Founded by Canadian film and television audio pioneer Glen R Glenn in 1937, LA’s Glen Glenn Sound was established in 1937 and led sound-for-picture services for film and later television. The complex grew to 14 studios at three locations, and became the largest independent audio postproduction company in the world. In this form, involved in the audio post for more that 20,000 theatrical films and television shows, until it was acquired by Todd-AO in 1986.
Today it belongs to Deluxe – yet another iconic name in media. The Glen Glenn Sound building on Seward Street in Hollywood is now part of a restructuring of the media giant’s content development facilities – name remains on the side of the building, but inside Deluxe Audio Seward (as the facility is now known) has been equipped to lead modern audio post.
‘When you see the name on the side of the building, you’re immediately reminded of the immense history that comes with this place, which is that it’s one of the few large buildings in the world ever purpose-built from the ground up specifically for audio,’ says Deluxe Director of Audio Operations, Doug Higgins. ‘Once you step inside, it doesn’t feel like you’re in a 30-something-year-old building. The technology is cutting-edge.’
The transition was accomplished with products, service and support from Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the business-to-business (B2B) division of Guitar Center providing highly customised service for professional accounts.
As much as half of the building’s 40,000-sq-ft are taken up with five theatrical mix stages, with three functioning as Dolby Atmos and DTS-X immersive rooms. Stage 5, formally an ADR-only stage, was converted to a hybrid mix/ADR room that functions as a premier TV mixing stage. Stage 7 is unique in that it can transition between home and theatrical immersive formats, giving valuable real world translation experiences for the content creators.
A significant amount of the equipment was sourced and supplied through the Los Angeles office of GC Pro. Deluxe Seward took delivery of a massive amount of systems, platforms and products from Avid, JBL, Crown, Focusrite RedNet, Evertz, Waves, Izotope, Audioease, Neyrinck and Panasonic.
‘Working with the team at GC Pro was fantastic,’ Higgins says. ‘They gave us the attention we needed to get through an aggressive transition period.’
Equipment and technology decisions were made based on what could not only give the facility the ability to match a wide range of client needs, but do so at a level without compromise – part of Deluxe’s strategy is to be one stop solution for its clients – and keep efficiency high, but also adapt to changes in workflow, technology, and the industry environment around them going forward.
Several processes helped to achieve this. For instance, audio signal flow around the facility is a hybrid of Madi, Dante, and Blu-based digital audio networking. All of the facility’s mix stages use Madi I/O to efficiently deal with immersive audio, such as Dolby Atmos and DTS-X. From Madi, the signal then is sent to the Focusrite RedNet 6 box for conversion to Dante. From there, audio as networked data is distributed to Dante-enabled BSS Blu-806 Blu-Net processor that communicates via Blu Link to the Crown amplifiers – where all of the D/A conversion takes place – for the audio monitoring chain.
This configuration will take on greater importance for monitoring as the number of film-sound speaker formats continues to expand, with the now-conventional 5.1 and 7.1 being joined by Dolby Atmos and DTS-X immersive format with up to 64 discrete speakers in a room. Stage 1 currently supports the (65-ft x 35-ft) Cinema Giant Screen (CGS) format.
‘We have significant needs for audio distribution throughout the building, and much of it is literally running across Ethernet and coaxial cables,’ Higgins notes. ‘We can change formats, configurations and destinations very quickly.’
In addition, a KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) system from IHSE is implemented throughout the facility, allowing authorised users to remotely and securely connect to any workstation. ‘This is what makes the facility dynamic,’ Higgins explains. ‘A multi-workstation project can be moved from room to room with very little set-up time. In addition, our 10GB fibre-optic ring to our other Deluxe worldwide facilities truly helps meet our customers’ needs.’
In some cases, the market helps make technology decisions – Higgins cites the international ubiquity of JBL speakers for their use in most of its cinema monitoring – including the JBL High Powered Screen Array Cinema system. ‘We wanted high-quality audio monitoring with very strong translation into the real world,’ Higgins says.
In 2015, most of the Deluxe audio group in Los Angeles moved into Seward, which includes Chace Audio in Burbank, best known for proprietary restoration processes. ‘Having our Los Angeles audio groups finally come together into one building gives us a tremendous amount of talent, resources, flexibility, and efficiencies in one location,’ Higgins says. ‘While we have embraced an all digital workflow, we still provide servicing for over 85 legacy audio formats, which allows us to provide many end-to-end services to customers.’
