Full Sail Goes Big On SSL Desks

Winter Park, FL (July 23, 2024)—Full Sail University has long taught students the ins and outs of audio technology, whether it be live sound or studio-based. In an effort to keep up to date and prepare pupils for what they’ll work with in the real world after graduation, the school recently installed more than 20 Solid State Logic desks and mixers for students to learn on.

The Recording Arts Program recently refreshed its audio technology, installing 10 Solid State Logic Origin 32-channel analog inline studio consoles and 11 SSL BiG SiX compact mixer/interfaces in a variety of teaching spaces.

The average age of students passing through Full Sail’s campus is 21, typically a digital-native cohort that has grown up creating on laptops. As a result, Full Sail’s Recording Principles course, the initial audio course for all degree programs within the university’s Audio School, includes an introduction to basic audio signal flow, and provides the first opportunity for most students to work on a large format analog mixing console. The class is taught in two music production suites in Full Sail’s main studio complex that have both recently been equipped with SSL Origin consoles. The rooms, which each feature a vocal booth, are also outfitted with outboard equipment, microphones, and instruments.

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“They learn how to record in those rooms, working as a group of six students with one instructor,” says Darren Schneider, director of Advanced Session Recording. “The first reports we got back after installing the Origins was that the students were learning them faster than the previous consoles in those rooms.”

A total of seven Origin consoles have also been installed in the A Mix Lab, a large teaching space where students work in pairs on each desk and learn to collaborate. Another Origin has been integrated into an adjoining classroom.

While the consoles were installed during the winter break, last year, Full Sail installed 11 new SSL BiG SiX consoles in numerous small, flexible production rooms, each with a microphone and some essential outboard equipment, dubbed the Mix Palace. These arrangements enable students to create music using current production workflows, providing an interface via each console’s USB connector to a central computer that hosts a library of plug-ins, samples, and virtual instruments.