More than 100 Audio-Technica ATDM-0604a SmartMixers were recently installed in several faculties at the University of Malaga, as part of a major project to allow the delivery of remote teaching alongside classroom attendance. A large number of rooms were equipped with a total of 129 digital automatic mixers to ensure the University is able to engage in the ‘bimodal teaching’ approach, and to meet contingency plans for situations where face-to-face activity is impossible in the future.
Malaga-based AV integrator Geniux was responsible for the entire project, with 38 ATDM-0604a SmartMixers installed in the Faculty of Psychology, 19 in the Faculty of Medicine, 23 in the Faculty of Law, 11 in the Faculty of Architecture and 38 in the Social Studies and Commerce Complex (CESC). In addition to the ATDM-0604a mixers, the equipment in each of the classrooms includes a wide variety of AV media, webcams and extensive connectivity to allow the development of teaching modalities. The ATDM-0604a was chosen as the ideal solution to reliably handle the complexity and flexibility requirements across the various faculties.
“We opted for the ATDM-0604a because it offered us – in a very compact format – everything we needed for this application: the right number of inputs and outputs for the classroom, USB interface that allows the class to be delivered using any computer; the teachers can use their laptops, using the audiovisual infrastructure of the classroom,” said Geniux’s acoustic engineer Jesús Calabria. “Most importantly, a very efficient echo cancellation system was required, allowing for extremely clear and clean audio. We looked at different options but only Audio-Technica offered us a very compact unit that fully met our needs. It was the optimum solution, with the price and features we really needed.
“Another advantage of using the ATDM-0604 is that it allows us to have a homogeneous solution for the entire university, greatly facilitating the maintenance of the system, the quick replacement of equipment, spare parts etc. In addition, the inclusion of the Web Remote functionality allows us to make all the adjustments and configurations from any computer or mobile device, simply and quickly.”
Thanks to the Web Remote interface, monitoring and control tools are accessible via the mixer’s front panel or from a PC or Mac computer, as well as from iOS or Android devices. Up to six different configurations can be stored as presets, allowing users to quickly switch from one configuration to another, adapting to any classroom requirement.