R&B/HIP-HOP INTERACTIVE VIRTUAL REALITY SOFTWARE ACADEMY· Chef Menteur, U.S.

From scratch.

A 40′ × 50′ metal warehouse shell,once home to a neighborhood auto parts store on the property — rebuilt as the R&B/HIP-HOP INTERACTIVE VIRTUAL REALITY SOFTWARE ACADEMY.

The Box Studios — founded 2015 by the original ownership group — now home to the R&B/HIP-HOP INTERACTIVE VIRTUAL REALITY SOFTWARE ACADEMY, training the next generation of producers, engineers, DJs, and vocalists on real SSL, Neve, MPC, and 1200 hardware. Built from scratch to honor the culture.You do not have to be from the South to enroll. Worldwide and international students welcome.

01 · The Layout

Walking timeline · 1950s → Modern

Four zones, three eras, one shell.

The 40′ × 50′ footprint reads front-to-back as a walking timeline of American recording. Isolation requirements get stricter the deeper you go — the front embraces room reflections, the back is fully decoupled for precision dialogue work.

Zone 01 · Entrance

1950s

Hard surfaces and natural reflections. A waiting room that doubles as a tracking space when the session wants that vintage New Orleans bleed.

Zone 02 · Left Wing

1990s

The loudest equipment consolidated along one wall. Thermal loads and fan noise stay away from sensitive listening environments — the building's cheapest square footage doing the heaviest work.

Zone 03 · Middle

1980s

Office, meeting room, and a working piece of history at once. The large-format console anchors the room and the brand — a working museum, not a display case.

Zone 04 · Back · Phase 1

Modern

Long, narrow control room split into a tracking station and an editing / finishing station, tied to a high-isolation vocal booth for ADR and precision dialogue.

Acoustic zoning

Front lounge embraces natural reflections · Center houses the heavy mixing hardware · Left wing buffers all mechanical noise · Back wall contains the fully decoupled, ultra-quiet booth required for paid dialogue work. The layout solves the architecture.

02 · The Practical Business Plan

Day job · Night job

Day Job

Commercial audio — ADR.

Automated dialogue replacement for film, television, and audiobooks. This is the bread-and-butter — predictable invoices, repeat clients, and the reason the 7′ × 6′ booth has to be dead quiet.

Night Job

Artist development & archiving.

Firing up classic 12-bit samplers and vintage drum machines to capture authentic textures. Where the museum stops being a display and starts being an instrument.

R&B/HIP-HOP INTERACTIVE VIRTUAL REALITY SOFTWARE ACADEMY · Enrollment Open

Learn the craft on the same hardware that made the records.

The R&B/HIP-HOP INTERACTIVE VIRTUAL REALITY SOFTWARE ACADEMY is a working-studio curriculum. You don't practice on a laptop pretending — you sit at an SSL Nucleus, load a kit on an MPC, ride faders on a Neve, cut on a pair of 1200s. We teach where the records are actually made.

Mandate · 01

A cure for the Louisiana culture crisis — with worldwide reach.

Louisiana exports its sound and loses its people. Studios close, masters leave the state, young engineers move to Atlanta and LA for a room they could have had at home. The R&B/HIP-HOP INTERACTIVE VIRTUAL REALITY SOFTWARE ACADEMY is built as the cure — keep the rooms open, keep the credits local, keep the tradition in the hands of the people who actually live the culture. Bounce, second line, U.S. bass, Baton Rouge swing, Shreveport drawl — all of it tracked and taught on the same floor. Enrollment is open worldwide; you do not have to be from the South to participate. International students welcome under applicable U.S. and international law.

Prerequisite · 02

Vibe coding is the entry ticket.

Every track — Beats, Engineering, MC, R&B, DJ, Phygital — opens with a one-week Vibe Coding intensive. Plain-language prompting, shipping a working tool by Friday, versioning your ideas the way you version a beat. You will leave able to spin up a cypher signup page, a stem-delivery portal, a tour map, or a merch drop without waiting on anyone. Music first, but software literacy is non-negotiable.

Training Tracks

Track 0112 wk

Beats & Production

MPC · SP1200 · TR-808 · Logic · Pro Tools

Sampling ethics, chopping, swing, layering, drum programming on the machines that built the genre. From a dusty loop to a mixed master.

Track 0212 wk

Engineering & Mixing

SSL Nucleus · Neve · Pro Tools · Auralex Room

Signal flow, gain staging, mic technique, vocal chains, bus compression. Tracking a full band and walking out with stems that translate.

Track 0312 wk

MC & Songwriting

Cypher Lab · Writing Room · Booth Time

Cadence, pocket, breath control, hooks, storytelling. Weekly cyphers and a final EP cut, mixed, and registered.

Track 0412 wk

R&B Vocals

Atmospheric Vocals · Stacking · Comping

Atmospheric Vocals activities — texture-building, ad-lib stacking, falsetto layering, reverb-as-instrument, harmonic comping. The breathy, room-filled R&B that lives behind the lead.

Track 0512 wk

DJ & Turntablism

Technics 1200 MK2 · MK5 · Rane Serato

Beatmatching, blends, scratching, routines, crate digging. From bedroom mixes to opening a real room.

Track 0612 wk

Phygital Media & Ed-Tech

Video · Documentary · App Development

Tie music to story: short docs, music videos, B2B tourism and CSR education apps built inside the warehouse. The academy ships product, not just demos.

Remote Master Classes · Required Kit

What you need on your desk to attend from anywhere.

Worldwide enrollment means the warehouse comes to you. Remote Master Classes run as live VR sessions plus async stems review — you sit at your own rig and track alongside the cohort. The kit below is what we expect on your desk before week one.

Curriculum · 12 weeks

  1. WK 01   Vibe Coding intensive — prompting, shipping a tool by Friday.
  2. WK 02–04   Beats & Production on MPC / SP1200 emulation + live trade rooms.
  3. WK 05–06   Engineering & Mixing — signal flow, gain staging, bus comp.
  4. WK 07–08   MC & R&B vocal production — booth tech, comping, stacks.
  5. WK 09–10   DJ & Turntablism — Serato + 1200 routines.
  6. WK 11–12   Phygital capstone — ship a record + a tool, in VR.

Virtual equipment & school supplies

  • DAW — Pro Tools, Logic, Ableton Live, or Reaper. Latest stable build.
  • Audio interface + studio headphones + condenser mic — class-tracked input chain; closed-back cans for live sessions.
  • MIDI / pad controller — MPC-style (Akai MPC, Maschine, or Push) for beat work.
  • VR headset + spatial-audio plugin suite — Meta Quest 3 or Apple Vision Pro, paired with a Dolby Atmos / Ambisonics plugin.
  • Mini Dolby Atmos system + analog synth gear — as much real analog synth as your room allows. The brief: experience pure sound — analog sound — at full resolution.
See full Remote Master Class syllabus →

Hip-Hop Appreciation & Evolution

Miami to Southern California — the long bassline of the culture.

The curriculum honors the route the music actually took: 808 sub-bass out of Miami, gulf-coast bounce through the South, then west into G-funk, lowrider soul, and the Pacific studio era. Students study the records, the rooms, and the engineers who shaped each move.

  1. Stop 1 · Mid-80s → early-90s

    Miami, FL

    Roland TR-808 sub-bass, Luke Records, bass-music sound systems. The low end that defined a coast.

  2. Stop 2 · 90s → 2000s

    Atlanta · Memphis · New Orleans

    Dungeon Family, Three 6, Cash Money, No Limit, crunk and bounce — the South establishing its own engineering language.

  3. Stop 3 · 90s → present

    Houston, TX

    Screwed & chopped tape culture, Rap-A-Lot, DJ Screw — tempo as production.

  4. Stop 4 · 90s → present

    Southern California

    G-funk synths, Death Row mixes, lowrider oldies sampling, Dr. Dre's room tone — the West Coast studio canon students rebuild stem by stem.

Every cohort traces this geography in listening sessions, stem breakdowns, and VR studio recreations — so producers, MCs, and engineers know the lineage their work is built on.

Enrollment

Next cohort opens fall. Rolling interviews — no audition tape required.

Apply to the AcademyRequest Curriculum PDF

Featured Hardware · Highlights

What each machine teaches

The gear is the syllabus.

Every flagship piece on the floor doubles as a teaching tool. Students read the manuals, map the signal flow, calculate the heat loads, and trace the A/D conversion before they ever push a fader. The hardware is the curriculum — the records are the proof.

Unit 01Featured

SSL Nucleus 2

Digitally controlled analog · DAW command surface

  • Read the manual cover to cover before first session
  • A/D & D/A conversion: clocking, jitter, headroom staging
  • Signal flow from mic pre to monitor bus
  • Cable wrapping & routing — over/under, no exceptions
Unit 02Featured

AMS / Neve V3 Series

Large-format analog console · Tracking & mix

  • Heat load math: BTU, airflow, console-room HVAC sizing
  • Routing matrices, bussing, monitor sections
  • Critical listening on a calibrated room
  • Communication on the talkback — clear, brief, kind
Unit 03Featured

Akai MPC (Live II / X)

Sampler · Sequencer · Performance instrument

  • Sample rate, bit depth, and why the SP color exists
  • Basic music theory: keys, modes, harmonic rhythm
  • Groove quantize, swing, and feel as emotional intelligence
  • Critical thinking: when to chop, when to leave it alone
Unit 04Featured

Technics SL-1200 MK2 / MK5

Direct-drive turntables · Rane Serato

  • Body awareness: posture, weight, the hand on the platter
  • Self-control on the crossfader — patience over flash
  • Music analysis & appreciation: era, region, lineage
  • Cable routing for the booth — power, signal, ground
Unit 05Featured

Pro Tools HDX · Auralex Booth

DAW spine · Vocal isolation

  • Session hygiene: naming, color, comping discipline
  • Atmospheric vocal stacking, doubles, harmonic comping
  • Listening as a practice — what the singer needs to hear
  • Emotional intelligence in the room when takes get hard
Unit 06Featured

Vitrine Artifacts · SP-1200 · TR-808

Museum display · Not in signal path

  • Music appreciation: what these machines did to the culture
  • Reverence without nostalgia — study, then build forward
  • Documentation: photograph, label, archive
  • Communication: tell the story to the next class

Prerequisite · 01

Cable wrapping & routing.

Before a student touches the SSL, they wrap cable — over/under, no kinks, Velcro the same direction every time. Routing diagrams drawn by hand, then checked against the rack. This is the door fee. If the cables aren't right, the records won't be either.

Prerequisite · 02

Listening, thinking, and the body.

Critical thinking, critical listening, and clear communication run alongside basic music theory and music analysis appreciation. Emotional intelligence, body awareness, and self-control are graded the same as gain staging. Engineers who can't sit still don't sit at this desk.

Site Survey · Reel 01

Pre-acoustic walkthrough

A narrated pass through the building before treatment.

Recorded prior to professional acoustic involvement — the rooms as they stood, the geometry as it was found, the conditions the acoustic design would later answer.

Source Material · Reels & Documents

Pre-Acoustic · U.S.
Reel 02 — Cinematic Push-In
The Box — Sample of Progress

Aaniyah In Session — The Voice Of Tomorrow

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Playin In My Face — Mixed By B

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The Box Studios — floor plan, landscaping, and location
The Box Studios — Plans · Landscape · Location
Studio Etiquette #1 — 3-panel comic
Studio Etiquette N° 01 — Editorial Strip
Serenity Systems Institute
Serenity Systems Institute
Sanctuary Network
Sanctuary Network
PRE-Build Museum & Recording
♃ PRE-Build Museum & Recording

Soundmark School · Legislative Ledger

17 U.S.C. § 114 · Reform

Pillar 07 · Trademark & Statute

Register the sound. Rewrite the 1972 statute.

The Sound Recording Amendment of 1972 was written for vinyl pressed in a warehouse, not for a producer tag ingested by a language model. Soundmark School trains the cohort to file USPTO marks on tags, drops, and signature timbres — and drafts the open-source bill that finally brings federal copyright into the streaming, sampling, and machine-learning era.

Enter the Legislative Ledger →Project 2029

  • Module 01

    Trademark Protocol

    File non-traditional Soundmarks at the USPTO — tags, drops, percussive identifiers.

  • Module 02

    Frequency Fingerprinting

    Log raw stems and analog chain provenance into the Sanctuary ledger. AI-scrape proof.

  • Module 03

    Legislative Drafting

    Write bill language. Open-source policy for the next fifty years of audio copyright.

Origins · The Build

Construction · MMXXIV — MMXXVI
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Day 191

7367 Chef Menteur HwySite Photo

7367 Chef Menteur Hwy

New Orleans, LA

Site Reel — Walk Of The Works · Handheld field capture

The Box Studios — Audio Note

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Series Bible — True Hate

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Build Progress — Field Cut

Diligence Dossier · Confidential

Pre-Acoustic — Building Reference

Site survey · Pre-acoustic design · Source material

Pre-Acoustic — Building Reference

Shell · Pre-acoustic
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Reel A — Walk-through, pre-acoustic
Reel B — Rooms in source state
The Sanctuary — A Blueprint for a Working Museum

The Sanctuary — Blueprint for a Working Museum

Walking timeline · Entrance · Utility spine · Museum · Bunker

Manifesto · Reel

The Blueprint for Cultural Imperium — Fortifying New Orleans

Companion film to the deck: the doctrine behind the Sanctuary stated in red, white, blue, and old gold — culture as infrastructure, infrastructure as sovereignty.

The Cultural Imperium · Deck ↗

Equip · Systems Reference

Pre-Acoustic · Baseline

Baseline systems documentation captured before acoustic design — the conditions a specialist team would later resolve. Four disciplines, recorded as found.

01 · Routing

Signal Path & Cable Routing

Trunks · tie lines · floor boxes · patch topology

Pre-acoustic routing study: console-to-room trunks, mic-line drops at each tracking position, and the patch-bay topology as it stood before re-termination and acoustic re-planning.

02 · Cooling

HVAC & Thermal Load

Supply · return · isolation · CFM baseline

Mechanical baseline: supply and return locations, noise-critical isolation requirements, and the thermal envelope of the live room and control under continuous session load.

03 · Electrical

Electrical Load & Power

Service · isolated grounds · UPS · technical power

Service capacity, dedicated technical-power runs, isolated grounds at the console and outboard, and UPS hold-up estimates for the racks — all pre-treatment, as a reference point.

04 · Ergonomic

Ergonomics & Sight Lines

Engineer position · talent sightlines · reach envelopes

Engineer seating, monitor triangle, talent eye-line to the booth, and the reach envelope to outboard and patch — documented before acoustic and furniture redesign began.

05 · Capture

Directional Capture & Isolation

Shotgun condenser · interference tube · supercardioid/lobe

Long-throw capture chain built around a 395 mm interference-tube shotgun condenser — even tighter focus and higher rejection of side noise than a standard short shotgun. Reserved for booming dialogue from distance and isolating single voices inside a live room without bleed.

Blueprint · Engineering Manual

Five Phases · Reference

Operating framework for a multi-room facility — written as a manual, not a brochure. Electrical and thermal load, structural acoustics, room-by-room construction, franchise-grade procedures, and long-horizon energy planning.

Phase 01

Electrical & Thermal Load

Service sizing · isolated grounds · UPS · BTU envelope

Per-room load calculations to prevent voltage sag and protect noise-critical gear. Dedicated technical-power runs, star-grounded bus bar, UPS hold-up on the racks, and a thermal envelope sized for continuous session load across every room.

Phase 02

Structural Acoustics

Decoupling · mass · absorption · diffusion

Room-within-a-room construction, floated floors, and floor-to-ceiling treatment tuned per room — Main Listening, ADR, Production Suite, and Video — so each space hits its own frequency-response and noise-floor target rather than a shared compromise.

Phase 03

Room-by-Room Build

Main · ADR · Production · Video

Construction notes per room: monitor placement and sightlines for the main array, isolation and intelligibility for ADR, gear topology for the production suite, and lighting plus treatment for the video and content studio.

Phase 04

Franchise Operations

SOPs · session intake · QC · client handling

Standard operating procedures that let the facility be run by more than one engineer without drift: session intake, file-management standards, QC checkpoints, archive policy, and a documented client experience from arrival to delivery.

Phase 05

Energy & Long-Horizon

Efficiency · maintenance cadence · resilience

Long-term planning: efficiency targets, scheduled fader and contact cleaning, annual grounding and acoustic re-measurement, and resilience against power and weather events — so the rooms stay calibrated year over year.

Phase 06

Atmospheric Engineering & Technology

Humidity · air pressure · particulate · ionization

Active conditioning of the air itself — humidity stabilized for tape, ribbons, and tonewoods, low-velocity supply to keep duct noise out of the room, particulate filtration on the technical-power side, and ionization control to protect sensitive electronics from static and corona discharge.

The Digital Currency Exchange

Settlement · Royalties · Hybrid Intelligence

Trading Floor

The house never loses.

Sessions clear here. Stems, masters, and rights settle into transferable units — tokenized splits for writers, players, and engineers — quoted, audited, and routed through a single ledger. Hybrid intelligence sits on the desk: human A&R judgement on one side, automated valuation, watermark verification, and rights clearance on the other.

Every session leaves the building as a priced asset, not a hard drive.

Desk 01

Master Ledger

Per-stem cap table · live ownership splits

Every contributor receives a transferable position the moment a take is committed.

Desk 02

Royalty Clearing

Mechanical · sync · neighbouring rights

Inbound revenue is decomposed, matched to the cap table, and settled to wallets on a fixed cadence.

Desk 03

Valuation Engine

Catalog scoring · benchmark pricing

Hybrid model: streaming velocity, sync history, and human A&R weighting produce a defensible quote per asset.

Desk 04

Vault & Custody

Cold storage · multi-sig · audit trail

Tokenized splits, master files, and key material held with quorum approval and a full provenance log.

Ledger · Append-onlyCustody · Multi-sigSettlement · T+0Audit · Quarterly

Back of House · The Workhorse

Control · Tracking · Editing · Booth

Back Zone

Where the paid work happens.

A long, narrow 20′ × 8′ control room split into a tracking station and an editing / finishing station, connected to a highly isolated 7′ × 6′ vocal booth. Built around ADR first, music second.

  • · 20′ × 8′ control room · two work positions
  • · 7′ × 6′ vocal booth · dead-quiet for ADR
  • · Direct sightline from control to booth
  • · Editing / finishing station next to tracking
NotebookLM Blueprint — Zone 4, The Bunker

NotebookLM Blueprint — The Bunker

Plan reference · Zone 4 terminus

Reel A — U.S. Universe Bible · Narrative anchor
Reel B — Steel Style Over The Years · Tenant brand reel

Home To

Tenant brands · Phygital warehouse

The warehouse is the operating system for a family of brands.

Each brand runs as its own product surface — built, shipped, and supported from the R&B/HIP-HOP INTERACTIVE VIRTUAL REALITY SOFTWARE ACADEMY floor. The flagship publication, Jupe Magazine, sits at the front.

Breathe 444 — Studio Reference Cut

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Peach State Glide — A&R Selection

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Brand 01

Jupe Magazine

Flagship publication

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Brand 02

Compass

Navigation · A&R

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Brand 03

BD Commerce

Storefront · merch

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Brand 04

Healing Ground Up

Wellness · community

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Brand 05

Creative Industry Network

Talent · pipeline

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Brand 06

Big Red Bridge

Civic · U.S.

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The Campus · Secured Legacy Archive

Est. 2015 · U.S.

Four distinct environments. One legacy.

A Secured Legacy Archive preserving the sonic heritage of New Orleans — from the raw energy of early Rock & Roll to the precision of modern production. Fiscally sponsored by MaCCNO. Open to industry-standard acoustic certification.

Shell
40′ × 50′
Clearance
15–18′
Plinth
6′ CMU
Console
Neve V3 · 60 Ch
Structure
Pre-Eng. Metal
Heat Reduction
60%
Enter the Museum ↗
011950s

Rampart Street

Zone 1 — The Lobby

The 1950s studio and museum. A raw, reflective space capturing the live energy of the New Orleans sound, named for the street that birthed it.

Learn more →
021980–90s

Atmospheric Technology Terminal

Zone 3 — ATT

Home of the Neve V3 Console. An 80s & 90s R&B / Hip Hop themed listening environment with climate-controlled atmospheric engineering.

Learn more →
03Modern

ADR & Vocal Production

Zone 4 — The Precision Room

Engineered to professional acoustic standard for vocal capture and ADR work.

Learn more →
041980s

Lizardi St.

Future Phase — Elevated Extension

An external elevated space honoring the bedroom producer movement.

Learn more →

Curriculum Lineage

Foundation → Frontier

What We Teach

From foundational rock and roll to VR civilizations.

The throughline is People of Color authoring the form — from the first guitar amps through R&B, hip hop, mixing and scratching, and now into interactive influencers and VR civilization games. The fundamentals never change: timing, tempo, tone, the punch line, and being present in the room.

In partnership with NBD Network

Foundation

Rock & Roll · R&B · Hip Hop

Craft

Mixing · Scratching · Crowd Rocking

Fundamentals

Timing · Tempo · Tone

Presence

Punch Line · Being Present

Frontier

VR Civilization Games

Frontier

Interactive Influencers

Alumni Network

Faculty · Mentors · Graduates
  • Dillard University
  • Full Sail University
  • Howard University
  • Iowa State University
  • Xavier University of Louisiana
  • Tulane University
  • Loyola University New Orleans
  • SUNO — Southern University at New Orleans
  • Southern University

VR Civilizations Games

Interactive gallery · One per suite

Suite 01 · Main Listening

1819 — Congo Square

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Drag to orbit · pinch to zoom · tap the AR badge on supported devices

Crescent Cosmogony

Step onto Congo Square on a Sunday afternoon, then ride the bassline forward through every drum that descended from it.

Duration
22 min · seated VR
Capacity
1 — 6 guests
Era
1819 — Congo Square

Experience Beats

  • Volumetric capture of a Sunday gathering, scored live to the room
  • Spatial audio routed through the SSL — guests hear what the engineers hear
  • Hand-tracked call-and-response with three ancestor drummers

Patched Hardware

  • SSL Nucleus2
  • Genelec 8351B monitors
  • Meta Quest Pro · 6DoF
Book this experience →By appointment · In partnership with NBD Network

Contact

Site visits, partnership inquiries, and ADR bookings — by appointment.

Get in touch →