| The ISONAS system has provided significantly better facility security and control |
Having grown up as a musician in what evolved into the vibrant Seattle music scene, Steven Bell started performing his own music at an early age. With a desire to obtain quality recordings of his music, he eventually began to develop recording studio capabilities in his garage. Word of his recording abilities spread in the local music community and Steven was approached by different groups asking for assistance with recording their work. Today Steven owns and operates Top of the Hill Music Studio in Duvall, Washington, nestled in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains about 40 miles east of Seattle.
“I decided that there was sufficient demand for accessible, high quality recording so I created Top of the Hill Music,” says Mr. Bell.
Easy management and setup
The facility is actually a “building within a building” that employs multiple layers of sheetrock and Kinetics isolation to assure outside noises never intrude in the recordings produced in the studio. The 2,800 square foot studio provides superior acoustics in a relaxed environment with the artist in mind.
The studio is centered around an 800 square foot “live room” providing recording space for entire groups. There are also multiple isolation rooms for separately tracking individual musicians or vocalists. “We have really created a state-of-the art recording studio with the most up-to-date recording equipment available anywhere”, states Steven Bell.
There are typically 8 to 10 groups contracted for recording space usage at any one time, which means that multiple people need to access the facility on a scheduled basis. To solve the issue of lots of people coming and going at different times, the studio installed an ISONAS access control system consisting of 2 PowerNet reader-controllers for the exterior doors and 2 on interior doors that provide access to specific recording spaces. “The main criteria we had in 2005 when we installed the first ISONAS system were that we wanted something that would be simple to install as well as providing the flexibility to easily administer the system”, says Mr. Bell. The ability to easily add and delete authorised entry to the facility on a scheduled basis is extremely important since groups and individual artists need access to the studio to record their albums over a relatively short, but activity intense period of time. During their contracted studio time they need to be able to come and go as they please at virtually all hours of the day and night. “The web based administration of the ISONAS system allows us to effectively meet the scheduling needs of our artists, even providing the ability to open a door remotely if the need arises.”
The ISONAS system was pre-planned into the current Top of the Hill facility with the simple installation of a singleCAT5 low voltage cable to each door. “Not having the requirement for a computer rack or a control panel made the installation quite simple and we accomplished all of the install work ourselves.” By taking advantage of the same system infrastructure installed to provide their networking and recording capabilities, Top of the Hill matches their state-of-the-art recording with equally state-of-the-art physical security for their building.
The ISONAS system has provided significantly better facility security and control at the most affordable cost available in the industry for a unique music industry company.