White Mark Technical Services

Comprehensive Studio Installation Service	Specification & Assembly of Pre-wired Sub-systems
Music Recording, Mastering & Broadcast	Home Theatre Installation
Film & TV Post Production	Technical Project Management
Mobile Studio Installation	Services Available Worldwide

Turning ...design into reality

White Mark has considerable experience in the design and installation of specialist audio and video wiring systems for recording, post production and performance spaces.  We have developed a system whereby extensive work is carried out off-site in the production of pre-wired subsystems for subsequent installation when the project is ready to receive them.  This has a number of advantages: the installation time on site is cut to an absolute minimum; the time on site is more readily controlled and therefore is more easily integrated into the project and the wiring is largely completed in clean off-site conditions which lead to increased reliability.

White Mark’s approach to Technical Installation is outlined below:

Minimise studio downtime
Accuracy and quality of installation
Fixed price quotations
Technical documentation
Standardisation 
References
 

Minimise studio down time

White Mark Limited has a very impressive record in the accuracy and speed of technical installations, be they for new or refurbished systems. We clearly understand the commercial pressures studio owners go through when their studios are dark and not billing. We minimise the down time by careful design, planning and the completion as much of the work offsite as possible shipping as many complete sub-systems as possible.
 

White Mark spend less time on site as follows:

Design
We design the studio to allow offsite assembly of as much of the technical wiring and cabling as possible. This includes positioning and sizing of ducts, the order of construction, the design of the furniture and the layout of the machine rooms.

Project documentation
Once we have the design agreed we then go through an intensive project planning and design stage completing a comprehensive wiring document with all cable terminations and lengths listed. This document is taken to site and as built modifications made as the installation is drawn in. It finally becomes the technical manual handed to staff on completion.

Off site wiring and assembly
Comprehensive prebuilding and looming are designed in from the outset. The centrally patchable approach to the technical design that we take lends itself to the central termination and looming of the cabling for audio studios with a typical 96 channel SSL studio being ready to run sessions seven days after technical access is granted.

White Mark have proven over and over again that this approach leads to a reduction in time on site and an increase in accuracy over the traditional approach to studio cabling.

Accuracy and quality of the installation

White Mark completes most of its wiring offsite in clean, well lit environments where there is none of the building debris or temporary lighting that is usually typical for on site wiring. The result of this is the technicians can work at their workstations with good lighting and turn out very high quality work at predictable cost and with no distractions. The result of this approach is that White Mark’s technical installation group have high confidence of meeting their on site time and allow more accurate planning of this phase of the studio construction work. Clients have now gained this confidence and feel happy to book sessions directly following the end of the installation period in the knowledge that the all important first sessions will not be disrupted faulty wiring.

Fixed price quotations 

The detail available in the initial design documentation together with our own confidence in the manufacturing process is such that White Mark can give fixed price quotations for all wiring work undertaken. This is true for small sub-assemblies to major installations covering multiple studios and extended installation periods and is applicable world wide with our planning able to include economic sea freight or air delivery to best suit the project.

Technical documentation

White Mark have adopted a standard approach to cabling and cable design. This leads to systems that are very easy to understand and cable designations that can be learnt. This comprehensive approach to documentation minimises dependence on individual members of staff at the finished studio and permits a rigorous maintenance regime for the studios and their equipment that is accessible to all staff to be initiated.
All the technical cabling documentation is produced BEFORE any cable is cut and this working document is carried through the project build and modified as design or equipment changes are made. It is a control document and, like all our documentation, carries a revision number that can easily be verified by any White Mark staff member at any stage of construction. At the end of the installation, the document is then reprinted, bound and given to the client as a record of what was done.

Standardisation

In addition to the standardisation of our cabling and documentation outlined above, we also adopt a standard approach to patching, machine room design, wiring and, fundamentally, earthing and screening systems. This allows our client’s staff and their customers to move from one studio to the next and find a familiar technical layout and patching ideology. This minimises in-house training an allows clients a confidence within the facility that configuring the system to their needs will be both possible and easy to achieve and that what can  be done in one studio will be achievable similarly in the others. Screening and earthing conventions allow all equipment to be connected up with full confidence including that hired in on a session be session basis. Our wiring methodology follows all current requirements in both the USA and Europe for safety and best practice and will allow full realisation of equipment performance in both the digital and analogue domains.  Once again, the central patch approach of design for each studio system allows particular ease in upgrading equipment and facilities as time passes and equipment changes or increases in scope.

References

The company has been used for many high specification projects including the entire installation of the six studios at Hit Factory Criteria in Miami, USA.  Installation has been completed of entire digital studio systems based on SONY OXF R3 consoles for Peter Gabriel (two systems at Real World Studios) and for the Hit Factory in both New York and Miami.  The Euphonix digital console has been successfully installed in Miami and there have been a significant number of SSL and Neve installations completed worldwide over a wide range of the available model types and sizes. Early installations of the 9000j series consoles were undertaken by White Mark staff whilst two of the first 9000XL consoles have been installed at Hit Factory New York. Most consoles are integrated into both random-access editing systems and linear recording systems with ProTools and 3348HR machines being by far the most common.  Euphonix analogue consoles have also been installed at a number of locations.

Post-production systems have also been installed based on Fairlight, Amek, DigiDesign, Otari and AMS/Neve equipment.

Considerable experience is available in the flexible integration of all analogue and digital systems into facility wide installations particularly in respect of the requirements of synchronisation in large-scale digital and mixed digital and analogue facilities.  Our approach to some of the technical issues is discussed in the articles on the Hit Factory Studio Five in Studio Sound, and in the white paper on Earthing and Screening on this web site.

Contact us and we will be pleased to discuss your project, however early in the planning stage you may be, and any help that we may be able to offer.

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