Answering the need for post infrastructure development in Prince Edward Island, Halifax audio and video post house Salter Street Digital has opened a new mixing theater in Charlottetown’s Atlantic Technology Centre.

‘[We’ll be doing] TV and film mixing, with more of an emphasis toward the film side,’ explains Rob Power, VP, Salter Digital. ‘Our first few projects are audio, so right now what we have set up is on that side of it. We’ll finish the picture side in the next month or two.’

The mix theater is about 30 feet by 40 feet, equipped with a Soundtracs DS3 console, a JVL monitor system, a Fairlight 48-track editing system and Pro Tools. Power sees the new facility as something P.E.I. needs to move forward.

‘The projects that shot out here never posted here,’ he says. ‘Now there’s an opportunity. We’re even going to maybe attract people from outside the Maritimes. P.E.I. is a great place to mix in the summer. If P.E.I.’s big tourism slogan is ‘Come play on our island,’ ours is ‘Come mix on my island.”

Joan Turner Adams, locations and marketing manager at Technology PEI, agrees that the new facility is a significant milestone.

‘I think it’s immeasurable in terms of that piece we weren’t able to provide before,’ she says. ‘We’ve had some sound work, but we’ve never had this type of facility and the capacity it offers. It’s a first-class, state-of-the-art space.’

Because the two Salter Digital locations are set up with identical consoles as well as editing, monitoring and processing gear, it will be easy to transfer projects from one place to the other should one of the two shops be overburdened.

As for Salter Digital parent company Alliance Atlantis Communications selling the post shop to U.S.-based point.360 – a deal with an extended deadline of March 21 that has been pushed back again – all Power will say is, ‘The wheels are turning. It takes time to get things done.’

-www.salter.com