Broadcast technologies and outside broadcast supplier, Riverside Television provides a range of production services across Ireland. From acquisition to postproduction, the company’s output includes news, current affairs and documentaries, live sports coverage, light entertainment and drama, with clients including RTÉ, TG4, BBC, Channel 4, UTV and ITV.

As part of a recent expansion to its OB vehicle fleet, Riverside identified Calrec’s compact Brio 36 as the preferred audio console for a new truck, ‘BOB’, designed by Megahertz Ltd, with the Brio supplied by Synthax Audio UK.

‘Riverside Television’s owner, Cyril O’ Regan, was planning to build a new outside broadcast truck called BOB – Bigger OB,’ says Riverside Head of Sound, Gerard Hughes. ‘We started to look at the audio side of things early in the design, because we cover a large variety of productions. We needed a system that was super flexible but had a small footprint with as much I/O as we could get – and with the option to rent extra I/O should it be needed.

‘Reliability is key when doing live broadcasts, and the Brio 36 Medley ticked all the boxes.’

Due to the variety of different productions Riverside covers, the team settled on a Calrec Brio Medley with Dante and Waves SoundGrid cards. The network I/O cards are supported by three Calrec Br.IO stagesboxes, one of which is located inside the truck. Combined with the Brio’s built-in I/O, the set-up provides a total of 48 analogue inputs, 32 analogue outputs and 16 channels of AES I/O directly from BOB, and allows Riverside to integrate the console with other equipment in their racks.

Two additional Br.IO boxes are available for use on-set or pitch-side, depending on production requirements, connected to BOB via a Calrec H2Hub portable fibre unit.

‘Having this amount of I/O in the OB has allowed us to have permanent connections without the need for patch bays,’ Hughes says. ‘We can virtual patch between our comms systems, routers, recorders, or our Newtek Skype TX and Glensound systems, all of which allows us to build and recall various show settings and productions quickly.

‘The Dante card is connected to two JoeCo BBR64 Dante multitrack recorders, one set as main recorder, and the second unit as redundant backup. Having a Dante card on the Brio has allowed us to iso record up to 64 channels, for pre-recorded productions and large music concerts, and the system has proved itself to be rock solid.’

The addition of a Waves SoundGrid card has provided Riverside with flexibility when working on live music productions, which Hughes describes as a game changer.

‘For musical productions, we often need effects and audio processing that aren’t standard on most broadcast boards,’ he says. ‘The Waves card allows us to connect to a Waves Extreme X10 server running a range of Waves plug-ins, controlled via an Apple M1 Mac mini.’

Although the Brio is Hughes’ introduction to Calrec mixing consoles, he speaks highly of both the desk’s feature-set and its ease of use. ‘The Brio’s fader layout page is a great feature, it’s so easy to build the layout you need. I’ve used many brands of mixer over the years, but I was new to Calrec. As soon as I got my head around the menu system and layout, we were up and going in no time.

‘The assignable S1 and S2 buttons on each channel are also great for that important backup mic, without having to sacrifice another processing channel.

‘I also must add that the Calrec technical help and support has been great throughout this project. Simon from Synthax UK brought our desk to Megahertz, who constructed the OB early in the build, so a custom-made frame could be built. And it integrates perfectly.’

‘The Riverside team were great to work with,’ reports Synthax Audio UK Broadcast Sales Manager, Simon Roome. ‘They’ve created a great looking OB and got to grips with a brand new mixing console really quickly. I’m so pleased with how everything came together.’

‘This is the ideal application for Brio – a fully featured OB with access to lots of sources,’ adds Calrec  UK, Ireland and NordicSales Manager, Anthony Harrison. ‘We’re very pleased to see Riverside as a happy Calrec user.’

More: www.synthax.co.uk/calrec