Known for the variety of programming, which including news, entertainment shows and telenovelas (soap operas), Venevision ranks among Venezuela’s most prominent free-to-air television networks. With ageing equipment causing reliability issues and other impracticalities, the sound team set out to find a reliable and efficient alternative to the studio’s outdated workflow.

Responsible for selecting and playing audio content, – such as music and effects – for the network’s live and recorded events are Manuel Amengual, Supervisor of the Music and Postproduction department, and Omar Noguera, Chief Engineer for the Audio department. As a past Sonic Solution DAW user and owner, Amengual was keen to explore Swiss pro audio specialist, Merging Technologies’ offering and contacted local dealer, Mario Cuellar at Binaural in Caracas.

The solution they devised effectively replaces Venevision’s previous workflow, reducing the operational stress presented by a new workflow, and also brought significantly improved audio quality.

Using a Solid-State Logic UF-8 studio controller in conjunction with a dedicated Ovation keyboard, Venevision has replaced the equipment previously used live during a show – CD players, Mini Disk players, Instant Replays and a computer. The new system used four Hotkeys in a grid of 6sixrows by eight columns, with each column (or source) mapped to one fader in the UF-8. This was ‘to give the operator the same mixing feeling’, says Amengual.

Audio sources included Bumpers, Loops, four columns of background/incidental music and effects, with the last column reserved for playback from guest musicians. ‘Since the audio content playback is of a stereo nature, we chose stereo channel strips for the mixer to mimic the Ovation Hotkey array,’ he explains.

The Ovation mixer also had two buses, one for PGM and another for PFL. Merging’s Aneman network manager enabled Amengual and his team to configure the PGM bus on the Ovation directly to Output 1 & 2 of the Anubis (to the main studio console) so the PGM bus was routed in multicast to the main studio console. The Anubis was used to facilitate routing, with sources configured for PGM, Mon/PFL buses and, just in case, WDM sources.

With expert advice and support from Binaura, Venevision’s new system, combining Ovation and Anubis, marked the TV network’s successful transition to a modern, efficient and reliable audio workflow. The solution from Merging Technologies allowed multiple pieces of aging equipment to be seamlessly replaced, transforming audio quality for its viewers – to the delight of Amengual:

‘I’m constantly pushing for excellence in all our audio projects by being persistent in the correct selection of our tools. Ovation/Pyramix + Anubis have fulfilled all our expectations,’ he says.

So successful was the integration, the studio sourced a master Ovation system with an additional Pyramix workstation and Cedar Audio tools for postproduction and show building purposes. The network now plans to expand this set-up to other studios in the coming year.

More: www.merging.com