Tech Focus: Audio Mixers, Part 1 - Evolution of the At-Home-Production Console IP is now nearly ubiquitous; next up: modularization and automation By Dan Daley, Audio Editor
Thursday, July 19, 2018 - 8:00 am
Print This Story
Story Highlights
If audio is the canary in broadcast's coal mine, the mix console is its perch. That pro-audio category has followed an evolutionary path from analog to digital to IP. Now, as the REMI/at-home-production model moves from novelty to standard operating procedure, the audio desk is increasingly modularized and automated.
Lawo, which asserts more than 90% market share for conventional consoles in OB vans in Europe, is following a modularized path into the future of the audio desk, propelled by an already deep investment in IP-based audio and video systems. According to VP, Business Development, Don Bird, several hundred Lawo Commentary Units (LCUs) are deployed by Fox Sports, NBC Sports, ESPN, and others for the 2018 FIFA World Cup games in a dozen cities across Russia. They are feeding digital audio to Lawo mc 96 Grand Production consoles at various audio-control rooms. Also being deployed for at-home-style production are other modular units - including the Lawo Compact Engine AES67 audio node with on-board DSP and the Power Core 1RU IP-based mix engine with modular I/O options - capable of performing all audio-mixing and -routing functions under remote control of vision mixers or third-party automation systems.
Says Bird, You can use automated mixing and other functions remotely and create a much more efficient infrastructure for audio for very large-scale productions.
Calrec's RP1 2RU remote-production system enables a remotely located audio-mixing-console surface to control all mixing functionality at another facility or location, with the RP1 core managing all processing for IFB routing and remote-monitor mixes.
According to Henry Goodman, director, product development, Calrec, none of this modularization would be possible without a solid IP infrastructure already in place. Longer term, he predicts, even consoles themselves will deploy switch-based routing internally, which would complete the transition from linear-signal to data-packet transport.
Platforms like the RP1 contribute to reduced overhead costs for legacy sports broadcasters, such as Univision and NBC Sports, according to Chris Fichera, VP, audio, Group One Ltd., the North American distributor for DiGiCo and Calrec (which share a parent company with the Allen & Heath and Solid Stage Logic brands). Such platforms also have the potential to become primary platforms for a range of midsize collegiate networks. Specifically, he points to the PAC-12 Conference's PAC-12 Networks as an example.
Football and basketball bring in the bulk of the revenue, he points out, but colleges have many other sports that have to be covered as part of the school's athletics, from water polo to field hockey, and need to get their airtime. At-home tools like the RP1 are well-suited for that role: an A2 plugs the mics in onsite, and the audio gets mixed back at the control room.
An even newer suite of products - DiGiCo's 4REA4 (pronounced area four ), which was shown in June at the 2018 InfoComm Show, and Calrec's related Type4 - puts remote-audio-production tools almost entirely in a virtual and IP transport realm and modularizes them, letting users configure remote-production systems to fit different scales. The processing-engine rack has four dedicated mix areas, or zones, each with its own stereo master output, CGs, and allocated FX.
Remote production is pushing us further away from the idea of a big piece of hardware to do the mix on, Fichera explains. Instead of plopping a console down somewhere, you'll pick the individual modules each situation requires and transport the audio back to a similar platform at a central location. You can mix part of the show onsite and another part at home.
It's not just modularization of the components of an audio-mixing system, he contends: it's the modularization of the very process of mixing itself.
Wheatstone's D-8EX surround-sound TV-audio console/control surface
That concept is taking hold. Wheatstone made its name with audio consoles designed for the studio, although its smaller Series Two and Series Four desks have remote-operations applications. However, the company's Blade technology - Wheatstone's terminology for its smart I/O units with integrated CPU and OS that modularize such functions as DSP and connects processing with complementary units that address specific tasks, such as its BLADE-3 control-surface engines/mixers - puts that IP-based technology squarely in the remote-production category.
A broadcast can ingest audio remotely through the Blade and move that audio from console to console over Ethernet, explains Wheatstone Senior Sales Engineer Brad Harrison. The arrival of the AES67 intercompatibility protocol, he adds, means that the Blade, which is in use with the Portland Trailblazers' radio production, can have broader applications in systems that use other brands' products. He calls the Blade - pun intended - the tip of the spear for Wheatstone in the at-home-production market and says other sports applications are under development (though not yet disclosable, as products in this part of the broadcast-audio universe transition from merely novel to highly competitive).
The Bigger Picture
Modularization and automation are clearly going to be the next phase of development for audio mixing and routing, now that the pathway to IP-based signal transport has been established. The trend is possible thanks to significant improvements in DSP and a better understanding of how networked audio can work in an industry that has to manage signals from a wide variety of sources ove
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Tech Focus: Audio Mixers, Part 1 - Evolution of the At-Home-Production Console IP is now nearly ubiquitous; next up: modularization and automation By Dan Daley, Audio Editor 
