West Point Glee Club
West Point, NY Rehearsal Recording & AV Upgrade

Challenges

Egner Hall, built in 1932, is home to the West Point Glee Club, the West Point Band and the Spirit Band. A major renovation added rehearsal spaces, an acoustic system and recording capability to the building, but the large rehearsal room still had no way to capture rehearsals or connect to the control room upstairs.

The room’s acoustics are demanding, and no better space existed anywhere on campus, so the system had to work in the room as it stood. The Academy team wanted the equipment on a portable TV cart rather than mounted on walls, so the installation would not consume space in the rehearsal room. Anything new had to integrate seamlessly with recording technology already in the building. And in a historic facility, pulling new cable and opening walls was to be avoided wherever possible.

Solutions

Metinteractive delivered the upgrade as a design-build project. Working from the equipment the Academy team had already specified, we redesigned the package to put less on the cart and simplify day-to-day operation, and specified a Q-SYS Core 8 Flex control processor, correctly sized for the room with headroom to expand later.

The Q-SYS system includes the Core processor, an audio and video conferencing bridge, and a camera with digital zoom, all accessed and controlled from a Q-SYS touch panel. Rather than pull new cable, we used the existing wallplate’s audio tie lines and data lines to reach the equipment rack, which eliminated the need for a network switch and reduced physical construction to a minimum. An owner-furnished 75-inch monitor powers on and off through CEC commands from the touch panel.

Users start and stop audio recordings from the panel. Files are stored on the Core processor, can be given a custom name and time stamp, and can be selected from a list and played back with a full set of transport controls. Video is recorded with audio on a user-provided computer over a single USB-C connection, with playback on the monitor. The touch panel also handles pan, tilt and zoom control of the camera and switches among three audio sources.

Rich Gold performed the extensive custom programming for recording, switching and monitor control in Metinteractive’s in-house shop. Metinteractive provided testing, commissioning and training, with Nick Alberto serving as site technician.

Photo Credits: Justin Conti/West Point Association of Graduates