UK - Moving from his original shop in Hanwell, West London, Jim Marshall took over the current Milton Keynes factory site in 1966. A few steps away from the main building was the social club, now repurposed as the Marshall Studio complex. Adam Beer joined the company in October 2020 as studio manager and oversaw the whole refurbishment project, designing the studio, then, a few years later, turning the disused theatre into a live venue.
“Marshall reached out when they decided to make their own recording studio for the Marshall Record Label artists,” Beer recalls. “The opportunity to build something from scratch was exciting. I chose how the space sounded, filling it with the best equipment available, but as a former live engineer, it was the theatre that really caught my attention. That part of the project was on the back burner for a while, but we had a bit of downtime at the beginning of the year and finally got to upgrade the live space and do it justice.”
Completed this year, the theatre is a top-of-the-range, 250-capacity venue with a Quantum 225 at the front of house position and another at monitors, supplied by Solotech. Fulfilling several uses, it is a venue for hire, testing space for equipment, a recording venue and an in-house space for Marshall recording artists’ showcases and live events. It is a busy, flexible hall in need of a fully customisable mixing console that can keep up with the dynamics of the space and always sound fantastic, whatever the performance.
Stable connectivity is also very important, so the venue is networked into the rest of the studio complex via Dante. The Quantum 225s utilise DMI:Dante Cards, providing 64 channels in and 64 out at 48kHz or 96kHz. The house PA is L-Acoustics, which is also supplied by Solotech.
“I hadn’t used a DiGiCo since the SD7 and they were never my exclusive desk of choice, so I was coming to it a little bit blind,” says Beer. “But Dan Seal at Solotech was pretty clear. He just said, ‘You have to do it. Get two!’
“Our Quantums are everything you love about DiGiCo. They sound unbelievable, they're super customisable, they're reliable and everyone who comes through says, ‘great, you’ve got a Quantum!’. I was a little bit nervous, the purchase was a real leap of faith for me, but one wonderful thing that happened was a day with Mollie [Autherson, DiGiCo technical sales specialist]. She was fantastic and did an unbelievable job. Mollie made us feel really comfortable and suddenly I realised, it’s all still there, all the customisation you need is available for you.”
Understanding the history of the building and the brand is just one part of appreciating what happens here. By using the very best modern technology and building on the expertise of the past, Marshall and DiGiCo provide the tools for something seriously exciting to happen, as Beer concludes.
“It’s not just a case of trying to blend modern and vintage,” he says. “It’s about getting the very best possible quality. We have the best of the best in every aspect of the studio and venue, so having a console that can offer the very best audio and connectivity, whatever the situation is absolutely imperative.
“Marshall is a brand that I'm honoured to work for. I feel the pressure of history when I put events on and do recordings, because I've got the weight of expectation, and of 62 years of excellent guitar tones to live up to. I'm pleased to say that DiGiCo supports me in that.”
