The London College of Music has been a part of the University of West London since 1991 and has recently installed the world’s largest RedNet installation, featuring 42 RedNet units. The London College of Music has one of the largest music technology departments of any European educational institution, spread across two sites in Ealing, West London. Over the last few years the College has undergone an extensive building and refurbishment programme, headed by Technical Manager, Richard Liggins, who is responsible for studio facility design and technical development of the department’s facilities. 

LCM has used Pro Tools as its primary music recording platform for several years, but with the arrival of Pro Tools 11, the college decided to look into moving over to HDX systems.  Although integrating all-Avid systems would have been technically straightforward, Liggins notes, the College was aware that there were many other options in the marketplace and felt they needed to evaluate some of the possibilities – including RedNet, Focusrite’s range of Dante-based audio over IP networking interfaces.

In addition to listening tests, they considered other factors, such as whether or not the hardware would stand up to heavy usage by large numbers of students. 

Senior Lecturer, Andrew Bourbon told us… 

I was very, very impressed by how it sounded. Having heard a bunch of competitors, for me it offered a more detailed presentation that still retained musicality. I think RedNet strikes an excellent balance. They have a very definite image quality to them; they have depth of field and detail; they handle bass really well; they show a definite improvement in things like stereo imaging, certainly; and when you run them through our Audient or Neve desks, they have a quality to them that is very pleasing. It’s very musical, and there’s a transparency to it that means you can get the best out of the recordings that you’re making.

It was only then that the London College of Music staff also began to realise what enormous opportunities were offered by RedNet’s audio networking capability: not simply linking recording areas together but also making it possible to capture audio – and record it – almost anywhere there’s an Ethernet socket. Bourbon had experience of audio networking systems in the live sound environment and immediately saw the possibilities for RedNet at LCM. When the costs were added up it made excellent financial, as well as technical sense, and thus the first phase of what is currently the world’s largest RedNet installation began.

Although LCM’s existing network infrastructure could have been used, the decision was taken to lay a separate dedicated audio network as part of the “Future Campus” building and refurbishment programme. Two standard 48-port Cisco Gigabit Ethernet switches were installed and as the network is fully distributed, it can be managed from any network node rather than requiring central control.

RedNet is already changing how the College works. Technical Manager, Richard Liggins told us…

People are coming to us everyday with new ideas as to how to utilise RedNet’s capabilities. Everything from multi-room recording to remote performance, distributed speaker networks and multichannel diffusion systems has been proposed! I love the fact that every day somebody comes up with another way of making use of it.

Senior Lecturer, Andrew Bourbon continues…

We also have students who come in, and they want to track into their own computer. We had an example: a group of students going into a studio – they’ve got a copy of Dante Virtual Soundcard, and they were able to go direct from that quality recording room into their own laptop. It’s just preparing them for another part of industry that they’re going to get used to.

Richard Liggins concludes…

In the end, if the RedNet units hadn’t sounded any good, we wouldn’t have bought them. So… it’s down to the quality of the kit and the quality of the sound. They’re great!