CARA has three control rooms and three recording studios plus a MIDI studio.
Control rooms and studios go together - in pairs usually. However, in CARA all the studios and controls rooms are inter-connected by tie lines - just wires which knit the facility together and allow for sending signals between the various rooms - this allows for significant flexibility during recording sessions.
Let's begin with Studio M - the MIDI studio:
As you can see from this picture there are a number of obvious components. To the left of the large keyboard (a Korg - T1 synthesizer) is a rack with a mixer at top (a Mackie 1604). A mixer blends signals from various sources (microphones, keyboards, multitrack tape and so on) together into new signals - typically stereo (2-channel), or mono (1-channel) or some combination (using the bus architecture of the mixer). In this case, the Mackie 1604 has 16 inputs and 4 bus outputs in addition to a stereo output.
Below the mixer are two effects processors - a Lexicon Reflex and a Yamaha PCM 90-II. These units allow for reverberation, echo and other audible effects to be added to the signals routed through the mixer. In fact, these tools are very important ingredients in the overall creation of recorded music. No studio should be without one or two of these tools.
Below the effects processors is a patchbay. A patchbay is perhaps the most important single unit within a complex studio such as those found at CARA. From the name is it is easy to intuit what a patchbay does - it provides the potential to inter-connect various pieces of equipment and also, in the case of the CARA studios, inter-connect the various rooms. Using a patchbay one can connect the output of one device directly to the input of another without having to use a mixer for example.
Below the patchbay are a DAT (digital audio tape) Recorder and a Cassette Recorder and at the very bottom of the rack a power amplifier to drive the JBL Control Room Monitors used in this studio. At this point in time, the DAT Recorder is typically thought of as an industry standard. Many recordings are mastered directly to DAT. Originally the DAT format was developed as a commercial format for consumer marketing. But, due to many complex reasons it has instead been adopted as a professional standard for stereo recording. It uses digital technology to record sound as a stream of numbers (typically 44100 per channel per second) and stores these numbers on magnetic tape. In many ways a DAT machine is similar to a video recorder. To find out more about the technology of the DAT Recorder use a search engine on the WEB and follow the links you find. There is an abundance of information in CyberSpace about this important audio tool.
In the center of the picture is a large keyboard stand holding the Korg T1 Master Keyboard and various other synthesizer modules, among them the Yamaha TG55 (2), the Yamaha TX81Z (2) and the EMU UltraProteus. In the very center of the screen is a monitor for the Macintosh computer which serves as the central computer for MIDI sequencing and associated tasks. It is the 'brain" of the studio and is connected to all of the MIDI instruments through a MIDI patchbay-interface. The computer itself is on the right of the keyboard station below the Korg keyboard itself. There is also a PC computer located in the same position. This computer is used for storage and editing of synthesizer patches (sound descriptions for the various MIDI synthesizers) and also as a librarian for same.
Computers have always been a part of the MIDI studio ever since MIDI was introduced - way back in 1984! So it is typical to see computers in MIDI studios. It has also become typical to see computers in recording studios too! As we will see presently.
Here is another view of Studio M:
You can see from this picture that Studio M has three computers in it. The third is a Linux server which contains the CARA WebPages. This is located on the right side of the photo. Also shown here is the Emulator III. Studio M is the only studio in the CARA complex which is not treated for acoustical isolation. This means that no sound would be heard emanating from outside of a particular space. Typically, MIDI work can be done in environments which are not as quite as those which invite the use of microphones - such as Studios A, B and C in CARA.
