A sharp increase in demand for its services over the past year has enabled London’s runVT post house to expand, initially recruiting additional dubbing mixers and then adding to the facility’s capabilities. Most recently, this has involved HHB Communications builting a future-proof 5.1 mixing suite.
Established in 1995 by MD Balvinder Singh Sanghera, runVT is one of the longest-serving post houses in the UK, known for its friendliness and high-quality broadcast content. During the pandemic, the new team members worked on a home set up and then brought projects into the studio to finalise the mix. With London’s reopening came logistical issues, with multiple mixers having clients that now wish to come in for reviews. In response, runVT made the decision to invest in a second mixing suite.
‘Once the decision was made, we had four weeks to execute,’ explains runVT Director of Operations & Business Development, Happy Chhokar. ‘We wanted to get a suite built so that we could best meet the needs of our clients and make the lives of our team easier. We knew we had to make the jump, and were happy to do so with HHB.’
Dubbing Mixer Thaddaios Yianni spearheaded the project, worked with HHB’s Steve Jones to ensure the room would be expandable and able to match runVT’s current mixing suite. They enlisted the help of Nick Langley, owner of Audio Schemes, added acoustic treatment while maintaining the look and feel that runVT is known for. Once this was achieved, he went about ensuring that the new room had the right tools.
The two rooms are to be used interchangeably and the rooms sound needed to match as closely as possible. The team was also committed to building a room that would be able to expand upon its capabilities as needed.
Already partial to the sound of Genelec monitor loudspeakers, runVT chose five 8330As and a 7360A subwoofer. A key reason behind choosing the SAM range of Genelec speakers was the use of the GLM system to ensure that the sound of the room matches that of their other mixing suite. ‘GLM makes me feel confident in the rooms and our monitors allow me to feel confident that I’ll be able to catch and correct my mix, so nothing comes as a surprise during a review,’ Yianni says.
The next decision the runVT team needed to make was regarding the console, with two important factors informing the choice. The first was that Chhokar and Yianni wanted the room to be as future proof as possible, as technology trends are constantly changing along with the demands of the market. Second, the room had its own physical constraints that necessitated a smaller-format console.
For runVT it was a choice between the various Avid control surfaces, and it quickly boiled down to either two S1s and a dock, or an S4. Although the team found the S1 extremely versatile and well designed, they eventually decided that the S4 was the best choice due to the additional functionality. The S4 has four times as many encoder knobs per strip, more easily configurable spill zones and a huge amount of soft key functions that are accessible and customisable.
‘The S4 just fit our needs from functionality to the size for our room,’ Yianni says. ‘We had to get to work mixing with it immediately and have been busy on it since, it’s been a dream. Super intuitive and already speeding our workflow, everything in Pro Tools just seems right at my fingertips. We’ve been particularly enjoying using Routing Folders in conjunction with spill zones and I am sure there is a lot more to discover. Then we went with the MTRX Studio, which opened us up to the world of Dante. Making it that much easier for us to expand, whereas before it would be a much bigger decision to rewire the room.’
‘It was a pleasure working with Happy, Thad and the rest of the runVT team on this project. The kit they chose is perfect for the space and sets them up for years to come,’ says HHB Account Manager, Steve Jones. ‘Great to see the suite up and running; can’t wait to see what runVT are working on next.’
