Jay Auborn, the Creative Director of dBs Pro, dives into the projects dBs Institute's in-house creative studio has worked on over the last three months; and how our students have helped bring them to life.
In the last three months, dBs Pro has involved 30 students, across all three dBs campuses, in seven real-world productions including VR games, interactive heritage experiences, podcasts and music albums.
In that time, we have spent over three hundred hours together in the dBs Pro studio as a team working alongside clients, artists and industry professionals. As part of those projects, we have offered seven paid roles to students and recent graduates and have continued to grow our professional community of new creatives.
Creative industry work for students across dBs
The diverse range of skills required for these internships means we can involve dBs Institute students from all levels and study areas. These include students from both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, music production courses, game design and development courses and specialist sound and audio programmes.
Embody XR: A new VR game to alleviate anxiety
Working with dBs graduate Giorgio Cortiana and his company Sound Reactions, we produced sound design content for a new VR experience from the UK-based dance company Mercurial Dance. Three students worked alongside the broader creative team to produce original sounds. Giorgio critiqued the sounds and implemented them into FMOD; an audio middleware platform for game engines such as Unity and Unreal. The project will tour various venues in the coming months - including a stop-off at dBs Institute - to showcase the project.
‘Open Up Music’: Documenting accessible orchestras for special schools
Earlier this year, we produced a short film featuring an orchestra recording and a live conference broadcast for Open Up Music and St Roses School.
Open Up Music helps special schools set up accessible orchestras so that hundreds of young disabled people get first access to music education every year. We provided two students with recording and mixing roles working alongside the young people, video team and Open Up staff.
We had to work quickly and efficiently in a technically and acoustically challenging environment, building a location recording system for the project which we took on-site allowing us to record 16 channels of microphone inputs.
Open Up Music has employed two dBs students since our working relationship formed.
Voices From The Courts: Our most ambitious co-creation project yet
dBs Pro has produced a new interactive and immersive heritage experience for the Creative Youth Network at Bristol Old Magistrates Courts. Officially opening on Nov 7th 2024, the project is one of the largest cross-disciplinary projects we have worked on to date.
For the project, we designed and built a location-aware audio experience where historic characters come to life using AR technology and follow audiences around the space in spatial audio as they tell their stories.
Voices From The Courts aims to provoke audiences to consider the role of justice in society, telling young peoples’ stories of law and order, judgement and justice and connecting these historical narratives to today.
Eleven students worked alongside five cross-industry professionals including app developers, composers, writers and digital artists.
Jamie Gibney, a BA (Hons) Sound Design student, said:
“Voice from The Courts was one of the most enjoyable and valuable projects I have been a part of. Having a technical role pushed me to learn new tools and develop my skills on the go to suit the needs of the project and its collaborators. But most significantly, developing the social and teamwork skills needed for such a project was the most valuable part to me. The team members of dBs Pro and beyond are consistently brilliant to work with and learn from.
"Being an impactful heritage project, Voices From The Courts felt like an important experience; as though we were creating something much more than a simple mobile app. Opportunities like these are uncommon and I am very grateful to have been part of the team. I look back on this project very fondly and intend to take the lessons learned in my stride and continue to develop my skills throughout my career.
"As my role in Voices From The Courts developed into further work with Chris and Sound Reactions, I was able to tap into my experience from the project to work more efficiently and clearly with the team. Much like the work in Voices From The Courts, the new project poses many technical challenges, hard work, and new team members to collaborate with. This requires me to continue to improve my skills and actively keep up with the project, which I feel shapes me as a professional and improves my confidence in working in such roles. Projects like these provide me with real-life professional experience, and thus are invaluable for my personal development”
Montel Brown, a recent BA (Hons) Music Production & Sound Engineering graduate, said:
“My role as assistant producer introduced me to a variety of project management tools and software. Being able to work on a large-scale project was very rewarding and I have been able to apply many of the planning and organisation skills developed during this project directly to my education and professional career. In addition, collaborating with various creatives in multiple fields has inspired me to venture into alternative creative avenues”
Charlotte Francis, a BA (Hons) Sound Design student, said:
“A really valuable lesson I learnt during Voices From The Courts was how large-scale projects can be managed and how to learn on the job; for example, using Dolby Atmos. This is a sector of development that I have previously not had an opportunity to explore and was grateful for the opportunity. Throughout, the atmosphere was welcoming and all involved had a lot of patience and willingness to share skills."
Mike Westbrook - 'Band of Bands': Producing a Jazz legend's new album
Released in June 2024, we were honoured to produce the legendary UK Jazz composer Mike Westbrook's new album 'Band Of Bands'. Recorded live at Ashburton Arts Centre, Mike approached dBs Pro to see if an album could be created from the recording.
In total, 25 students worked on the project. Four students worked on the overdub recording sessions while the rest of the student team got hands-on in the mixing stage including revisions where we were fortunate enough to have Mike and Kate Westbrook in the studio with us.
Manuel Fitolopez, a BA (Hons) Music Production & Sound Engineering student, said:
“Working with dBs Pro was game-changing in my mixing capacity; from getting the technical aspects right, like monitoring levels, to learning about decision making and the importance of ‘feel’."
Reviewing the album on the Marlbank, Stephen Graham gave the album three stars saying, “English jazz, icon, pianist, composer and bandleader Mike Westbrook rewards jazz fans’ continuing interest with one of his best albums in many years. A great place to dip in to begin a journey into the mind and music of a total one-off."
Nervio Cosmico: Recording at a world-renowned studio
Nervio Cosmico is a band that blends traditional South American instruments with modern electronics and this summer we were lucky enough to record and mix their debut album
Due to the nature of the acoustic instruments, we budgeted the project to include two days of recording at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios. The project required a classical approach to microphone placement to create depth in the evolving, hypotonic layers of their music. This also meant we could re-amp the electronic elements to blend them better with the acoustic elements.
For the recording, we offered two assistant engineer roles to students who got involved in the technical setup and running of the sessions at Real World alongside their house engineers.
Back in the dBs Pro studio, we ran production sessions using Ableton Live to arrange the recordings from the Real World session and sound treatments of the instruments.
For this project, we offered two roles in sound engineering, two roles in production in Ableton and three roles as assistant mix engineers.
The album is now being used to support the group's live shows and pitching to labels for a release in the coming months.
Manuel Fitolopez, a BA (Hons) Music Production & Sound Engineering student, said:
“Working with dBs Pro is always an inspiring experience. It was my first time working on a recording with Jay, and his approach has given me insights into how to deal with recordings in a more professional way. I have learnt about the importance of keeping a relaxed attitude towards issues in the studio and also about when and how to push the artists to get things done if time is limited. Also, Jay’s trust in my capacity to take over in the evenings when he had to leave has been beneficial for my self-confidence working outside dBs.”
Noah Charles, a BA (Hons) Music & Sound for Film & TV student, said:
“I had taken a lot from watching Jay's mix workflow - treating each stem as its own separate entity; however, also always looking at the bigger picture and the vision of Matteo and Daniel. One of the reasons why I chose dBs over any other university was because of dBs Pro. The opportunities are provided to help nurture a professional mindset and give industry experience to students who are looking to get a foot in the door, which is awesome.”
Producing professional podcasts in Bristol and Manchester
dBs Pro produces two rolling podcast series for law firms St John’s Chambers in Bristol and Davis Blank Furniss in Manchester. These projects are a great way to showcase how to work at speed with a real focus on quality control. These podcasts have a large following online and it's a pleasure to be able to be the production team behind the audio ensuring the sound is great!
For these projects, we hand over to students in paid roles with dBs Pro checking in on quality control and client needs. It's a great opportunity to see what is expected within a short time frame of a studio and engineer. Sessions are often very short and need to be ready to go for the moment the lawyers arrive.
Hiring our music studio for returning graduates and their new projects
Recently, dBs graduates and recent dBs Pro interns Louis O’Hara and Ben Kashani returned to our studio to work on their projects; it's always great to see our students return as professionals and use our studio for their own work.
Want an opportunity to work on projects like these as a dBs Pro intern? Join us for an Open Day or Apply to learn more about dBs Institute and dBs Pro!
