Genelec powers creativity at MUBA’s sound recording studios

The Tallinn College of Music and Ballet (MUBA) has recently equipped its sound recording studio with Genelec monitoring solutions.

Located in the heart of Estonia’s capital city, MUBA unites three historic institutions: Tallinn Music High School, Tallinn Ballet School and Tallinn Georg Ots Music School. The 26,000 square metre campus features four music halls, two auditoriums and six ballet studios, as well as numerous classrooms and practice rooms.

Local Genelec partner msonic Baltic has equipped the two rooms that make up MUBA’s sound recording studio with Genelec monitoring solutions.

“Control Room One houses our Rupert Neve Designs 5088 console, and takes the user back to the ‘age of analogue consoles’ for recording and mixing,” said Andres Olema, MUBA’s sound studio manager. “It serves as our main control room for recording from our studio room, allowing our first course Sound Engineering students to do their mixing assignments fully analogue with the Neve and outboard gear for the first half of the year.”

The room is also equipped with a pair of Genelec 8341A coaxial nearfield models to complement the room’s main monitors. Olema said this “gives us the nearfield accuracy that you definitely need when working long hours with the console.”

Control Room Two “functions more as our ‘working in the box room, together with the possibility to get acquainted with 5.1 surround mixing,” explained Olema. The space is set up in a 5.1 configuration, deploying five 8351B coaxial models complemented by a 7370A subwoofer.

Throughout the campus, Genelec 8000 series monitors are deployed in various production and classroom spaces, while a pair of floating 4430A Smart IP PoE loudspeakers is used to provide talkback for recording performances when the musicians aren’t using headphones.

Explaining the choice of three-way models from The Ones series for both studios, Olema points out a connection with Genelec that pre-dates MUBA’s creation in 2022: “The origins of our department here at MUBA stretch right back to the Georg Ots Music School, which always had Genelec two-way monitors in its small studios,” said Olema. “So, The Ones family offered us a familiar and trusted sound with even more precision. With The Ones, you can always rely on getting the optimal sound from your setup.”

Referring to The Ones’ internal DSP and integration with GLM loudspeaker manager software, Olema explained, “GLM software really helped us to calibrate and refine the monitoring systems in both rooms, which is especially important with the 5.1 surround system that we have in Control Room 2. With GLM, it’s really easy to calibrate the setup and get as much precision as possible out of The Ones.”

“We certainly achieved what we hoped for,” concluded Olema. “Of course, some adjustments and improvements were needed to make everything run smoothly, but all in all, we’re very happy. We feel that in addition to just being a really nice studio, it’s also very versatile as a whole, which is much needed in a school setting such as ours.”

“For an educational institution shaping the next generation of audio professionals, dependable monitoring is not just a technical choice but a long-term investment in quality listening and critical decision making,” said Jürgen Urbanik, marketing and business development manager at msonic Baltic. “The combination of world-class analogue recording through the 5088 console and highly accurate Genelec monitoring creates an exceptional ecosystem that reflects real-world professional studio standards.”