IMW (Islington Music Workshop) has developed its music production training facilities with the Solid State Logic Duality SE, AWS 948, Matrix, and 24 Nucleus consoles plus ATC SCM 150 monitoring.

“IMW is an independent educational not-for-profit organisation established 30 years ago to provide low cost professional training for the sound industries to students within the community,” said John Dennis, IMW’s founding director. “We have just completed our new campus expansion that includes four studios within two minutes of each other. We have very successfully used an SSL 4000 series for the past 15 years, so we already knew the SSL brand for its sound quality and reliability. Technology and the way people record and mix music has changed, so we needed to invest in equipment that could provide a pathway that included both traditional and in-the-box recording.”

IMW’s facilities include a control room housing the 48-channel Duality SE with ATC monitoring and a live room capable of handling a six-piece band. The AWS room is complemented with 12 Nucleus DAW controllers running Pro Tools. The Matrix Room also features a further 12 Nucleus systems running Logic and Ableton. Both the AWS and Matrix rooms are used as hands-on workshops to familiarise students with audio life out of the box.

“We took a close look at everything on the market before deciding on SSL and ATC,” stated Dennis. “Before we built the new facilities, we were using dedicated controllers in addition to the SSL 4000 Series console, but the controllers did not give us the in depth learning experience we wanted to offer our students.

“From a training perspective, the item that really sold us was the Nucleus. Every one of our students now has their own personal SSL Nucleus on their DAW running Logic, Ableton and Pro Tools from the very start of the course. In our opinion, SSL is the only company that provides the robust features across its entire product line to tackle the job of teaching modern audio production to our students.”

Course offerings at IMW include music production, sound engineering, sound for picture, and sound for video games, so the new technology had to be flexible enough to handle a wide range of applications.

“Our aim is to give our students the skills and the opportunity to make an informed choice as to what area of sound production to follow,” continued Dennis. “We are working with our students to progress out of the box and into the real world of audio. Many young musicians are used to working on computers with headphones, or making cheap demos, so they have yet to develop critical technical and listening skills. At IMW we take them through the various levels of hands-on technical production, starting with the SSL Nucleus through the Matrix and AWS 948, to develop a very high level of technical and critical listening skills in the Duality room with its ATC monitoring. The Music Production courses we teach depend on the quality and industry leadership of the likes of SSL and ATC.”

www.imw.co.uk