As well as opening its doors on a third specialist music college in Brighton, England, last year, SupaJam has also expanded and upgraded the music technology and recording facilities across all of its three campuses. The aim of the venture is to use music to engage hard-to-reach young people who have fallen out of formal education.
‘More than 80 per cent of our leavers went to higher education last year, the majority to continue with their passion for music and music production,’ says joint CEO and co-founder, David Court. ‘Our focus next year will be to help secure lasting employment in the wider music industry for those that don’t progress to university.’
Established a decade ago in Kent, SupaJam’s Swanley base hosts Swan Studios (the ‘mother-studio’ as SupaJam Music Production & Studio Coordinator, Sam Coppins describes it), which is centred on an Audient ASP4816 mixing console.
‘We use a similar combination of ASP880 and iD44 in our studios at Brighton and Canterbury, which serves as an expandable rig for smaller recording sessions,’ Coppins says. ‘The console is hugely valued by our students and creates opportunities for knowledge, experience and access to the commercial studio industry. We have also expanded the I/O of the desk by connecting its eight sub-group buses to an ASP880 via Adat, which gives us the option of using 24 inputs during recording.
‘All bases now have a range of Audient products which give our students access to a superior quality of sound,’ continues Coppins, who oversees the studios in Kent, Canterbury and Brighton as well as offering mentoring to students. ‘They are experiencing huge benefits from using these game-changing Audient products.’
While music is at the heart of the operation, each facility has its own speciality. Canterbury focuses on podcasting and broadcast radio, Brighton on music journalism and photography, with Swanley specialising in live performance and recording. All have the opportunity to interact with each other.
‘Our Logic suites across all three bases are proudly peppered with iD4s,’ Copins says. ‘This is particularly cool because it bridges a connection from the students recording at their desk, to the ASP4816 console in our main recording studio. The connection is the sound quality, and the talking point is the Audient console mic preamp, which serves as an inherent learning opportunity during each lesson.’
The preamp uses the discrete circuit design found in Audient’s flagship recording console the ASP8024-HE – a fact that didn’t escape Coppins’ attention, when commenting on the ASP880. ‘The preamps and DIs on these make everything else sound rubbish,’ he says.
‘SupaJam continues to grow and offer opportunities to young people who have previously struggled in mainstream education,’ Court reflects. ‘Our base in Canterbury has doubled in size this year with over 60 students and of course our new base in Brighton, launched in September 2022, gives us a whole new catchment area to support.’
Brighton seems to have been an excellent addition to the enterprise: ‘Brighton has been huge for SupaJam,’ he agrees. ‘Our home is so big it housed the Canadian Army before D-Day. It even has a massive bomb shelter running under the garden and main building! At the moment we’re focused on establishing Brighton within the local community and making sure we provide the best learning environment for wonderful young people.’
SupaJam Education has moved on considerably from ‘a bit of philanthropy in a dingy, flooding basement in Tunbridge Wells’, as described on its website. With tireless work, the original seven students have grown to more than 200. Court and SupaJam’s other joint CEO and co-founder, Stilwell continue to set their sights high, clear on the direction for the education provider. ‘It’s about understanding how we can establish ourselves across the whole of the UK – and maybe even internationally.’
