\n\u200bLiggins has seen a massive change in how audio engineering has been taught in his 25 years as an educator, a process that he has had an active hand in as a technical advisor for programs at LCM and the UWL, as well as a designer for teaching studios at the London College of Communications, the University of Winchester, and more. The main thrust of these efforts has been providing students with the type of educational infrastructure that matches the level of professional facilities in the real world and allows them to learn the most important skill for any engineer \u2014 critical listening. \u201cMost students who come into these programs are highly skilled listeners as fans of music but need to learn the art of listening as an engineer,\u201d he explained. \u201cIn order to do that, they need rooms that give them the best opportunity to do that.<\/p>\n
\u201cDecades ago, most programs like these had very poor teaching facilities \u2014 just piles of equipment in rooms that weren\u2019t treated for acoustics or suitable for critical listening whatsoever,\u201d he continued. \u201cThe move for properly isolated rooms with good acoustics, professional equipment, and excellent monitoring sets the next generation of students up with a much better environment to learn these skills, and to attune their ears for the details they need to succeed in their projects.\u201d<\/p>\n
Liggins\u2019s educational philosophy is focused on teaching his students to understand these environments and acquire the expertise to make both artistic and technical decisions within them through an understanding of all aspects of audio. The impact of signal flow and the quality of the source is key to this understanding. \u201cHaving these facilities allows us to expose students to studio workflows and the importance of a good source and audio path in their work,\u201d he said. \u201cUnderstanding what\u2019s going on at both ends of the chain and why it is happening turns these students into informed engineers who know how to make critical production decisions.\u201d<\/p>\n Choice of monitoring plays a major role in the production suites and teaching studios that Liggins designs. Given the diversity of programs now available to aspiring audio engineers, many of which embrace a wide variety of musical genres and multimedia applications, he has frequently utilized Amphion One18 speakers as the centerpiece of these monitoring setups. \u201cYou have to build for combinations in these rooms so that you can satisfy every style of production that a student may work on,\u201d he said. \u201cI quickly discovered that you could put a pair of One18s into any of these rooms and it would satisfy everything I required \u2014 completely accurate monitoring, excellent translation, but also an incredible musicality that draws these students in to connect with the emotional impact of what they are hearing.\u201d<\/p>\n Low-end management from a full-range system<\/strong> In addition to improving his low-frequency response, FlexBase25 also enabled Liggins to get more out of his One18s without any noticeable or distracting \u2018switch\u2019 into the subrange. \u201cIf you\u2019ve got a breakpoint between your low-frequency system and your main system you constantly hear it and are aware of it,\u201d he said. \u201cThis makes mixing anything in that 155 hz crossover area guesswork because you aren\u2019t sure which part of the system you are listening to.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thestudiolounge.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/LCM-Paragon-Studio-4.jpg\")
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\n\u200bLiggins favors Amphion in his own workflow as well, using a pair of One18s, Amp700, and a FlexBase25 for a three-way full-range system within his home studio space. Unlike the more spacious audio production spaces that he designs, his home studio is an isolated room within his garage that presented some challenges initially when it came to low frequency monitoring. \u201cIt\u2019s a battle against physics in any small room to get a proper low-frequency response,\u201d he explained. \u201cBringing FlexBase25 in there was a revelation because it allowed me to precisely tune the response to what I needed and the translation of those frequencies has been stellar ever since!\u201d<\/p>\n