"The opportunity to re-equip and upgrade the studio equipment on this level is a very rare thing, particularly in the education sector, so it had to be done right," says Grant Leslie, music technician at Westminster Kingsway College, and specifier of all studio equipment including the Audient desks.
"The Zen was the logical choice for us as it had exactly the features that we were looking for as well as the renowned Audient sound quality; there was nothing else on the market that came close to ticking all the boxes. I've worked with Audient products before and love the smooth, clean sounding preamps and signal bussing, the Zen certainly doesn't disappoint in this regard."
The music department's studios consist of two control rooms adjacent to a large main live space, along with four other rooms predominantly used for band workshops and rehearsals. All the rooms have audio and video tie-lines to the control rooms.
"We record and mix a huge variety of different student projects, so flexibility in the console was key," adds Leslie. "This is where the Zen is a real winner for us as the combination of the routing options are vast, but are also laid out in a neat, logical way that students find easy to understand. So many of the students are used to using only software in their music creation, so understanding analogue signal flow is very important."
The facility supports the work of students studying Music and Music Technology, as well as facilitating audio content for other departments in the college.
Andy Wilson, Westminster Kingsway College Principal, notes, "The move of our music students to the King's Cross Centre gave us the chance to enhance their learning experience with state-of-the-art equipment and a bigger selection of instruments so that Westminster Kingsway College can continue to produce even more talented musicians like Eliza Doolittle."
(Jim Evans)
