Mark Hillery Music Studios

Opened in the academic year 2022-23, the Mark Hillery Music Studios are the latest addition to Collingwood's creative arts facilities. The Studios are a purpose-built space for music practice and recording at the highest standard.

The Music Studios feature two Practice Rooms and a state-of-the-art suite of recording spaces. The Recording Suite is a writing, tracking and mixing space comprising a generously proportioned Vocal Booth which has been acoustically treated to act as a very dead sounding space, a gear-packed Control Room and a beautiful Live Room with an oak floor and a suspended ceiling of acoustic clouds. For even more flexibility, the Practice Rooms can be linked to the Control Room using the building’s audio network.

In addition to pianos, instruments available include two Gretch Renown drum kits, two Nord Stage 3 keyboards, a Moog Grandmother synthesiser, a fleet of eight top-end Fender and Gibson guitars and even a theremin. Marshall guitar amps and Kemper amp emulators are also available for practice and recording.

The Control Room boasts the region's only Dolby Atmos system for music production, with 11 PMC-6 speakers in a 7.1.4 configuration accompanied by two PMC-8 subwoofers. A 65-inch 4k display opens up a world of possibilities in film and video scoring.

At the heart of the room is our SSL AWS 948 Delta console featuring 24 channels with 48 inputs. Recordings are completed on a top-spec Mac Pro running a Pro Tools HDX rig integrating with Pro Tools Ultimate, Logic Pro or Ableton Live. The full range of Native Instruments and Soundtoys plugins are available for mixing ‘in the box’. Atmospheric hue lighting completes the room’s intimate and creative vibe. There is a great selection of preamps including Audient, API, Neve and SSL complementing an exhaustive collection of microphones from Coles, Neumann Berlin, Royer and Shure to name a few.