It’s very easy to take a student who knows very little about consoles and explain just a few things and they can navigate the system, which isn’t true of all consoles out there.’

In addition, CRAS equipped its studios with two 5.1 surround-sound systems, using JBL LSR6325 studio monitors with LSR6312S studio monitor subwoofers. ‘I was at JBL’s headquarters in Northridge, California and [JBL Professional Senior Manager for Recording & Broadcast] Peter Chaikin showed us the LSR6325 monitors and we really liked them,’ Brock says. ‘They were the right form factor and sound really great. What I really like is as a system when coupled with the sub, they sound better than anything else out there. As a singular system, it jibes together really well.’

CRAS also worked closely with veteran audio engineer Fred Aldous and other professionals to devise the approach of the Broadcast Audio segment: ‘Fred has been working with our instructors once a week to get them up to speed on everything, and in the meantime we’ve reached out to Nascar, the NFL and other organisations to get connected with A1 engineers in the field. We’re really trying to connect closely with the industry,’ Brock says.