Aiming to ‘help young people realise their musical potential without financial constraints’, World Heart Beat Music Academy recently established a second location in Southwest London that includes a recording studio with a Solid State Logic Origin 32-channel analogue mixing console.
The new commercial production facility was designed by Munro Acoustics, and will help generate funds for the charitable organisation, which was founded by Artistic Director Sahana Gero, an accomplished musician and music teacher, in 2009.
Gero’s brother James, the organisation’s CEO, led the new World Heart Beat at Embassy Gardens, and was responsible for the build, which also houses a 200-capacity concert hall that doubles as an live room for recording. The building’s extraordinary connectivity relied on more than 80km of fibre-optic, Cat6a and analogue cabling.
In addition to offering a studio for hire, World Heart Beat Embassy Gardens is the first the UK premises to have a permanent d&b Soundscape immersive sound system. It hosts jazz, contemporary classical, folk and global music performances from emerging talent and world-class artists.
The London Borough of Wandsworth and developers Eco-World Ballymore selected World Heart Beat from a field of more than 42 organsations as a ‘cultural anchor’ for the Embassy Gardens residential and business development in Nine Elms – the largest regeneration zone in Europe. Together, the recording studio, broadcasting suite and an on-site café form a commercial arm of World Heart Beat, according to Nick Cohen, a professional freelance bass player for more than three decades. Cohen became involved with the project during 2020, initially helping to set up live video streaming capabilities at the academy’s original learning space. Since then, he has been directing World Heart Beat’s Digital Production and Young Artist Development programme.
‘We rely on donors and the goodwill of people, but providing hours and hours of training to young people for free is not cheap, so the commercial arm to World Heart Beat is essential to help our mission,’ he says.
‘When we show potential clients around, they see the Steinway D concert grand piano, straight from the Proms stage, and they see the auditorium, which is loaded up with technical equipment and fine acoustic wooden panels designed by world renowned designers, Sound Space Vision,’ he continues. ‘Then you take them into the studio and there’s the SSL Origin, and people realise they’re in an incredible working environment.’
‘I was adamant about having a recording studio that could be seen and enjoyed by top professional artists and studio engineers,’ Gero recalls. ‘Having no personal experience myself, I felt that Nick’s previous experience, with touring credits that include Eurythmics, Roy Ayers, Massive Attack and M-People, would be invaluable. I remember calling him at midnight asking about what desk I should get. He bluntly told me he was a musician first and foremost but did let it slip that, if he was getting a desk, SSL had a beautiful workflow.
‘That was it – I took that as sold. When you spend so much on building a venue, then every detail is important. Personally, I couldn’t be happier with our choice of desk. The SSL with its custom-made furniture looks so beautiful and it works terrifically well, too.’
When helping choose a desk, Cohen says, he wanted something that was hands-on and easy to operate and didn’t require the engineer to page through menus and submenus. An all-analogue desk was also the most appropriate option for the types of music that World Heart Beat focuses on.
‘A lot of the music that we do is from the acoustic world, so we’re dealing with classical piano recitals and a lot of jazz. Origin fits in with that more organic workflow and really works well with the whole ethos of what we’re trying to do here.’
Jim Sorenson has been lead studio and live engineer and A/V production assistant at World Heart Beat since early 2021, and previously worked for a time with producer Tony Visconti. ‘The way that Origin is set out is a really natural way to engineer, for me, especially the way that it’s been married to the patchbay and being able to start recording quickly. I find the workflow fantastic in comparison to a lot of the desks I’ve used before. The desk is very straightforward and literal, I would say, which makes working on it really quick.’
‘I can’t speak highly enough of the Origin EQs,’ continues Sorenson. ‘I’m more into feeling and sweeping, and the response is nice and intuitive to that hands-on approach. I often commit to printing straight from the EQs on the desk. I don’t know why I would load up an SSL emulation on the DAW when I’ve got 32 of the E series EQ right in front of me.’
The technical build included embedding Van Damme Blue series cables in the infrastructure. ‘The result has meant that we have some of the highest quality cables in the live room and tielines into the Origin for a pristine analogue signal flow,’ he says. ‘I’ve got a great sound from a great room, great instruments and great mics, and that is all sent to a desk that lets stuff play together really nicely. When you sit and put the faders to zero it’s just a brilliant sound.’
Around 350 students from ages five to 25 receive tuition on traditional and non-traditional instruments at World Heart Beat, which follows a non-exclusive, non-elitist, open admissions policy that ensures that there are no barriers, including financial, to their learning.
‘We have seven-year-olds playing alongside 17-year-olds and the older ones will help the younger ones learn,’ Cohen says. ‘It’s a very holistic way of learning music. You don’t have to read music; it’s just about playing and engaging in the music, but the music is serious and what comes out is really good.’
Cohen and the studio’s in-house engineering staff are always available to help any students who wish to learn more about music recording and production technologies. ‘If they’re interested, we try to get them involved,’ he says.
More: www.solidstatelogic.com
