Since its founding in 1979, the aim of Florida’s Full Sail University has been to prepare students for the technology they are likely to encounter when finding employment. Full Sail’s Recording Arts Program recently refreshed its own audio technology, installing ten Solid State Logic Origin 32-channel analogue inline studio consoles and 11 SSL BiG SiX compact mixer/interfaces in a variety of teaching spaces to better reflect today’s music production workflows.
‘They learn how to record in those rooms, working as a group of six students with one instructor,’ says Director of Advanced Session Recording, Darren Schneider. ‘The first reports we got back after installing the Origins was that the students were learning them faster than the previous consoles in those rooms.’
The average age of students passing through Full Sail’s campus is 21, typically used to working on laptops. With this as a starting pont, Full Sail’s Recording Principles course, the initial audio course for all degree programs within the university’s Audio School, includes an introduction to basic audio signal flow, and provides the first opportunity for most students to work on a large-format analogue mixing console. The class is taught in two music production suites in Full Sail’s main studio complex that have both recently been equipped with SSL Origin consoles. The rooms, which each feature a vocal booth, with outboard equipment, microphones and instruments.
Seven Origin consoles have also been installed in the A Mix Lab, a large teaching space where students work in pairs on each desk and learn to collaborate. Another Origin is in an adjoining classroom. The learning environment further builds on the collaborative spirit of the introductory classes in the two Origin-equipped production suites. ‘Our intent is to get students to see that other people have strengths and weaknesses and to use those strengths when they can,’ Schneider explains.
‘We want to get them in that collaborative mindset,’ confirms Brandon Egerton, Education Director of Audio Arts. ‘To set them up in pairs like that is a big part of setting the tone for the rest of the degree program. We want to get them out of their comfort zones and open up to the prospect of working and collaborating with others.’
In mid-2023, Full Sail staff installed 11 SSL BiG SiX consoles in a complex of small, flexible production rooms, each with a microphone and some essential outboard equipment, dubbed the Mix Palace. The bays were previously configured as analogue mix rooms, and housed SSL AWS 900 consoles. In contrast, the new, compact BiG SiX consoles enable students to create music using current production workflows, providing an interface via each console’s USB connector to a central computer that hosts a library of plug-ins, samples and virtual instruments.
‘Students can access the host computer, pull up a sample, play keys over a part that they’ve been working on and record it into Logic on a laptop. Then, they can unplug and go to another bay where an artist is going to sing on the track. They can run a mic and preamp through all the plug-ins, track the vocal and take their laptop away again,’ Schneider says. ‘Today’s students’ creative world exists on their laptop, so we’re trying to find unique ways to make their laptop the centre of the studio and have it interface with the rest of the world. And we’re trying to do that campus wide.’
Although the Origin is an inline console, offering two signal paths through each channel module, ‘We teach it as a split console, with the last eight channels for mic inputs and with Pro Tools returning to the first 24 channels on the large faders,’ Schneider says. ‘We teach how to sum audio, because every studio on the planet is summing to 16 tracks for headphone boxes, as well as summing out of Pro Tools and how to monitor through the console.’
The Origin gives students an opportunity to get their hands on SSL’s 242-style E series EQ. ‘Students have seen the SSL brand and they’ve seen this EQ format, whether it’s a G or an E series, emulated by plug-ins,’ Schneider says. ‘When they look at the console, it’s not a foreign object. They feel like they’re a little bit more in control, because they’ve seen it, they’ve touched it, they’ve seen videos on it.’
The seven Origin desks in the A Mix Lab are on a Dante network, interfaced via an Avid MTRX to each console and each station’s patchbay, that offers instructors flexible routing options.
‘From the teacher station we can feed 16 channels of Dante audio to every single console,’ says Director of Technical Services, Michael Orlowski. ‘If students were assigned a drum mixing task, the instructor can play previously recorded tracks on a loop. This allows each student to independently mix the same drums, and then compare their mixes on the instructor’s station.’
‘Everybody’s on headphones so they can work in tandem or work together,’ Schneider adds, ‘It allows 14 people to work in this space. Every station has a microphone plugged into it, so one person could be talking while the other person is working on signal flow, or vice versa. The instructor can come by and hear what they’re doing. It’s a really cool environment.’
The centrepiece of the Recording Arts Program is the Audio Temple, a large music recording studio featuring a 72-input SSL Duality console. Schneider, who focuses on tracking, works in that room with the likes of Grammy-winning Americana artist Aoife O’Donovan. Students can watch as he works with the musicians, switching between four cameras on a Zoom interface – a system that Orlowski set up during the pandemic.
‘They can watch my dual Pro Tools rigs while hearing the console output,’ Schneider says. ‘And I have an online instructor who will answer any questions in the chat.’
Students are accompanied by instructors in the main studios, but the school recently implemented Amplify, an initiative that allows students to schedule extra-curricular time for overdubbing and mixing in the BiG SiX-equipped rooms. Schneider, originally unsure what the response from students would be, was pleasantly surprised to discover that students have been booking about 100 sessions every month. ‘I’m hoping by the end of the year we can say, that we ran 1,200 sessions through those studios.’
More: www.fullsail.edu
