Symetrix SymNet Matrix and Cornish College of the Arts PONCHO Concert Hall

Presented by: Steve Kawasaki*, Symetrix
Dave Tosti-Lane, Cornish College

Meeting held Tuesday, Nov 13, 2001 at PONCHO Concert Hall
Reported by Gary Louie, AES PNW Secretary

Dave Tosti-Lane, Chair of the Cornish Performance Production Department and AES PNW Committeeman opened the meeting, welcomed the 30 or so attendees, and had them all introduce themselves.

Dave gave a brief history of the hall. PONCHO is an acronym for Patrons of NW Civic, Cultural and Charitable Organizations. PONCHO has helped fund renovations to the hall since the 1980s. The school was started by Nellie Cornish in 1914 and the hall was built in 1921. It was here that dancer Merce Cunningham and composer John Cage collaborated in the 1930s, with Cage creating his famous prepared piano in 1938. The hall is a 210 seat classic shoebox with a balcony. The 1987 renovations were deemed not suitable for today's music use, so more renovations came in 2000 with continued support from PONCHO and other grants.

Steve Kawasaki* of Symetrix in Lynnwood, WA, introduced SymNet, a new DSP based mixing, routing and processing platform designed for installed sound applications. He had his computer and SymNet hardware on stage, with a video projector for his slides and screen demos. The hardware boxes contain audio in/out and digital signal processing (DSP) which implements the audio processing you design and operate with their software. Symetrix looked at products such as Peavey Media Matrix and BSS Soundweb and wanted to build a next generation system that addressed current problems and used the latest DSP power. Maximum signal latency is under 2 mSec. Simplicity is evident; the processors are 1U rack mount size, they interconnect with ordinary CAT5 ethernet cabling, audio in/out is connected, and that's it. The SymNet Designer software allows CAD style design of complex systems by dragging the usual virtual processing modules and interconnects around on screen. An obvious advantage is that several racks of heavy gear and wiring is replaced by a few DSP units that are easily reprogrammed. In addition, the cost is far less then an equivalent array of analog processors. The hardware uses flash memory requiring no battery for parameter backup, although a battery is used for a realtime clock backup. The primary market is commercial installed sound, such as churches, airports, casinos and arenas.

Attendees then came up to the stage area to inspect the system further and enjoy some snacks and soft drinks. Symetrix T-shirts were given out to all.

Last modified 2/5/2002.