Oxygen College builds analogue studio with Audient

AUSTRALIA: As the audio engineering branch of Oxygen College in Geelong West welcomes increasing numbers of students each year, the management has decided to invest in a new, larger studio. At the heart of the new space is a 36-channel Audient mixing console with Dual Layer Control. Keen to develop the students' understanding of signal flow, Oxygen Studios' head of audio, Tom Isaac, decided on a completely analogue studio configuration. The selected ASP8024 was supplied through Audient distributor, Awave.

'The studio is used predominantly by our Advanced Diploma of Sound Production students,' offered Mr Issac. 'The students and staff are very excited and cannot wait to get in there to record. We have other analogue studios here at the college but none as large as this.

'In this very digital age it's important that students still understand analogue workflows, routing, gain structure and TT patchbays, for example,' explained Mr Isaac. 'It's amazing to see their reactions when we say: ?Okay, lets mix this but you cannot use any plugins ? only the Audient and the outboard in the rack. It really gets them thinking about their mixing craft and how records have been mixed in the past. We have some great outboard units from TubeTech, Universal Audio, Manley, API, Drawmer, Lexicon and Eventide to work with giving students all they need to pull together a great sounding mix.'

The college also has a number of studios with digital control surfaces. 'Whilst the students appreciate our studios based on a control surface, Pro Tools and ?in the box? mixing, a lot of students are very passionate about classic analogue outboard and an analogue summing environment. They may not be able to pinpoint specifically what exactly they like better about the sound of an analogue summed project versus an ?in the box? summed project, but as their critical listening skills develop, it's been a great conversation starter.'

According to Mr Issac, a key factor in opting for the Audient ASP8024 was its flexible routing capability. 'Flexible routing is one of the key strengths, having so many inputs available on mix down is the main reason the ASP8024 got the job. Our students are very excited about this feature and are very much looking forward to combining their favourite plugins with some high-end outboard dynamics that they can insert via the ASP8024's patch-bay.'

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