Toronto, Canada (February 9, 2024)—Renowned 129-year-old concert venue Massey Hall in Toronto recently completed a massive revitalization project, also adding a seven-story tower housing the new Deane Cameron Recording Studio.
The new Allied Music Centre building expands Massey Hall’s talent support services, offering rehearsal rooms, artist dressing rooms and other amenities. New public spaces include a lobby, lounge, and new performance venues, including the 500-capacity TD Music Hall on the fourth floor and the 100-seat 6th Floor Theatre. The recording studio, which opened in September 2023 and is named in honor of Massey Hall’s late CEO, Deane Cameron, is equipped for Dolby Atmos mixing and includes a Solid State Logic System T S500 64-fader console.
Doug McKendrick, vice president, production & technology at The Corporation of Massey Hall and Roy Thomson Hall, the not-for-profit organization that operates the concert halls, had a short list of requirements for the mixing console. Primarily, the console needed to accommodate fast-paced events in Massey Hall as well as easily switching between live shows in the Allied Music Centre’s various venues and studio recording projects in the new production facility. “We needed it to be a digital console and we needed to be able to recall fast,” he says.
Allied Music Centre is wired with fiber, McKendrick adds, with a 10-gig backbone extending throughout the entire facility and into Massey Hall.
Massey Hall Renovates, Adds Immersive Recording Studio
Veteran producer and engineer Eddie Kramer, who lives in the Toronto area, consulted on the studio project, and recommended the SSL System T production platform, adds McKendrick, who oversaw all technical aspects of the entire project: “Eddie has been a real friend of the project and a real mentor to me.”
McKendrick and the studio staff wanted to be able to work in Dolby Atmos on both recording and live projects in the new studio, which is outfitted with a 9.1.4 ATC monitor speaker system. “We’re looking to push the envelope in audio as much as we can in all facets,” he says. System T’s native immersive audio bussing, panning and monitoring capabilities made it appropriate for the new room. “System T was the best choice. The console is really a great, great device.”
Toronto-based Martin van Dijk, senior consultant, partner and head of design at Engineering Harmonics; acoustician Bob Essert, founding director of Sound Space Vision in the U.K.; and networking specialist Jamie Howieson, co-founder and CEO of Network Vectors in Australia, all brought their expertise to the Massey Hall revitalization and Allied Music Centre design and integration projects, McKendrick reports. Audio equipment suppliers included Solotech, Studio Economik and Long & McQuade Professional.
