Founder Jeff Payne named his Santa Monica boutique post-production studio Eleven, as a reference to the classic line in the film “This Is Spinal Tap.”
Aside from his sense of humor, Payne also wanted to exceed his clients’ expectations with service and leading-edge technology, prompting the installation of RedNet Dante network interfaces from Focusrite.
Two new mix bays at Eleven, designed by Visioneering Design’s Ron Lagerlof, include four RedNet 5 Pro Tools HD Bridge interfaces, two per studio, and one RedNet 4 Eight-Channel Mic Preamp shared between the new mix suites. The RedNet 5 units interface with the BSS BLU-806 signal processors and Pro Tools that Eleven uses to manage its monitoring systems on the Dante protocol.
“The RedNet units have made an enormous difference here,” says AJ Murillo, a lead post-production mixer at Eleven, which has built a solid reputation as an industry leader in sound mixing for commercials and media since Payne founded it in 1999, with projects for top agencies representing such brands as Ford and Volkswagen.
“The RedNet 5s act as a bridge between Pro Tools and our monitoring systems in the new rooms upstairs, and they mirror the way we do that in the original two studios downstairs.”
Both sets of mix suites have similar functionality, but the new rooms benefit from seamless networked monitoring via RedNet and Dante, and do so more efficiently. “Pro Tools sees one RedNet 5 box as two Avid 192 HD I/Os, so we’re getting as much capacity from one RedNet 5 as we get from two HD I/Os,” he says.
In addition, RedNet has drastically reduced the amount of cabling necessary in the new studios, which allows their aesthetic to be much sleeker and uncluttered. “Jeff is big on the client experience, and this is part of that,” says Murillo. “We don’t need to have patch bays and pre-amps in the rooms. Just a few Ethernet cables are all we need.”
“We’re not spending the first half hour of each session re-navigating the I/O — RedNet makes it easy to configure the studios for each project and simple to move sessions between rooms,” he says. “Now the experience is great for everyone.”
