Birmingham, U.K. (December 18, 2015)—The Birmingham Conservatoire has installed a 24-channel SSL Duality Delta mixing console as a core teaching tool and to support music recording, research and other production activities.
Dr. Simon Hall, head of music technology at the Conservatoire, sees it as a natural fit for the facility. “It comes down to quality all the time,” he explains. “We’ve got a very good mic collection: lots of DPA, Neumann, Soundfield; we’ve got ATC monitoring; and on the other side of the glass, we’ve got a Steinway Model B Grand Piano. The missing component was a serious high-end board, and that’s what Duality is for us.”
Duality Delta combines a traditional analog path and signal processing with DAW control. The new SSL Delta-Control plug-in allows automation of the analog signal path within the console using standard DAW automation recording and editing tools.
Outside the main Music Technology courses, the Conservatoire’s new console will have roles to play in producing student portfolios and audition recordings, and in course components aimed at getting musicians familiar with the recording studio.
The Conservatoire’s new principal, cellist and conductor Julian Lloyd-Webber, also believes in bringing technology into the realm of traditional musicianship. “He believes quite passionately that musicians should have an idea of what it is that is being put in front of them. They can take ownership of the microphone. Quite often engineers don’t necessarily know as much about the instrument and the way the instrument projects as the musician does—especially when instruments can be very individual things.”
The Birmingham Conservatoire was founded (as the Birmingham School of Music) in 1859 and became a Conservatoire in 1989. Music Technology was introduced to the Conservatoire in 2001.
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