Continuously striving to be at the forefront of technology and teaching, Leeds College of Music’s (LCoM) Production and eLearning teams have developed a brand new, ground-breaking Augmented Reality (AR) app that currently works on the Audient ASP8024, with technology and methods easily transferable to the Audient ASP4816 desks in the conservatoire recording studios. The AR app will enter its second year of use at the beginning of the forthcoming term, and allows students to use their smartphone or tablet to put layers of information or interactivity on top of an Audient mixing desk.
Stalwart Audient users, LCoM recording studios have a total of five Audient consoles in their arsenal, which have been integral to teaching Music Production over the past six years. Before the arrival of AR, lecturers would have taught some of the same processes in the studio using marker pens and white boards in order to help visualize and show the signal flow in the studio, accompanied by practical demonstration and application. The use of the AR app helps LCoM staff to not only blend these two teaching methodologies, but also the learning styles of the students.
Allowing students to both learn and support themselves outside of contact teaching hours, it enhances the content and delivery of specialist recording studio modules. Visual, kinaesthetic and aural learning styles can all be incorporated and catered for more easily. Being able to ‘see’ the virtual patch leads plugging themselves into the hardware equipment and the direction of the signal flow being animated before the learners eyes, is not only engaging but very simple and informative.
brand new, ground-breaking Augmented Reality app that works on the Audient ASP8024
Research conducted last year by digital solutions specialists Jisc, showed that students were more serious than ever about technology, with 32% of them saying tech facilities played a part in their choice of university. Coupling the large format, world class Audient desks with this futuristic technology certainly ensures LCoM remains very competitive in this arena.
The next stage of the project, currently in beta testing, will incorporate and integrate the patch-bay area of the studios in order to further guide and instruct students. This development was guided by student feedback from the initial pilot, and was identified as a threshold concept for Production students, making the conservatoire AR work truly responsive.
Read more about the LCoM Augmented Reality project and watch exactly how the AR app interacts with the Audient desk by watching the following video introduced by Production degree Curriculum Leader, Craig Golding himself.
