The IMM's own audio broadcasting van was converted from March to June 2011 by the company Wellen & Noethen in direct contact with the Robert Schumann School of Music and Media. New wiring and new workstation partitioning now provide space for sound engineers, recording producers and sound technicians. A flexible signal routing in the van was created to meet the requirements for every application, since the broadcasting van will be used for both live recording and mix editing. The technical planning of the conversion, which was based on Simon Spillner's final year project, was undertaken by students Michael Verhoeven and Jochen Dannwolf under the guidance of IMM professor Dagmar Birwe.
The conversion was supported by the company Lehmann Audio with a Lehmann Audio Black Cube Linear Pro headphone amplifier which is now a great asset to the recording producer with its balanced and detailed sound.
It is also gratifying that a larger proportion of tuition fees from the school have been allocated to this conversion.

On 15 May 2011 the closing concert of the Acht Brücken festival was recorded by IMM students in collaboration with WDR television. musikFabrik Cologne with students of the four schools of music in North Rhine-Westphalia played works by Pierre Boulez under the direction of Pascal Rophé. The sound recording was carried out from the WDR sound control room and will be used amongst other things for a WDR television documentary which addresses the study of the work Pli selon pli. The recording was directed by Karl Christoph Rensch as recording engineer and Michael Zöllner as sound engineer. Stephan Vester, Marcus Reineboth and Christian Kruse were responsible for the hall and studio engineering. The project was supervised by IMM professor Dagmar Birwe and for Karl Christoph Rensch is assessed as artistic compulsory elective. The mixing for the film is carried out by Sebastian Riederer from the audiamus sound studio.

The Schubert/Rihm days took place from 1 to 4 February 2011 in the Partika hall of the Robert Schumann School of Music and Media. Students of the school arranged varied chamber music evenings with works by Franz Schubert and Wolfgang Rihm, which were recorded by IMM students of the Classical Music Recording major.

IMM student Josuel Theegarten produced Steve Reich's New York Counterpoint in 5.1 surround. In doing so, Prof Kerstin Grötsch (University of Music Duesseldorf) recorded all eleven clarinet voices one after the other in an overdub process. The special feature of his surround mixing is that the individual voices are dispersed around the listener which results in interesting effects between the voices. The recording was produced as part of the Audio 2 exam and was supervised by IMM professor Hans-Joachim Haas.

In Leipzig, the production was awarded the 2008 young talent prize by the Verband Deutscher Tonmeister (association of German sound engineers) in the category Instrumentalmusik; kleine Besetzung (instrumental music; small ensemble). For technical reasons only a montage of the three movement piece is available here in stereo.

Extract from the radio play by Claudia Kempen. The play was developed during the Der Krimiabend- event series (Cologne, Bonn 2006). The play was produced in 3D positional audio, a psychoacoustic findings in phrase and sound, using head-related transfer funtions and reverberation to create a highly emotional sensation of "being there" for the listener. It is received via headphones.
Written by: Claudia Kampen, Director: Jana Langenbruch, Sound Engineering: Andrew Mottl.