The Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO) has expanded the capabilities of its RSNO Centre with the addition of a recording control room equipped with a 72-channel Solid State Logic Duality Delta SuperAnalogue mixing console. The recording facility located within the RSNO Centre, which is known as Scotland’s Studio, features the RSNO’s 6,000-square-foot New Auditorium, a flexible, acoustically adjustable space intended primarily for film, TV and video game soundtrack production.

Opened in 2015 adjacent to the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall, RSNO Centre required the new control room needed to handle the contrasting demands of both classical music recording and soundtrack production for visual entertainment. With this aim, RSNO Digital Manager, Hedd Morfett-Jones, initially evaluated several digital audio options: ‘I thought a large-format analogue desk was out of our price range. Then someone asked if I’d looked at the cost of a Duality.’

The control room is linked to the New Auditorium, one floor below, over a Dante network as well as copper tie-lines and to the Main Auditorium of the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall next door via an OM4 fibre link. The control room is also linked to several breakout recording spaces. A system of 80 AD and DA converters interface between the studio floor, the SSL desk and Avid Pro Tools, Merging Technologies Pyramix and Magix Sequoia DAWs. The room includes a 5.1 ATC monitor system with acoustic design by Nick Whitaker, whose clients include Abbey Road Studios, Angel Studios and CTS Watford Colosseum in England.

While Scotland is an established destination for film and TV location shoots, soundtrack production is traditionally handled by facilities in England. ‘You could do almost an entire film in Scotland, except the score,’ Morfett-Jones says. ‘So we looked at what we would need to record film scores here.’

The RSNO is the only U.K. orchestra with in-house facilities to record sound to picture, enabling Scotland’s Studio to position itself as a prime destination for film and game industry soundtrack recording outside of London.

Score recording and mixing engineers generally work on large-format analogue mixing consoles but, Morfett-Jones says, ‘We needed something where film engineers would immediately know what they’re dealing with. We wanted something that looks impressive, but also meets our technical requirements.

‘There’s an awful lot of what you need to do on a film session that you could achieve with a relatively cheap digital desk, but that’s not how film engineers are used to working. You need lots of headphone sends – cue sends – and to be able to grab any channel immediately.’

Since the new production facilities were unveiled in late 2021, Scotland’s Studio has handled one or two scoring projects a month. The inaugural project was the score for a TV movie remake of The Amazing Mr Blunden, which aired on the Sky channel just before Christmas, by Edinburgh-born composer Blair Mowat. Between scoring sessions, the control room is used to record classical music pieces and to stream concerts from the concert hall.

While a classical recording is performed in-the-box, Morfett-Jones says, he can’t risk the DAW failing during a live stream. ‘I effectively use the desk in broadcast mode, so the mics from the stagebox go into the DAW and into the desk. I mix on the desk and I record a capture of the desk into the recorder as well,’ he says.

For the coming concert season, Morfett-Jones plans to used the Duality’s DAW control capabilities. ‘I want to have the Duality layer set up so I can capture my rough mix on DAW faders using physical faders as well,’ he explains. ‘That way, if I need to change something after the fact, I don’t have to recreate the live mix by looking at the Total Recall from the session – I can monitor the computer mix against the desk mix while I’m broadcasting.

‘There’s also an active learning and engagement department here, so we have lots of young composers and workshops,’ he adds. ‘We capture those to listen back to or to advertise the programme. It also allows the composers to have recorded examples of their work.’

Formed in 1891, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra is a world leading symphony orchestra that performs across Scotland, regularly appearing at the BBC Proms and at the Edinburgh International Festival, and has received eight Grammy Award nominations for its recordings.

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