EDU

While Full Sail has always been known as one of the best institutes for a traditional recording education, the school's various course offerings have evolved since relocating to Winter Park, Florida. One of the biggest areas of growth for the school has been video game design. Full Sail's Game Design program has become one of the best in the country, and recently appeared on a list of top schools selected by the Princeton Review. In order to stay on top, Full Sail works with Vintage King Audio to ensure students have access to industry-standard gear that will prepare them for the next step in their careers. When the school's recently wanted to upgrade interfaces in the Game Audio Lab and Mac Audio Lab, Vintage King Audio Sales Director Chris Bolitho pointed them in the direction of the Universal Audio Apollo Twin MKII and Apollo X6 interfaces. Continue reading →

It's a chill day on the campus of Middle Tennessee State University. Not in terms of the weather (it's August and it's a hot one), but MTSU's campus and student body are still sleepy as they lumber towards the start of the Fall 2019 semester. Upon entering the MTSU Center for Popular Music, we meet with the Director of the Master of Fine Arts program, Bill Crabtree. He begins to explain some of the concepts behind the gear selection in the Department of Recording Industry. "Our philosophy is more about teaching framing, rather than teaching hammer," Bill says. "This is the mantra we stick to when selecting our equipment. It's most important to teach the concepts behind the equipment and not the knob turning or the specific equipment itself." Continue reading →

Since 1992, the Commercial Music program at Sacramento City College has grown to offer students in-depth training on analog and digital gear. While the program advanced over the years, the studio had not. When Kirt Shearer came on-board as the program's Director in 2016, he saw that there was a need for an immediate renovation. "I'm not going to lie, necessity," Shearer says of the reason for a studio upgrade. "We had an Otari 54 from 1992 that was just at the end of its life. Plus, the overall facility just had not quite kept pace with trends and technology, so it was very much time for an upgrade." Continue reading →

A few years ago, Vintage King became involved with an ongoing project called adidas Originals: Sound Lab. Working together with the sneaker company, Vintage King built out a studio inside Cass Tech Detroit high school featuring a Slate Raven MTI, Barefoot MM45s, Yamaha HS7, Antelope Audio Zen Studio, and AEA microphones. In the time since, Vintage King has continued to partner with adidas, including working on their latest project, an adidas Originals: Sound Lab based in Los Angeles. Opened on-site at Alexander Hamilton High School in Culver City, this Sound Lab has been built into a recycled shipping container and is already being used by a group of talented students. Continue reading →

Valencia Community College in Orlando, Florida, recently took a huge step into the world of Audio Over IP (AoIP) by installing the world's largest educational Focusrite RedNet set-up. The gear, which was sourced from Vintage King's Chris Bolitho, links together six recording, mixing, mastering and film-sound studios using RedNet Dante interfaces and converters. The school's set-up in the brand new Film Production and Sound Technology building features 68 RedNet interfaces. RedNet A16R 16-channel analog I/O interfaces and RedNet D16R 16-Channel interfaces allow digital and analog signals to be seamlessly sent throughout the school, and RedNet HD32R 32-channel Pro Tools HD to Dante bridges allow the Dante system to connect to Pro Tools HD workstations. Continue reading →

Located in Indianapolis, Indiana, Butler University is home to a recording studies program that has seen impressive growth since 2003. With an average of 80 majors and minors working in the program at any given time, the school offers an incredibly wide range of industry-related courses for students to attend.    "Audio Production is only a portion of our curriculum," says BU Technical Services Coordinator Mark Harris. "The majority of our graduates work throughout the music industry in Publishing, Copyright Law, Artist Management, Ticketing, Promotions and Broadcasting." Continue reading →

As one of the first major universities in the country to have an audio program, Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music has a time-tested dedication to offering the best education in engineering and production. “It started with an internship/mentoring model, and the idea was for it to be as hands-on as possible,” says Jacobs' Assistant Professor of Music Michael Stucker. “From the start of your very first semester, you’re doing a high-quality recording session every week." When the school was recently gifted a generous donation, the staff reached out to Vintage King for help in outfitting a new state-of-the-art recording facility. We caught up with Michael Stucker and talked to him about working with Vintage King's Chris Bolitho to bring an Avid S6 control surface and ATC monitors to the studio space. Continue reading →

With a program centered on furthering forms of old-time music, including bluegrass, Celtic and country, East Tennessee State University has developed an enviable curriculum. Adding to the excitement of the program is the recent addition of an API 1608 console as the centerpiece of the school's recording studio.   "A few students may start our series of audio engineering classes with some knowledge of Pro Tools, Logic, or some other DAWs, but for the most part, they are blank slates," says ETSU Recording Lab Manager Benjamin Bateson. "The API 1608 gives them a good, manageable console on which to start learning signal flow through a console." Continue reading →

Based in Cockeysville, Maryland, Stages Music Arts is a unique educational facility that specializes in many different audio and video related programs. The school was founded by Rob Smith, who envisioned a music school that went well beyond instrument lessons and taught students about taking the next steps towards being a professional musician. "Rob had this vision to create a facility in which musicians would have access to just about everything they would need to be a musician, no matter what 'Stage' they were at," says Stages' General Manager Ryan Glaeser. "Beginners could come for lessons on a wide range of instruments, then when they were ready, they could perform in one of our performance spaces. Once they had fine-tuned their craft, they could go record in one of our studios." Continue reading →

The news broke earlier today that Apple is finally looking at making significant changes to their Mac Pro computer. While the company said that they would not be releasing a new product this year, they did announce that they would be offering new configurations of the current edition of the Mac Pro in 2017. Continue reading →