Advanced Audio Delivers Symphony Sound Using iSCSI

Advanced Audio rentals is a leading audio equipment rental firm in Burbank, California with clients such as Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox Studios, Paramount and Warner Brothers. These companies needed a partner to provide them with equipment to achieve the high quality sound that is imperative for orchestral recording, post production and film dubbing.

But what do you do when your current workflow process does not keep pace with high definition audio technology like Digidesign's ProTools/HD? Realizing that quality sound is imperative in the movie business and for orchestral recording, Paul Levy, owner of Advanced Audio Rentals was determined to find a networked alternative solution that could support all track counts and sampling rates up to 192kHz.

With the introduction of DigiDesign's ProTools/HD, audio engineers could now configure virtual track layouts and use many more effects to speed workflow. Audio could now be digitized at sampling rates up to 192kHz. Currently, the only stand alone storage solution that can support 192khz recording is FireWire 800-based. This storage format poses multiple challenges including mounting difficulties, lack of RAID redundancy, and track allocation problems because one needs to use multiple physical devices daisy-chained together in order to overcome the rotational speed limitation of 7200 RPM.