While one of the major costs of any outside broadcast is OB vehicles, technology continues to reduce the size and costof equipment – prompting video hire companies to offer cameras, vision mixers and accessories in flightcases. With the video covered, audio sets centre stage – can this be dealt with in a similar way?

A meeting between freelance sound supervisor Julian Gough and eMerging at the 2012 BVE event suggests that it can…

Having used Merging Technologies’ Pyramix system during his time with the BBC, Gough regarded that part of the puzzle solved. But how to get a mixer, speakers, microphones, microphone preamplifiers and all the other items into a standard estate car?

eMerging suggested the Tango 2 from Smart AV, which has eight faders but is able to access many more channels with relative ease and could be used to control the powerful mixer within Pyramix. Another eMerging item that caught Gough’s eye was Merging’s soon-to-be-released, Horus networked audio converter. Once the concept of Horus had been explained – including the enormous convenience of operating on the Ravenna network – the last piece of the puzzle had been found.

The reduction in size and cabling, and the convenience of the in-built routing made a big difference, but Horus also provided high-quality mic preamplifiers that could be remotely controlled so yet more boxes could be saved. If this was the solution, there were only two snags, Horus was not shipping at the time and this little bundle was going to be costly enough to need some additional finance.

By the end of a busy summer for Gough’s comapny Noises Off, both these problems had been solved. Not only was Horus available but media finance specialist Fineline had accepted Gough’s business plan and advanced the cash needed to get the project running.

A booking arrived to record the perennial BBC Sunday night Songs of Praise from the crypt of Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral. It had been decided that the carry-in option would be easier and less costly but that meant that this whole rig had to be ordered, delivered, put together, tested and the new equipment mastered in a few weeks, all whilst other assignments were being undertaken. The challenge was also on for eMerging staff who were tasked to build a fully-specified PC for the Pyramix, in the smallest possible box without fan noise. The recording went almost without a hitch. All the gear worked fine but the room used to monitor the sound was acoustically challenging and using unfamiliar speakers meant that some mixing decisions had been made that were not optimal.

‘I was confident that everything would work technically but mixing in an unknown and uncontrolled acoustic was always going to be a challenge,’ Gough says. ‘I had foreseen this and purchased portable acoustic treatment, sadly they had been delivered damaged and not having enough time to get them replaced, I had to leave them at home. In addition, the programme recording schedule meant we had very little rehearsal time with the choir and musicians in situ before we had to go for a take. I also had to get used to mixing in the box with a controller, quite a step from using a conventional mixer.

‘The whole in-the-box Merging solution worked well and delivered the sort of low latency figures that are essential for this sort of work. Having a built-in multitrack recorder is a huge advantage and gave me the option to do a little bit of re-mixing back at my place, which resolved the minor monitoring issues, and the end result sounds excellent. Now that I have proof of concept, my challenge for the New Year is to really launch this service properly and do some marketing.’

‘What is certain is that the pressure on production budgets is going to be just as severe next year and going forward, so Noises Off is offering a more cost-effective solution without compromising the end result.’