Create a Recording Studio

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This is the first post in an ongoing series about the Recording Studio I created at St. Ignatius College Preparatory.

First Step: Have something to Record

In 2012 we had a senior in the music department that for the most part knew he was going to be Recording Engineering major in college. That same year I arranged a performance tour with my choir to Europe on an itinerary that traced the places Ignatius of Loyola lived and worked during his lifetime. On his first, semi-professional gig, Gabe accompanied the group as the recording engineer, capturing some amazing sessions in Europe’s most amazing churches to record choirs. He learned a ton; we were able to document some spectacular moments on the choir tour, and everyone benefits!

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The gear we purchase for the tour and some of the first pieces in our inventory:

  1. Focusrite Saffire Pro 40
  2. AKG C 451 B Stereo Pair
  3. MacBook Pro
  4. Logic

Here are some tracks from that tour:

It would take nearly 2 years for those and several other songs to be released on the Chamber Singers second CD “Listen“. The ‘studio’ during this interim would essentially lay dormant until Gabe and I start to dream big about the possibility of laying the foundation towards a Recording Program at St. Ignatius College Prep in the spring of 2014.

Second step: Dream big – Your only limitation is your imagination

Learning Space Makeover

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My colleague and I inherited a teaching space with two primary purposes: a) Band rehearsal room, b) Music Appreciation classroom. This double wide classroom was used for this purpose for nearly two and a half decades before our arrival in 2008.

When my colleague and I arrived we continued to use the space for similar functions but soon realized the limitations of the space and began to conduct instrumental music rehearsals in larger, multi-purpose rooms, but the Band Room continued to be used for Music Appreciation classes. We cobbled together an old, gun-metal gray A/V cart with a used combo cassette, CD and AM/FM unit (with an AUX input) connected to a video projector that displayed content from our computers, complete with a pull-down screen! We used the space this way for a good 6 years before I attend my first ISTE conference last summer (2014 in Atlanta). During the conference, conversations with our Educational Technologist – whom I was traveling with – went something like this: if we had a space to “re-do” at school, what could it look like? Coincidentally, the Band Room and several other areas around campus had been scheduled for seismic retrofitting construction the same summer as the ISTE conference which was a perfect convergence, and opportunity to design and make this space into a 21st century learning environment.

Here is the room as it had been oriented since I had arrived at St. Ignatius College Prep. It was essentially a rehearsal room after school and a classroom during the regular school day.IMG_0145

Rehearsal spaceIMG_0158

Under construction June 20142014-05-29 14.01.11

Some sketchesBand Room_north wall

Architectural Plans for installation of itemsBand Room blue prints

Stuff beginning to appear. Jamie and I setting up the flat screen (after mounting to the wall)2014-10-09 11.06.53

Learning space beginning to resemble Skitch drawings. Had to keep the old A/V cart around for good measure! Sitting next to it is an 12-channel Berhinger mixer connected to a Crown 300w amplifier which will power the 12″ Berhinger speakers mounted on the wall just above white boards. Affixed to the mounting bracket for monitor is an Apple TV for wireless connectivity.2014-10-25 17.25.13

A few weeks ago I picked up a headphone preamp so we could start an iPad Band jam session. The space also has 5 iMacs around the perimeter of the room (seen here) for teams to use more robust versions of Garage Band and/or iMovie.IMG_1963

The next phase is to incorporate some furniture that encourages collaboration and creates group sectors or pod areas in the room. This would include chairs, tables and desks that are modular and mobile since the space is fairly large and could support a variety of classroom arrangements. I have some ideas from a company called Steelcase that I would love to outfit the room with sometime in the next 12-16 months. And finally, none of this is possible without sharing and the ideas from my colleagues Jamie Pruden and Eric Castro for their contributions in this project.