Dynaudio Deploys DiGiGrid In Shipping Container Mobile Studios

Dynaudio has deployed DiGiGrid in shipping container mobile studios aimed at promoting unknown artists.

Founded in 1977, Danish company Dynaudio is a leading producer of hand-crafted, high-end loudspeakers for the professional, home and in-car markets. Dynaudio's stated aim is to deliver effortless, natural sound, so that the listener experiences music as though the instruments themselves were in the room.

Always innovating and educating, the company recently constructed two fully equipped recording studios within shipping containers (one in Europe and one in the USA), installed professional producers in each and took them on the road.

Unheard is Dynaudio's mission to give something back. The company believes that not enough artists are getting a fair chance, so they created the pop-up studios to help redress the balance. The Unheard studios have been travelling the world, visiting shows and festivals and allowing hundreds of unknowns the chance to record and take away their tracks. The glass-fronted containers allow the process to be shared with an audience, entertaining them as well as providing a deeper insight into professional music-making. Midem and NAMM are just two of the high-profile events that Unheard has recently visited.

To put together a high-quality recording studio in a shipping container demanded very careful design and placed great emphasis on utilising the most compact, efficient and effective software and hardware on the market. Centred on a Waves eMotion LV1 software mixer, the Unheard studio process has to cater for fast turnaround, vastly different musical styles and be perfectly integrated with an outside PA and live video setup.

DiGiGrid products played a vital role in the studio infrastructure as producer and audio engineer Ashley Shepherd explains:

"We have been using the DiGiGrid devices in the Dynaudio Unheard recording studio for over a year now with great success. Since we have integrated Waves LV1 as our primary mixing environment along with SoundGrid, the DiGiGrid devices fit right in the ecosystem.

"In the control room container we use the DiGiGrid D to control our alternate monitors and also as an input for the DPA talkback microphone. I have even used the high impedance input to record bass along with an artist whose bass player was unable to make the session. I also use the D to monitor the outputs of the KLANG Fabrik headphone system to check mixes for musicians in the studio. With SoundGrid, I can patch any of the many channels we have in the studio directly to the DiGiGrid for monitoring.

"We also use the DiGiGrid Q as a remote monitoring station where we place a pair of Dynaudio speakers somewhere in the backstage area and use the Q to control the monitor level. Since the Q is powered over ethernet, this makes deploying that set up very easy and painless. All in all, the Digigrid devices have performed flawlessly and given us the modular flexibility that we need in this mobile recording studio environment."

Unheard has enjoyed remarkable success with its mission to bring the finest unknown artists to the attention of a much wider world. DiGiGrid plays a vital role in ensuring that the studio works flexibly and efficiently within its unusual but highly innovative pop-up approach.