The Musiluz sound school, based in the city of Málaga, is currently a benchmark audiovisual school across Andalusia and a leading training center nationwide for DJ sound courses and music production. We asked them about the recent addition to their facilities of an Allen & Heath Qu24.
All of their courses are in person and are taught by a team of creative professionals with a passion for music and teaching. The quality of the educational programs Musiluz offers its students is backed by numerous recognitions and certifications from major industry companies such as Apple and Steinberg. Musiluz is also an official partner of numerous leading brands, such as Pioneer and Traktor.
“Good teaching is when the teacher adapts to the way the student works. Teaching experience is essential for that,” says Doc Diamond, music production and DJ instructor.
The school not only relies on a top-level, experienced faculty that knows how to adapt to the student's needs, but also has the best technology and the most advanced equipment for teaching its classes. The school, which has extensive experience in audiovisual training, has reached its tenth anniversary offering quality services.
Rubén Albendín, founder and director of Musiluz, tells us that “at Musiluz we've never stopped researching and digging deeper into the needs of music and sound professionals, selecting only the best gear to offer the best training to our students. We have an optimized teaching system—with small groups of up to six people—additional practice sessions during the courses, and a 100% learning guarantee for the student.”
In its drive to remain a leader in education and technology, the school is in constant evolution. A key part of achieving this goal is updating the school's equipment with state-of-the-art, superior-quality gear. That is why the school recently acquired an Allen&Heath Qu24 digital mixing console. We spoke with Rubén, its director, to hear the details of the decision to invest in this product and how it is currently used at the school.
Q: What needs at the school led you to choose the Allen&Heath Qu-24 mixing console?
A: On the teaching side, we considered it very important to have a compact, high-quality device that offered dual functionality. Those were the main requirements. The idea was that we could use the console both in the theory/practice sound classes, where we explain how a digital mixing console works, channels, auxes, subgroups, sends, and so on, and in the production classes, where we work mainly with digital audio workstations—in this context the console is used as a DAW controller.
Of the different options we saw on the market, Allen&Heath seemed to us the system that best fit our needs in terms of quality, functionality, and integration with the most popular programs on the market.
Q: Besides using the console for the sound theory and production classes, is it useful for any of the other courses in your catalog?
A: Yes, the console is actually very versatile. Although it's categorized as a live console, it adapts very well to multiple environments, such as mixing and producing music for film and television, which is another of the courses we offer.
Q: We know that, besides teaching at Musiluz, the school's instructors are working professionals who practice their trade outside the classroom. Do you do other kinds of work at the school besides teaching?
A: Yes, along with several of the school's instructors, we also work in audio, video, and film post-production. In that regard, we also thought it was important to have a product that would help us carry out this kind of task, make our work easier, and cut mixing times. In addition, we also use the school's resources for music recording projects, voice-over, and advertising work, among others.
Q: And finally, what are your conclusions about the Allen&Heath Qu-24 console?
A: We definitely made the right choice. It not only covers our needs but also offers us a wide variety of features that we've been discovering since we've had it at the school. The most notable for us would be the 24 mono inputs plus 3 stereo, the quality of its preamps, the 25 motorized faders, direct Qu-Drive recording/playback to USB drives, DAW integration, its touchscreen—which provides quick and easy access to all settings—the ability to insert EQ, compressor, and delay on all Mix outputs, or the Qu-Pad app for iPad, to name just a few.
