Southampton Solent University turns to VDC
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The university’s TV, Film and Media Technology department already boasts a number of professional-standard facilities including 4K-ready broadcast studios, radio suites and newsrooms, and the decision was made to invest in similarly high-quality facilities for the Music and Performance students. The department has nine rooms in total, five full studios and four smaller workstations which can be used for mixing. Studio 1 was upgraded in 2016 but the remaining studios hadn’t been touched for around ten years so much of the kit was showing signs of wear and tear.
When the decision was made to redevelop Studio 1, Technical Instructor Jon Wills contacted VDC to provide the cabling infrastructure.
Wills explains: “I’ve been using VDC personally in my freelance work since the mid-1990s and I introduced them to the university when I joined in 2007. We’ve used their Tourcat Ethernet cables in our outside broadcast equipment which we take out to festivals with the students each summer, so we know they offer a robust solution.”
VDC supplied three patchbays in Studio 1 with a custom wiring solution. “It’s wired as I asked them to, it’s bespoke for me,” adds Wills. “It all comes out to 25-way D sub connectors and then, off-the-shelf from VDC, I purchased D sub tails to connect all the equipment up. It just meant it was flexible for me.”
The centrepiece of the studio is a large-format Avid S6 M40 control surface, as the university is an Avid Learning Partner. “We did have a big analogue desk in here but we wanted to move more into the box and give students the experience of working on a large-format control surface. We teach Pro Tools and Logic and we have other Avid control surfaces in the other studios though they’re not large format. The patchbay gives students the ability to patch all sorts of equipment into their sessions and learn about using analogue equipment with Logic or Pro Tools, in a digital workspace.”
Following the success of the Studio 1 refurbishment, the team at Southampton Solent once again turned to VDC this summer when a further two studios were upgraded. VDC again supplied all patchbays as well as a bespoke wiring solution. “Working with the academic staff we decided what was going to go into these rooms and I knew we wanted VDC as part of that. Their workmanship is excellent, I’ve always been very impressed. We’ve also had some custom cables made up by VDC on the video side and it always arrives looking really nice and robust and is completely reliable.”
Studio 2 is now being billed as the Neve Room as it features a Neve R6 Lunchbox with six units in it as well as a Portico Channel & Master Bus Processor.
Studio 9 has been set up as a smaller version of Studio 1 and is used by first year students. Patching wasn’t available in this room before the summer refit, so students are now able to practice these skills at an earlier stage.
There is consistency across all three studios in terms of the furniture and the software suite. All rooms have Logic and Pro Tools along with McDSP, Sonnox and Native Instruments plug-ins. “All of our nine rooms are identical in terms of what’s on the computer so any student can take a session from any room and plug it in and it’ll be exactly the same in the next room,” explains Wills.
(Jim Evans)
