{"id":3023,"date":"2020-10-15T13:26:03","date_gmt":"2020-10-15T18:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thestudiolounge.com\/?p=3023"},"modified":"2020-10-22T13:30:03","modified_gmt":"2020-10-22T18:30:03","slug":"los-angeles-college-of-music-welcomes-solid-state-logic-origin-to-campus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thestudiolounge.com\/index.php\/2020\/10\/15\/los-angeles-college-of-music-welcomes-solid-state-logic-origin-to-campus\/","title":{"rendered":"Los Angeles College of Music Welcomes Solid State Logic ORIGIN to Campus"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Pasadena, California \u2014 Over the summer, Los Angeles College of Music (LACM) renovated the Student Recording Studio at its campus in Pasadena, California and installed a new 32-channel Solid State Logic ORIGIN analog in-line mixing console, completing the project in time for the Fall 2020 semester. Once classes resume, the studio will be used by faculty member Andrew \u201cMudrock\u201d Murdock, known for his work with Godsmack, Avenged Sevenfold and others, to teach students the fundamentals of audio engineering and production.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt first, I was thinking we should buy something used,\u201d says Murdock, who has been teaching LACM classes since 2011. \u201cBut Andre Knecht, Music Producing and Recording Department Head, said \u2018Let\u2019s look for something new. Did you know SSL is coming out with a console?\u2019 He showed me the ORIGIN brochure and I said, looks good to me! It looks familiar; it\u2019s got the classic SSL look. I didn\u2019t even get to drive it until it was in my room. As soon as I did, I said, this feels like an SSL. And it sounds great.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The ORIGIN console \u2014\u00a0which was acquired from Westlake Pro \u2014\u00a0has all the necessary features and functionality for teaching mixing console signal flow and routing, says Murdock. \u201cThe routing is really ingenious. It\u2019s got 16 buses\u2014which is plenty these days\u2014that feed eight stereo subgroups, which you can treat as mono or stereo. Instead of having a routing switch for each subgroup, there\u2019s a single Route button on each channel. You push the button, the light turns blue, then you push the button next to the subgroup master you want to assign it to. That works super well.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The in-line desk features three inputs\u2014mic, line and monitor\u2014on each channel, he continues, and offers flexible fader flip switching to assign various functions to the large or small faders, including the channel insert and direct output paths.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cYou can also control all the cues and all the auxes individually. They\u2019ve really thought about everything,\u201d<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n

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Installation and setup of the desk went smoothly, he also reports. \u201cThe way that they\u2019ve designed it to interface with a D-sub patchbay is really intuitive. And it comes together really well. I set it up the way they suggested in the manual and as soon as I started playing with it, I said, okay, it\u2019s an SSL!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Murdock has a long history with SSL, having mixed numerous records on the manufacturer\u2019s consoles at Los Angeles area facilities such as NRG Recording, Larrabee and Track Record Studios. His discography includes engineering and production credits for his work with Alice Cooper, Powerman 5000 and The Riverboat Gamblers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI know that in the high-end professional marketplace SSL has a major market share. So if I\u2019m going to teach my students how to drive a console, it\u2019s going to be an SSL,\u201d<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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The newly renovated Student Recording Studio at LACM is equipped with a variety of outboard analog processing and effects gear. The control room was already outfitted with a pair of Dynaudio BM15 nearfield monitors and other items, but the school acquired some new pieces during the studio refurbishment. \u201cWe already had a pair of Distressors and A-Designs Pacifica mic preamps. We bought some Warm Audio compressors and a Klark Teknik stereo graphic equalizer,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I sold the school one of my Lexicon PCM70s, which is an amazing reverb, and a stereo Yamaha delay.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murdock also maintains his own music production facility, The Hobby Shop, which he opened 17 years ago just in time to record Avenged Sevenfold\u2019s platinum-selling City of Evil album. He co-owns the studio, which is located just a few miles from LACM in the Highland Park district, with musician, composer and producer Scott Gilman.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The main studio at LACM, where Knecht teaches, offers a fully digital signal flow, so an analog room is necessary to help prepare the school\u2019s students for anything they will encounter in their subsequent careers. \u201cI\u2019m not an analog snob. I\u2019m also firmly a Pro Tools guy; I\u2019ve been making records on Pro Tools for 22 years,\u201d says Murdock. \u201cBut we need to teach students the analog basics. It\u2019s not like mixers are going away. And learning good signal flow in the analog domain also translates to good habits in-the-box.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Plus, he says, it\u2019s a joy to watch students getting to work in the analog domain. \u201cIn the Engineering for Producers 2 class I teach the students how to engineer and record projects onto 8-track tape on an old Tascam 38.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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“You should see the excitement in their eyes when they mic up a whole drumkit and record it onto one track and it sounds huge.\u201d<\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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While the all-analog SSL ORIGIN is the centerpiece of the revamped studio, Murdock also teaches elements of digital signal flow. \u201cWe have Radial splitters in there, because I have a digital mixer in the tracking room. There are times when we have an ensemble in the tracking room and we need to provide PA support in there, so I\u2019m teaching that kind of signal flow as well. And we\u2019re about to buy a digital snake, because there\u2019s a performance hall in the other building. We\u2019re going to try and send that audio to my room and start recording people\u2019s final recitals.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Murdock says that he has limited his class size to about eight students. \u201cI want everybody to have a chance in the driver\u2019s seat,\u201d he says. \u201cI can\u2019t wait to have kids driving the ORIGIN, because it\u2019s a perfect teaching tool. If you can drive this, you can drive any mixer.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Los Angeles College of Music, a private, for-profit music school, was founded in 1996. Faculty members are typically currently working in the music industry and over the years have included professionals such as Wayne Bergeron, Joe Porcaro, Frank Gambale, Alphonso Johnson, Tim “Ripper” Owens and Art Alexakis. LACM graduates have gone on to work with a who\u2019s who of artists that includes Paul Anka, Ricky Martin, Chick Corea, Jeff Beck, Natasha Bedingfield, the Black Eyed Peas and others.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Pasadena, California \u2014 Over the summer, Los Angeles College of Music (LACM) renovated the Student Recording Studio at its campus in Pasadena, California and installed a new 32-channel Solid State Logic ORIGIN analog in-line mixing console, completing the project in time for the Fall 2020 semester. Once classes resume, the studio will be used by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3024,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[45,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education-news","category-hardware-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thestudiolounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ORIGIN-front.-750.259cd8ebb6e54e08c05d9f82aecc9cee.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestudiolounge.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestudiolounge.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestudiolounge.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestudiolounge.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestudiolounge.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thestudiolounge.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestudiolounge.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thestudiolounge.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestudiolounge.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thestudiolounge.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}