FEATURES: RECORDING
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L–R: TAG founders Anupam Sathe, Omkar Tamhan and Jayakrishnan Nalinkumar
The live room of Studio C
The Audio Guys had been planning their institute for several years, opening two weeks before India went into lockdown. Caroline Moss finds out what happened next IMAGINE THE SCENARIO: FOR SEVERAL YEARS YOU’VE been discussing opening a recording institute in your city with some industry colleagues. Eventually, a suitable property is procured, redevelopment begins, syllabuses are drawn up, equipment purchased and students enrolled. Then, in the face of a deadly pandemic sweeping the globe, the country instigates one of the strictest lockdowns in the world, giving only four hours notice. What do you do? Well, like so many in our industry have learned, you quickly find ways to adapt. In the case of Jayakrishnan Nalinkumar, who launched The Audio Guys (TAG) in Mumbai in March last year with partners Anupam Sathe and Omkar Tamhan, this meant rewriting courses and taking them online immediately, a move so effective that not even one student has dropped out. Although Mumbai’s lockdown ended in August, at the time of writing all teaching is still confined to online due to ongoing restrictions.
However, in addition to its online educational programme, TAG has also been able to hire its studios for commercial sessions. And in the case of the Dolby Atmos HE studio, a growing amount of immersive mixing for OTT content is keeping it busy. Both Nalinkumar and Tamhan are graduates of SAE in Byron Bay, Australia. “We wanted to provide the sort of infrastructure that you see abroad, with good equipment, a high standard of education and the best teachers in the country,” explains Nalinkumar. “We wanted to make that sort of facility available and to be affordable, so students don’t need to struggle to study at a good place.” After several conversations, Tamhan – a Dolby Atmos mastering engineer working for Dolby Technologies India – also came on board. For three years, the trio had worked towards their goal, drawing up plans and forming a company. And finally, in late 2019, things began to fall into place. After much searching,
Two c a suitable property was found: a former industrial complex in Andheri West, in the heart of Mumbai’s studio industry. This offered the ceiling height and proportions required for adequate teaching spaces. “We’d decided we wouldn’t limit our facility to training, but also make it available for professional projects,” continues Nalinkumar. “We wanted people from the industry to come visit our place and interact with students, and for the students to get a chance to be involved in professional projects, which is essential to our training programme. That’s the idea of having it right here in the studio district, so that students will be learning from the industry itself.” Nalinkumar had been teaching for the past 11 years, together with Sathe. When word got out about the new institute, they were contacted by many engineers and trainers keen to get involved. “The name of the facility – The Audio Guys – we’re a team of engineers developing good engineers for the future, and we have a very good faculty associated with us; people who’ve had decades of experience in the industry, in various professional environments, not just in music recording and mixing,” explains Sathe. “We have specialised people in postproduction, live sound and music production.”
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