I'm Simon Hall, I'm head of Music Technology
here at Birmingham Conservatoire.
My name is Roy Priest and I'm program leader for
Sound Technology at Birmingham City University.
We've had a very long history of working
with Audient and Audient products.
They have worked really well for us over very
extended period of time.
So we've got the ASP8024
which we've had here since 2002.
We've got a range of audio interfaces,
so we've got some iD4s,
some iD14s, some iD22s
in various labs and as portable systems for students.
We've got some of the ASP510
monitor controllers which work in some of our
more post-production based studios.
So yeah we've got a very long history.
Our sound courses are deliberately
broad in their design.
We want our students to succeed
in what is a highly competitive jobs market.
Students learn to use mixing desks
but they also learn how mixing desks actually work.
They understand the science behind the kit.
We think is important they get an understanding and
build confidence in a range of
professional level equipment.
This approach has seen us investing in
Audient equipment over the years.
We became aware of Audient in 2001
I think it probably was.
We were looking for a solution
to give us an analog console with
an inline architecture for us to be able
to teach that kind of workflow to our students.
And there wasn't really very much around
at that time and there still isn't really.
We wanted something that was high fidelity,
we didn't want anything
particularly digital under the bonnet of it,
we really wanted that analogue experience
and so we came to the
conclusion that there was really only
one solution for us at that point.
It was really doing architecture that sold it to us
but when we actually got the console we realised that
actually the EQ is fantastic, very very musical.
It sounds great.
The flexibility in terms of the busing
and the whole busing structure works really nicely.
The equipment has being incredibly reliable
this console that I'm sat in front of
we don't measure
the amount of time it's been on in hours
we measure in years.
We've had a capacitor replaced in the power supply,
we've had a couple of general services on it,
and it's still sounding great after all that time.
We knew the reputation of the consoles
when we learned that they were bringing out
a range of audio interfaces
and they were going to take the same mic preamps,
it was a no-brainer for us really.
The interfaces sound great.
The A-D and D-A
is really very very high quality
for the boxes that were such a
competitive price point.
In terms of their value for money,
I don't think that anything really
touches them at the moment.
They're very sturdy,
they're student proof,
there's a lot of very thoughtful little things in there.
Multiple headphone jacks is a godsend
because students never remember to
bring that 1/8 inch
to 1/4 inch adapter.
The Kensington Lock and the base plate makes them
very good from a security point of view.
They just work great in our labs
Yeah we're really pleased with them.
Partnerships are important,
we're at a time where industry and
the education sector and the research sector
are needing to be working closely together.
Our approach employability is to develop
a range of relationships with pro audio
companies such as Audient.
This has fed into placement opportunities,
graduate destinations and
joint research projects, and overall feeds
into our dynamic approach to course development.
We have an established relationship with Audient.
This really helps us when we are looking
to buy new equipment
and we can discuss the different options and
see to what extent the Audient
equipment can support our developing curriculum.
We pride ourselves on our relationships,
we pride ourselves our connections to industry
and Audient is a very important connection for us.
We're at a very exciting time,
we're moving to a new conservative building
in September 2017.
It's the first new conservatoire in a generation.
It's a £57 million build
and we're going to have state-of-the-art facilities
in terms of a concert halls,
in terms of our recording facilities,
in terms of our studios,
and in terms of our labs.
And so that's a really exciting time for us,
and we see Audient as being a part of that.