University of Surrey invests £2m in new Music and Media Studios

The expansion will create a new studio complex, with dedicated facilities to support Creative Music Technology and Film Production and Broadcast Engineering students. The investment extends to the acoustic redesign of its existing ‘pop’ focused Studio 2 for Music and Sound Recording (Tonmeister) students, which will include the installation of a new Neve 88RS mixing console.

The new studio complex will add:

• a fully sound-isolated sound-stage for TV and film production
• a new Dolby Atmos® surround-sound production studio with Avid S6 and ATC
• audio monitoring, new edit rooms
• new recording rooms, and
• a live performance and digital music workshop room equipped with 3D spatial-audio playback. 

The Music and Media Studios will provide 24/7 student access to a new computer-music facility, including a new OSX-based teaching lab containing 30 workstations, a new audio electronics lab and a new home for the DMM Synth Lab (in collaboration with the Moog SoundLab UK). It will also house a Foley recording space and colour-grading facility. All new spaces have been developed to satisfy stringent acoustic requirements.

Across campus, the studios, edit rooms and sound-isolated recording rooms will be linked by a dedicated Dante digital audio network, to enable multichannel audio connections between all rooms, with dedicated video interconnects for the flexible configuration of recording and recording-control rooms.

The facility has been designed to meet the demanding standards of the contemporary music production, broadcast and film industries, to support our students’ learning using professional equipment and space resources.  The new studio complex has also been specified to support collaborations between film-makers, producers, musicians, composers, engineers and technical crews to facilitate the creative work and social interaction so vital for successful media production. The Music and Media Studios will open in 2022.

This exciting new development has been conceived to support contemporary professional practices and to encourage new thinking about creative education in the contemporary world, including production for games, AR and interactive media.

Professor Tony Myatt, Head of the Department of Music and Media, said: “The development of the Music and Media Studios represents the dawn of a new era for Music and Media at Surrey. This updates and expands our existing facilities with studios designed to the highest contemporary music and media production standards.  

“We have a worldwide reputation for sound recording and music. Our graduates facilitate A-list artists, deliver creative projects across the globe and have had an enormous impact on the UK music industry and on world culture in recent decades (including two Oscars, eight Grammys, six BAFTAs and numerous other industry awards and iconic music releases). The Film Production and Broadcast Engineering programme follows in the footsteps of our Tonmeister programme in Music and Sound Recording, to educate the next-generation professionals which are so needed by digital media production industries. The new studios will greatly enrich the fantastic opportunities our students have in this area and help them to forge careers in the film and broadcast industries. The studios will also support our composers, sound designers, sound artists, musicians and music producers film-makers, TV producers, cinematographers and colour-graders - to work alongside the future technical innovators and researchers who are set to drive forward the capabilities of new media technologies in the coming decades.  

“We can’t wait to see how our students’ ambitions expand through their use of the new studio complex and the reputation for quality and professionalism of the Music and Media Studios will become a global symbol and exemplar of the quality, reputation and potential of all programmes at the University of Surrey.’

Explore the full list of Music and Media courses at the University of Surrey.