The University of Winchester commissioned us to transform their dance studio into a 5 room music studio complex. The complex was to support the expansion of the media course in audio recording and mixing for music production and film post production.

Initial talks focused around what they could do with the available space and what they would need to deliver the course. The studios had to reflect industry standard facilities to provide an accurate reflection of facilities the students would go on to encounter.

Challenges:

• Industry standard audio facilities – are an essential part of learning, there being little point to learning on outdated equipment

• Height – of the dance studio ceiling
• Access to the corridors

VA worked closely with the school academics and technicians to review their proposals and, following consultation, create music and post production facilities dedicated to those training for a career in sound. The project combined a 5 room complex including two 5.1 control rooms, two live rooms and a ADR/Foley room. The studios are located in the Bowers Building, part of their media facilities.

In order to develop the course content, we supported the university by liaising about what we would be providing and how they would use it. This meant that they were able to develop the course content in parallel with the studio development, giving them tangible course content and a tangible construction project for us.

The acoustic design kept the existing maple flooring and the high ceiling allowed for some expansive visual and acoustic designs in the large live room. The ceiling height allowed us to be really creative with the design of the large live room. The high ceiling in Live 1 provided opportunity to design the first acoustic diffuser that provides brilliant sound diffusion together with excellent low frequency control and is the first manufactured by the Italian Wood-Skin company installed in the UK.  A very flexible lighting system compliments the design to create the atmospheric mood. The studio equipment centrered around 2 Audient ASP8024HR consoles with monitoring by Amphion and Unity Audio. The studios were fitted out with Protools and Locic and features the Focusrite Red Net system. Extensive remodelling was undertaken to access the corridors and provide a new studio controllers office and feature a timber sound wave.

It was determined that 2 studios would be required to satisfy the student access demands and provide enough studio hours for research and development.  For the technical specification we chose monitoring by Amphion and Unity Audio, plus a wide rage of hardware and software dynamic and effects systems by SSL, Rupert Neve Designs, Universal Audio, Lexicon, dbx, Waves, TC Electronic, Drawmer, Warm Audio, Mäag Audio, and Sound Toys to complete the technical design.