You are here:

Studios & Edit Suites

The Department has three edit suites and three recording studios which are all comparable in quality to the best commercial installations. There are a number of factors that differentiate our facilities from most other universities:

  • The PATS building was custom built to our specifications, which means that there is a high level of acoustical isolation between the studios - a rock band in Studio 2 won't ruin a harpsichord recording in Studio 1.
  • The studios are acoustically treated to enable critical listening, rather than putting equipment in an old classroom and making do with how it sounds.
  • All the studios and edit rooms are air conditioned, with quiet air conditioning and with all noisy equipment in machine rooms so that you can concentrate on the sound without distracting background noise.
  • The cabling infrastucture is to a professional standard, which means that the individual facilities can be connected together - for instance you can record the Steinway piano in Studio 1 live room as part of a pop session in Studio 2.
  • The equipment has been selected to be representative of that used in the best professional studios; including exemplary consoles from SSL, Neve and Sony, and recording devices from analogue reel-to-reel to the latest computer-based systems.

Studio 1

Studio 1 is our 'classical' recording studio. The studio floor has a reverb time of 1.1 to 1.5 seconds, and can be used to record anything from a solo singer to a large orchestra and choir. It includes a Steinway concert grand piano, a harpsichord, a fortepiano, and a range of percussion equipment. Studio 1 is also used for department concerts, all of which are recorded by Tonmeister students. 

 

 

The control room can be used for recording to stereo or multitrack formats, or for multitrack editing. It includes a 48-channel Sony DMX-R100 desk, Lexicon 480 reverberation, B&W Nautilus 801 monitoring, Pyramix digital recording / editing system, as well as digital stereo (DAT & CD) and multitrack recorders.








Studio 2

Studio 2 is our 'pop' recording studio. The studio floor is acoustically treated to be 'deader' than Studio 1, to limit the recorded reverberation and to allow for greater separation between the instruments. It is 60 sq metres, which is sufficient to record a large band (in fact 20-piece big bands have been recorded in there).

 

 

 

 


 

 

The control room is centred around a 56-channel SSL 9000K series console. Recording in this studio can be to 2" 24-track analogue tape with Dolby SR, to a 48-track Tascam HD recorder, or to ProTools. This room also includes Lexicon 480 reverberation, a range of outboard processing equipment, ATC SCM100 monitoring, Logic and stereo digital (DAT & CD) recorders.

 

 

 

Studio 3

Studio 3 is used primarily for mixing recordings made in the other studios. However, it has a small overdub room for adding additional parts to recordings, and has connections to all the other studios so that recordings can be made directly from any of these facilities. The desk in Studio 3 is a 96-channel Sony OXF-R3 digital console, which allows for automation of all of the controls. The studio is set up for mixing in stereo and surround sound, and includes a 5-channel ATC monitoring system.

There is a range of outboard processing and MIDI equipment in this studio, including Lexicon and TC Electronic units. There is a 2" 24-track analogue tape recorder with Dolby SR to allow transfer of material from Studio 2, and a 24-track digital recording system for additional tracks or transfer of material from location recordings; the studio is configured so both of these systems can be synchronised.

The studio includes an Apple Mac Pro running Pro Tools and Apple Logic (with 48 MADI i/o channels), Max/MSP and other audio processing software for editing and production. Finally, there are a range of analogue and digital stereo recorders. 

Edit 1

Edit 1 is intended for hard disk editing & MIDI composition/preparation and contains a ProTools HD2 system with 24 channels of analogue i/o and MIDI & sync interfaces. It also offers ATC monitoring, stereo DAT recording, Pyramix Native, Apple Logic and a range of MIDI equipment.

Edit 2

This suite is for 'pop' or 'classical' hard disk editing and is equipped with a ProTools HD1, Pyramix Native, ATC SCM20A monitoring and a DAT recorder.

Edit 3

This suite is for media transfer, mastering or editing. It is equipped with a 12-channel Neve mixer, DAT machines, a CD recorder, professional analogue cassette machines, 1/4" open-reel analogue recorders (Studer A80 with Dolby A) and a Technics professional turntable. It also includes an Apple Mac Pro running Pro Tools, Logic and Pyramix Native, and a SADiE digital audio workstation.