ORF Purchases HARMAN’s Soundcraft Vi1™ Consoles For Live Broadcasts
By Guest |
Österreichischer Rundfunk, the Austrian national public service broadcaster, has added
a pair of HARMAN’s Soundcraft Vi1 digital consoles to its inventory. The order was
placed with Soundcraft’s Austrian distributor Kain Audio by Landesstudio Tirol, one of
nine regional studios operating under the ORF umbrella, after carrying out extensive
tests against other brands. These will be used for live broadcasting, FOH mixing and
recording purposes in the Innsbruck/Tirol region.
According to ORF tonmeister, Jürgen Brunner, the old set-up was desperately in need
of upgrading. “We considered a number of different factors, such as price, size,
quality and ease of use. We concluded that the Vi1 was the best concept for us, very
easy to use, with the Widescreen Vistonics interface, and with no quality
limitations.
“The internal filters sounded excellent as did the graphic EQ, and it offers good
flexibility, with external Stagebox, MADI option and offline editor — all packaged
into a really good price. With a digital console like the Vi1 there is no need to
pick up dozens of graphic EQs or other external effects.”
One of the compact Vi1’s will be for portable use while the other will be
permanently installed in their Innsbruck broadcasting hall for FOH and recording
purposes (using RME MADI cards and M-16 DA extension).
While the desk’s footprint had been one of the overriding criteria, ORF also needed
the ability to save and recall different shows with different cues — and to handle
everything over a WLAN network in the future. After its first outing — broadcasting
a live folk music show from the centre of a ski resort, 2200 meters above sea level
— Jürgen Brunner felt the decision had been 100\% justified. “The Vi1 is exactly the
right console for the things we need — it’s very easy to use and to configure, and
it sounds great.”
This is not the Austrian broadcasters’ first experience with the Soundcraft
platform, since they run three analogue consoles in their FÜ25 (small Video OB
trucks). And it won’t be the last, since ORF is now dipping further into the
manufacturer’s catalogue, and is in the process of purchasing new Compact Stageboxes
— both for its mobile Vi1 and also for the new Soundcraft Si Compact, which it also
has on order with Kain Audio.
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