HARMAN Studer Vista 9 for Berlin Philharmonic’s Chamber Music Hall

BERLIN, Germany – Often referred to as the musical heart of the city, the Berlin Philharmonic (Berliner Philharmonie) has marked its 50th anniversary by installing a HARMAN Studer Vista 9 in its Chamber Music Hall.

This hall opened 24 years after the first concert had taken place in the venue’s Great Hall. Thanks to the excellent acoustics, today’s productions are performed in both auditoria, and live concert recordings and live broadcasts made for radio and television, Internet and cinema—stretching far beyond the borders of Germany.

Last month the Chamber Music Hall’s Studio 11 production room was equipped with a 42-fader Studer Vista 9, fitted with some 240 DSP channels, and operates at either 48 kHz or 96 kHz. The console was supplied by Studer’s German distributor, Audio Pro.

In addition to 80 analog and 24 digital inputs and outputs, the system is fitted with 512 additional audio channels in the form of optical MADI interfaces. “Over MADI, on the one hand we connect 64 channels to the digital workstation while the other MADI interfaces are used to connect to the Great Hall,” reported Mirsat Neziraj of the Berlin Philharmonic. Studio 11 production is not assigned exclusively to the Chamber Music Hall but is used, as appropriate, with the other studios—and as a mixing space for recordings or broadcasts from the Great Hall.

Used for the house’s own live program, the studio is also in high demand from record companies and broadcasters for their productions. It also services the Philharmonic’s ‘Digital Concert Hall’—an Internet platform that enables music fans all over the world to see and hear the Philharmonic's concerts, live or on demand. In addition, the venue recently started to transmit live concerts into over 100 cinemas across Europe—several times a year in 5.1 surround sound.

“The consistent and fast operating concept of the Studer Vista has impressed us from the start,” said Marco Buttgereit, a member of the audio team. “Because we often have guest sound engineers using our studios it is important that they are able to familiarise themselves quickly with the technology.”

In addition to chamber music concerts, jazz and world music performances are also promoted. For example, famous journalist and TV presenter Roger Willemsen has been hosting a series of concerts taking a musical journey through different cultures in fascinating regions of the world. These, too, are held in the Philharmonic’s Chamber Music Hall and mixed in the newly refurbished Studio 11 on the Studer Vista 9.

HARMAN (www.harman.com) designs, manufactures and markets a wide range of audio and infotainment solutions for the automotive, consumer and professional markets – supported by 15 leading brands, including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon® and Mark Levinson®. The Company is admired by audiophiles across multiple generations and supports leading professional entertainers and the venues where they perform. More than 25 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and infotainment systems. HARMAN has a workforce of 14,600 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia and reported sales of $4.5 billion for the last twelve months ended September 30, 2013.

►

TNDV: Television Picks Up Good Vibrations with HARMAN Studer® Vista 9 Console

NASHVILLE, Tennessee – TNDV: Television is a full-service mobile television broadcast production company with a fleet of four state-of-the-art broadcast trucks. Make that five, as TNDV: Television recently rolled out its “Vibration” truck, specifically designed to meet the needs of audio-intensive TV productions and equipped with a 256-channel HARMAN Studer Vista 9 digital mixing console.

“The audio input counts for TV shows keep getting higher and higher, and it got to the point where we decided to build a truck designed primarily around audio mixing,” said Nic Dugger, President of TNDV: Television. “We’re doing more and more shows where the input count can reach 100 or even more—so we decided to take that number and double it when we started looking for a console for the truck!” In addition to TV, the Vibration truck is used for music festivals, concerts, awards shows, corporate and other events.

Dugger and his staff wanted a console that had “top-of-the-line everything” and could simultaneously deliver a live sound mix and recording feed. After considerable research and hands-on evaluations, TNDV: Television purchased a Studer Vista 9 console and four Studer Stagebox input/output expansion modules, providing a total of 256 input channels. The Vista 9 feeds the truck’s JBL LSR4300 Series studio monitors monitors and a recording setup comprising two 128-channel Pro Tools-equipped computer towers.

Vibration is a 53-foot 18-wheeler that is divided into three areas—the mixing room, a client lounge complete with guitars, air conditioning, comfortable couches and a “machine room” where outboard gear, A/V infrastructure and “anything that has fans and makes noise” is located. “We want a comfortable mixing environment without distractions,” Dugger noted, an important consideration for someone who does gigs for days at a time in 90-plus-degree heat. “We built Vibration to feel like and function like a recording studio on wheels.”

A big part of that comfortable feeling is the truck’s Vista 9 console. Dugger and his staff had previous experience with other Studer and Soundcraft consoles and were familiar with their working environment, making the transition to the Vista 9 easier. He noted that while any experienced engineer will expect great sound and quality mic preamps from a console, it’s the unexpected that sets a console apart. In the case of the Vista 9, it’s the console’s software capabilities, control layout and ability for an engineer to configure the console and way he or she wants it.

TNDV: Television does production for a lot of music festivals, and the Vista 9 gives the crew the ability to get a mix for each band at sound check the day before and then instantly recall all the bands’ settings the day of the show. Dugger uses the console in a novel way that saves even more time. “Because we have 256 inputs, we can divide the console into essentially four different 64-input consoles,” he said. “That means that on the day of the show we’re ready to mix four bands in a row without touching a thing. We can be ready to mix the next band before they even set up their drum set.”

In fact, Dugger and his staff have pre-loaded about 20 “snapshots” of how bands typically use a mixing console, and store these templates on a USB drive and use them as a basis for getting a ballpark mix almost instantly. Dugger plans on sharing these stereo and multichannel mixes with other engineers on the Studer website. “We’ve done production for artists like Garth Brooks, Toby Keith, Sammy Hagar, Ronnie Dunn and many others, and time after time their engineers are very impressed by how good everything sounds,” he said.

“If any audio engineer came up with a wish list of what they wanted in a console, I doubt he or she could find anything on the list that the Vista 9 doesn’t provide,” Dugger concluded. “We certainly haven’t!” HARMAN (www.HARMAN.com) designs, manufactures, and markets a wide range of audio, lighting and infotainment solutions for the automotive, consumer, and professional markets. It is a recognized world leader across its customer segments with premium brands including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon®, and Mark Levinson®, and leading-edge connectivity, safety and audio technologies. The company is admired by audiophiles across multiple generations and supports leading professional entertainers and the venues where they perform. More than 25 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with Harman audio and infotainment systems. Harman has a workforce of about 14,300 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia and reported sales of $4.4 billion for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2012.

►

All Mobile Video Upgrades Its Broadcast Trucks With HARMAN Studer Vista 9 And Vista 5 M3 Consoles

  NEW YORK, New York – All Mobile Video (AMV) is one of the country’s premier providers of end-to-end video and audio solutions for broadcast, entertainment, programming and events, with sound stages and studios throughout Manhattan, while also maintaining a fleet of mobile trucks nationwide. The company was one of the first to embrace high-definition video and keeps itself in the vanguard of broadcast technology, as evidenced by its recent purchase of HARMAN Studer Vista 9 and Vista 5 M3 digital mixing consoles for two of its broadcast trucks.
The Vista 9 is being installed in AMV’s “Revolution” truck, a 53-foot double-expando trailer formerly known as “Resolution.” The Studer Vista 5 M3 is going into a 50-foot broadcast truck called “NYLA.” Both vehicles are being completely refurbished with the latest video and audio gear. Once back on the road, both trucks will be ready to handle any mobile broadcast situation—AMV has done production for the MTV Video Music Awards, the Metropolitan Opera’s live-to-theater broadcasts, the Macy’s 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular, the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show and many other high-profile events.

AMV has a long history with Studer, having purchased its first Vista 8 console eight years ago and being the first company in the USA to install a Studer console on a mobile truck. “At the time, it was a big gamble and we were making a real statement to the industry about our confidence in the product,” said Ian Vysick, AMV Audio Development Specialist. When AMV decided to upgrade the Revolution truck, the Vista 9 was AMV’s only choice. The Vista 8 formerly used in Revolution isn’t being retired—it’s being moved to one of AMV’s Manhattan sound stages.

“From the minute we started using Vista consoles it quickly became clear that aside from their exceptional sound quality they offered outstanding ease of use,” Vysick said. He noted that AMV crews manage different jobs every day with different people and the ability to quickly bring users up to speed is crucial. “The Vista 9 and Vista 5 M3 make it easier to get people comfortable with technology in a short amount of time.”

For Vysick, “it’s always been about the Vistonics™ touchscreen,” which places key control elements up front and displays everything in real time. He finds the FaderGlow™ color-coding to be invaluable as it allows AMV to configure all their broadcast and studio consoles with the same color-coding for the same functions.

“From a user standpoint one of the most important attributes of the Vista consoles is that the controls are fast and responsive and don’t overshoot—on some digital consoles there’s a lag between the time you move a control and the time it responds, meaning that you’re always going back and forth until you get to where you want things to be,” Vysick pointed out. He also likes the consoles’ ability to momentarily gang select all inputs at once and make changes to all the selected channels instantly—a real timesaver for AMV when configuring a console.

Things don’t always go as planned in live broadcast mixing and Vista consoles are the ones Vysick wants in his corner when the unforeseen happens. “The History mode is a huge advantage,” he stated. “If a problem occurs for whatever reason, you can look at the meter bridge, identify the issue and resolve it without any guesswork required.”

In the unlikely event Vysick might lose a fader or a screen, he finds the Vista 9, 8 and 5 M3’s repeating modular control layout—he calls it “sections of 10”—and dual redundant computers operating in real time enable him to configure the console live and in real time.

Studer’s level of factory and hardware support is a key factor in the equation. “If something does go wrong and we can’t fix it on site, we need to know a company has people we can get in touch with and parts in stock to ship,” Vysick noted. “When I call and say I’m going live tomorrow at five, I’m not kidding! Studer is always there to help and listen and take suggestions from people in the field. For me, keeping things running smoothly is as much about support as it is about hardware and software.”

For more information on All Mobile Video, please visit www.allmobilevideo.com

HARMAN (www.harman.com) designs, manufactures and markets a wide range of audio and infotainment solutions for the automotive, consumer and professional markets – supported by 15 leading brands, including AKG, Harman Kardon, Infinity, JBL, Lexicon and Mark Levinson. The company is admired by audiophiles across multiple generations and supports leading professional entertainers and the venues where they perform. More than 20 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and infotainment systems. HARMAN has a workforce of about 13,400 people across the Americas, Europe and Asia, and reported sales of $4.4 billion for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2012.

►