THE MEMa STUDIO

Since 2012 the MEMa Foundation has invited Chicago's young people into a studio. The MEMa Studio reverses that: a fully equipped recording and media production facility that drives to them. It is in development now, funded by an $800,000 capital campaign.

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15

STUDENT WORKSTATIONS

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$800,000

CAPITAL CAMPAIGN GOAL

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53 FEET

OF MOBILE CLASSROOM

See it deployed

Three zones. A classroom in the middle that widens when the trailer opens, going from eight and a half feet on the road to twenty-four and a half feet parked.

Inside the Studio

Music Mix Control Room, at the front behind the cab. A professional music mixing and post-production room, isolated so it can run at the same time as the broadcast room without either bleeding into the other.
Student Instructional Zone, the center section and the heart of the vehicle. Slide-outs on both sides expand it to full width, giving fifteen individual workstations running Pro Tools and industry-standard video software. Students sit facing each other across the room, with an instructor station and a display visible from every seat.
Broadcast Mix Control Room, at the rear. Built for live event broadcast training, with tie-line panels that connect the Studio directly into a venue's audio and video feeds. This is the room that makes Broadcast Engineering possible as a program, not just a subject.
Isolation between the two control rooms is the hard part. Running two rooms on different material at the same time, inside a trailer that still has to be road legal, is a structural problem before it is a studio problem. It is written into the design brief rather than left to be solved on site.

DEPLOYED

Parked, levelled and opened, with the ramp down. This is what a school sees when the Studio arrives.
THE CAB

A purpose-built tractor unit, not a converted hire truck. The Studio travels as one vehicle.
ON CAMPUS

The Studio needs a parking lot, not a building. No school has to find studio space.
EXPANDING SIDES

Both flanks extend outward once parked, taking the working floor from 323 to 931 square feet.

Campaign funding is mapped to the physical build, so a gift is tied to a specific stage of construction rather than a general fund.

$75,000 · Design & Engineering

Acoustic, electrical and systems design, plus build documentation. Funded, the design contract is executed and specifications are finalized.
$325,000 · Trailer Shell

Custom chassis with dual expanding sides, fabricated to specification. Funded, the trailer is ordered and delivered.
$225,000 · Construction & Integration

Framing, power, HVAC, sound isolation, millwork and installation. Funded, the structural conversion is complete.
$150,000 · Audio & Video Equipment

Consoles, microphones, cameras, monitoring, editing and color suites. Funded, the recording and video suites are installed.
$25,000 · Exterior Wrap & Identity

Vehicle wrap and MEMa Studio identity applied to the finished trailer. Funded, the MEMa Studio is road-ready.
A note on these estimates

Estimates reflect current industry pricing and are subject to final vendor quotes. Total investment may approach $1,000,000 depending on final configuration, unless a trailer is donated. Annual operating costs are funded separately, through general operations, program grants and touring sponsorships. They do not come from the capital campaign.

The John Lennon Educational Tour Bus

Mobile studios are not a new idea. One has been doing this successfully for nearly thirty years.

On the road since 1998, serving millions of students from a mobile recording studio, with sponsors including Apple, Avid, Blackmagic Design and Solid State Logic. The MEMa Studio is the Chicago-rooted, community-first version of that model, backed by programming we’ve been delivering since 2012.