Stockholm's RCM installs SSL Origin
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The SSL Origin room is the only control room of the three music production environments to feature a mixing console, with the other two featuring DAW and outboard hardware setups. The control room featuring the Origin is used exclusively by students pursuing three-year bachelor's and two-year master's degrees in music production for their personal projects. The studio also offers a live tracking space housing a grand piano, drum kit and instrument amplifiers and is large enough to accommodate a rhythm section.
Walters-Storyk Design Group designed all three music studios on the new campus at the college, which traces its roots back to 1771.
“Students can book this room whenever they want as long as there is no teaching going on,” explains Jan-Olof Gullö, Professor, Music and Media Production. “Most students have worked with audio interfaces, but to understand signal flow it is always great to get them on a real mixing console. Origin is great for this because everything is clearly laid out. The students are recording everything on the Origin: classical music, pop music, electronic, rock. It responds well to all these genres. It’s a great tool and perfect for recording a lot of tracks - and it sounds great.”
He continues, “What I like about this mixer is that what you put into it you get out of it. It doesn’t colour the sound. The PureDrive preamps are very clean when the drive is not engaged. We did tests and the noise floor is very quiet. Also, it is efficient, power-wise. Older consoles need cooling systems, and they take a lot of energy. We like the sleep mode, which also conserves energy, so you don’t have to power up and power down all the time.”
Since it was installed, Origin has been very successful as a teaching tool, Prof. Gullö also comments: “It has been very easy for the students to learn on. The great thing with this mixer is that it allows students to learn it quite fast.”
KMH has about 600 to 700 students, out of which 70 are studying in music production programmes. Every year, around 300 people apply for these programs, but only 16 are accepted for the bachelor's program and 10 for the master's programme, according to Prof. Gullö. While most of the students are from Sweden, there are also students from Scandinavia and other countries.
The SSL Origin at the Royal College of Music facility was supplied by Arva, an SSL-authorized retail company in Sweden.
