UK - Ingenium Limited is a new service specialising in the information and computing technology requirements of the European music and AV studio industry.

Based in London, the company has been established to service the unique IT requirements of European facilities, providing impartial advice on computing hardware and software solutions specifically tailored for music and AV purposes.

Managing director Nick Price comments, "Like studio technology, computing and software technology moves at an incredible pace and the breadth and power of the tools currently available is remarkable - if only studios had more time to investigate, implement and benefit from them. Researching the ideas behind Ingenium, we found that many facilities are literally swamped by their current administrative systems and that this impacts directly on their ability to spend valuable time on the support of their existing customers and on the marketing of their facility - which in turn, affects their business potential and income".

Price draws on over a decade of personal experience and of a wide range of information technology, allowing the company to provide a custom service available to the studio industry for the first time.

Price continues, "I want to ensure that the services we provide not only fulfil our clients requirements, but also that as a company we're accessible and objective. Our experience of client goals and the studio industry itself allows us a unique understanding of what it is that our clients want and need to achieve, and importantly, how best to achieve them".

Ingenium's services include the design and specification of computer, software and network solutions; installation; and customer training and support.

Price has worked in the studio and music industry since the late '80s, as technical manager for London's Strongroom and Church Studios; as projects manager for Harris Grant Associates, Discrete Systems and Coastal Acoustics; and most recently as European service manager for console manufacturer Euphonix. He left Euphonix to start Ingenium.

Studios seldom fail from a lack of equipment knowledge or recording expertise. Most often the issue is organisation and business acumen, neither of which tends to be a strong suit of the creative breed. In an attempt to address these needs in a single integrated package, AlterMedia has developed Studio Suite, a relational database that allows the tracking and administration of almost all ends of the studio business from a single software package.

Studio Suite is based on the File Maker Pro database engine and is available for either Windows or Mac OS computers. Initially, 18 buttons defining the range of functions that are covered, greet you. This list is very impressive with expected functions like contacts, invoices and a calendar, but also some pleasant surprises like bar code generation, a patch bay labeller and sample library management for tracking sounds and sound effects.

Clicking one of the buttons opens that particular module; tabs across the top represent options for the module. These options show that a great deal of development time has been spent on this program. A good example of this is the Contacts section. Up to five distinct addresses can be stored with a contact to represent physical, shipping and billing addresses, plus two of the user's choice. These little touches come up throughout the program and show that either the developers have lived through being studio owners themselves, or have spoken to many of them about their needs.

The program divides itself into modules that I have categorised into five general headings. Basic Studio Management includes a Contact database, a Rooms module to define studio rooms, their purpose and to indicate their availability. A Calendar is also included to show bookings and meetings.

The Finances section includes an Invoices module which also does receivables ageing, a To Order module for generating purchase orders and a very thorough Recording Budget worksheet.

An Inventory Management section includes a Part Stock, Media Inventory, Equipment Inventory, a Maintenance Log and a very handy Bar Code generator for labelling tape and equipment.

Several project-based modules are included for tracking sessions based around a single recording project. These include a Sessions Log for tracking all of the organisational issues. Assigning a project number will allow the relevant data from different modules to be automatically combined here. To track inventory specific to a session, there are modules for a Tape Library and Labels as well as Production orders. Finally, to help record all the relevant data from the production, there are Song and Track Sheet modules and a clever Recall Sheets module that has front panel drawings of hundreds of pieces of gear ranging from AMS to Manley and Roland to SansAmp. These allow you to mark front panel settings for easy recall at a later time. Finally, there are a couple of utility modules for doing Patchbay Labelling and maintenance and logging of a Sample Library.

Due to the fact that all of the files are interconnected, as you open multiple modules, you end up with a lot of minimised windows in the background. This does not really affect operation of the program, and the windows can be individually closed or minimised. To its credit, Studio Suite also provides a preference to allow it to open your most commonly used modules with a single click. Some of the windows that call multiple locations can be quite slow to update as they recalculate all entries when you call the window up. The impending version promises to add an update button to these modules so you can choose when to do this.

There are some very nice touches to this package. The software is network friendly, so several people or facilities can add to and manipulate the same data simultaneously. The only addition per station is the purchase of Filemaker Pro, which is around £150. The program can then be accessed via multiple Windows or Mac OS computers simultaneously. Studio Suite can also be used with more than one business at the same time. If you have a recording studio and a post facility that share ownership and clientele, the package can be used to address the needs of both.

There are very few studio specific packages to be compared to Studio Suite - a few other studio management tools have been marketed, but none come to mind having anywhere near the scope of Studio Suite, particularly in the calendar and scheduling areas. In addition, since the program is based on a standard database engine, it can be customised either by the user or with the assistance of AlterMedia (or Ingenium) at an hourly rate. At a fraction of the cost of similar programs (£275 in Europe from Ingenium), this is a very attractive package to centralise much of your studio's tracking, lead management and organisation at a fraction of similar programs price. A test drive demo is available for download on (from this) website.