Facilities updates 2025.

Charlie Jones Live Venue

We’ve spent quite a bit of this summer in our Charlie Jones Live Venue making a number of tweaks and changes that, combined, should make the space a much better space in which to learn and practice:

Stage area:

• Removed the black cloth covering the back wall and painted the wall black
• Re-painted the stage and steps
• Widened the PA system so more of the stage is visible to the rest of the room
• Cleared everything out from underneath the stage
• Repositioned the stage projector and installed a new projector screen. Via a HDMI over ethernet transmitter, we’re able to send visuals to this projector from the stage, monitor world or front of house
• The Orange bass amp from the sign-out stock now permanently lives in the venue. One of the Orange guitar amp head and cabinets has been moved to Spirit Studio

Mic, stand and cable storage area:

• New microphone cupboard with customised foam insert drawers. There’s one shelf for drum microphones, another for dynamic microphones and finally one for condenser microphones. There’s also a dedicated shelf for wireless equipment and designated places for a range of other equipment
• Wall mounted holders for mic stands
• We’ve relocated the cable hooks to the dividing wall between this area and the stage

Monitor world:

• New workbenches for consoles, at a much more comfortable height. Consoles not in use can be stored on lower shelves of these workbenches
• Relocated the Turbosound amp rack
• Tidied up the other racks and all cabling
• Re-installed the doors to the amp rack
• Tidied up the amp rack, removing any redundant equipment and patch panels

Front of house:

• We’ve reduced the footprint of the front of house area by sliding the risers up to the right-hand wall
• The Mac rack is now located under the left-hand riser, further reducing the footprint of FoH. The screen for the Mac Pro is mounted on the left-hand riser
• There’s now a dedicated rack underneath the left-hand riser for power distribution, which greatly simplifies cabling going forwards
• We’ve fixed the phantom VU meters on the analogue console
• We’ve added an XLR socket to the FoH patch panel for DMX control of the stage lights
• We’ve removed the TV and fader banks from the rear wall

Digital networking:

• We’ve added more Cat6a cable runs between FoH and amp rack, FoH and Monitor world and monitor world and the amp rack. This makes it easy to connect a console at FoH with a stage box on stage (via the Monitor world patch panel) and many other digital networking workflows
• We’ve rack-mounted a network switch in the amp rack to help facilitate digital networking, Dante connectivity etc.

Tutor desk:

• We’ve wall-mounted the tutor speakers so they take up less space. This also makes transitioning from a lesson configuration to a venue configuration much quicker
• A significant tidy up of cabling, including always on ethernet connectivity, even if the amp rack is not powered up. Wall mounted sockets for ethernet and audio to the tutor speakers

Storage cupboard:

• The storage cupboard has had a huge clear out, removing anything that isn’t absolutely necessary
• This cupboard is now primarily for storing the other PA systems, including the d&b point source system, the RF rack and spare riser

Other:

• We’ve relabelled all patch panels at FoH, monitor world and in the amp rack
• We’ve tidied up the cabling on the ceiling
• We’ve removed the large flight cases from the venue to make the room more spacious
• All student tables for lessons are now matching
• We’ve removed some old pictures from the walls
• We’ve updated various software and added the console offline editor applications to both the tutor workstation and Mac Pro
• The venue has had a deep clean

We’ve still got some more painting to do, which will be completed over the coming weeks as and when there is availability.

Mac Suites

Another area that we’ve really focussed on this summer is our Mac Suites.

• We’ve upgraded all iMacs in Mac Suites 1 and 2 with solid state drives. You’ll now find they boot much faster and are generally more responsive
• We’ve also upgraded the tutor iMacs in Mac Suites 3 and 4 with solid state drives
• All iMacs in Mac Suite 4 were wiped and software re-installed. Utilising Safari instead of Chrome/Firefox and some changes to macOS settings should have resolved the graphical issues we experienced in this room
• Mac Suite 4 has been redecorated
• Actioned a 30-step programme of cleaning and testing in all of our Mac Suites

Audient Suite 1

Audient Suite 1 was one of our quieter facilities over the last academic year. Whilst it doesn’t have access to a recording space, we’ve been thinking of other ways to make it more popular:

• Four legendary synths are now permanently installed in Audient Suite 1: Roland D-50, Roland JP-8000, Access Virus TI and a Nord Lead 2X
• We’ve installed a Roland TR-8 drum machine
• We’ve also installed an Alesis MMT-8 MIDI sequencer and MIDI keyboard
• We’ve added LED lighting to the synth rack

This upgrade gives the room a more electronic music/sound design focus. Whilst it can facilitate getting hands-on with hardware before you gain access to the Synth Suite, it offers something different to the Synth Suite too. With the Audient console, you can get stuck into DAW-less music making, riding the faders of the console to manipulate audio from the hardware.

We also feel a bit more comfortable having these larger synths installed somewhere, rather than risk them getting trapped in fire doors or dropped when signed out from our stores.

Project Suite

It was great seeing the Project Suite be so popular last year. We did find we were spending quite a bit of time supporting students in this facility though. This was because it was quite easy to change to audio cabling and things weren’t being put back to how they should be.

We’ve installed a bantam patch bay and patch panel to try and solve this. We’ve carefully designed the patch bay so that you’d only need to use it to insert a dynamic controller to a channel of the Mackie Mixer. With the patch panel, you’d connect any microphones or instruments to this panel rather than directly into the mixer. This means that once all cables have been removed from the patch bay and patch panel, the configuration of the studio returns to its default configuration.

Having a floor standing rack, rather than the desktop rack has freed up space on the main furniture too.

DJ Booths

We’ve made some adjustments to our DJ booths:

• In the Allen & Heath Booth, we’ve swapped the CDJs and turntables, so the turntables are closest to the mixer. This better facilitates working with vinyl: it’s more ergonomic for beatmatching and scratching
• We’ve added microphone arms to both DJ booths to help capture dialogue for any radio, podcast and social content. You just need to sign out a microphone from our stores
• We’ve added a stand for the RMX-500 effects unit in the Allen & Heath Booth
• We’ve changed the LED lighting engines in our DJ booths, so they both now have a music sync mode: the lights will flash and change colour in time with any music played

Live Rooms

• We’ve redecorated Audient Studio 2 Live Room and Audient Studio 4 Live Room
• LED lighting has been added to Audient Studio 2 Live Room, Audient Studio 4 Live Room and the Shared Live Room
• We’ve improved the acoustic treatment in Audient Studio 4
• We’ve also reorganised the Shared Live Room to tidy it up and provide a bit more space

Other:

• We’ve redecorated Audient Studio 2’s control room
• We’ve raised the outboard racks in Audient Studio 4 slightly, as well as change the outboard unit order to make certain equipment more accessible
• The Ashdown EVO II bass amp is now permanently located in Audient Studio 4’s control room
• An Orange guitar and head and cabinet is now permanently located in Spirit Studio
• A rackmount guitar tuner has been installed in Spirit Studio
• A Marshall Valvestate guitar amp head and cabinet have been added to the sign-out stock. We’ve also repaired our second Marshall DSL15 guitar amp
• We’ve removed the old drum lockers from the corridor areas. We’ve been storing the drum kits in the live rooms in recent years. We’ve still got some painting to do to these areas

Maintenance

All studios have had a full line check, testing of all cabling and equipment. Any faults found have been repaired. We’re just finalising a date with our Neve VR specialist to service the console.

We’re finishing off the testing of all sign-out equipment and cabling at the moment. This will be completed shortly.

Green Room

• Our cold water dispenser is being replaced by one that can dispense hot and cold water, so you can use this with Pot Noodles etc. This is scheduled to be installed on the 22nd September
• We’ve also requested that bottled water is stocked in the main vending machine. As we don’t allow open drinks in our facilities, this provides an option for students and visitors who don’t have a water container with them
• We’ve also reminded the vending machine company to stock some healthier options in the machines

Software updates

• All major software and plugins have been updated school-wide. This includes Logic Pro 11.2, Ableton Live Suite 12.2 and Pro Tools Ultimate 2025.6
• We’ve upgraded Serum to version 2
• The standalone Dolby Atmos Renderer and Music Panner software has been installed in Mac Suite 2 and S6 Suite
• Three Valhalla plugins have been installed school-wide: Super Massive, Freq Echo and Space Modulator

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I hope you enjoy these updates! Do get in touch if you have any feedback. There’s a few more things that we’re currently working on too. We’ll update via the Technical Resources Classroom as and when they’re completed.

Many thanks to Cal, Damo and Dom for all of their hard work this summer. Thanks too to the studio assistants that have helped with line checks and preparing our facilities for the new academic year.