The 2006 Red Bull Music Academy was held in Melbourne, Australia.

The academy is the brainchild of a group of very smart Germans headed up by Many Ameri who organized the whole affair with typical German precision with the help of the staff of Red Bull and a team of Aussies. It was great to go down and visit them and spend the last couple of days with them and the students.

The academy ran for 2 x 2 week terms with 30 students attending each term. The students came for all around the world and the guest lecturers also came from many different countries and from different music styles and backgrounds.

http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/

They took a 3 storey warehouse and converted it into and amazing complex.

The ground floor was a large lecture room.

The second floor was converted into an administration section and a recreation/dining room. The kitchen provided all the meals and the rec room offered a plasma screen for video games and replaying the lectures plus high speed broadband internet access so students could call home.

Administration

Recreation/Dining Area

Internet room - check out the beautiful mural - there was stunning artwork throughout the complex.

The kitchen provided great food

and drinks

On the second floor there was also a radio station that streamed to the net.

The third floor was divided into a series of work rooms and a recording studio with two control rooms accessing a live room . Each work room was equipped with a powerful Mac, keyboards, turntables, speakers, basically anything they wanted from the equipment store room - the complex had KRK speakers throughout except the lecture room that had large Genelecs.

The roof of the building was also setup as a play area and barbecue facility.

I was asked to design the Recording Studio which had two control rooms fronting onto one live room. The team of builders, headed by Ben Ford miraculously finished the whole construction in less than a month -
gotta be a world record.

here are some pics of the finished studio in action.

 

Special thanks to the graphic design team who created the academy web site that offered a visual feast for the overseas family and friends of the students and provided some of these pictures.