Middlesex University is among the latest educational establishments to invest in an Allen & Heath dLive digital mixing system, recently installing an S3000 surface in the TV production facilities at its Faculty of Arts and Creative Industries in Hendon, North London.

The university’s Sony-designed facilities were created to give students as close to a real-world learning and working environment as possible. Boasting a double-height main studio and separate main, VT and sound galleries, they are equipped to a standard comparable to commercial studios and see a diverse range of programme creation – including a significant amount of live music production – throughout the academic year.

“When we were looking to replace our existing audio desk, I was considering very ‘broadcast-specific’ options,” said Aidan Delaney, technical manager at the Faculty of Arts and Creative Industries (pictured below). “However, we do such a variety of things here that dLive simply made much more sense. It’s a real chameleon and we can use it for whatever we need, no matter the scenario. It’s incredibly flexible and easy to use – plus the feature-rich specs, including the excellent onboard dynamics, really made it the obvious choice in the end.”

Supplied by Moonlite Productions, the complete dLive system comprises an S3000 (fitted with Dante 64×64 card for multitrack recording of live music sessions) paired with a DM48 MixRack and two additional DX168 AudioRacks.

Delaney added: “Although it’s a very powerful system, it’s really not difficult to get complete novices up and running, so students with no real sound experience get to grips with it very quickly and feedback from them has been great.

“Studio productions vary immensely – in terms of channel count, physical location with the space etc – and the flexibility of the DM48 and the DX168s means we can place I/O over a single CAT5 cable exactly where we need it. That greatly increases our efficiency when rigging for productions.”

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