Currently airing live weekly on France’s M6 TV channel, Rising Star is the latest take on a reality singing competition – rather than leaving judging entirely in the hands of an expert panel, it relies on votes collected in real time from the programmes viewers.
Derived from a successful model pioneered Israel, the show uses a free smartphone app to engage its viewing audience. Behind the scenes, broadcast services provider Euro Media called on Yasta to provide the music premix for the OB van. Yasta specialises in live audio recording and mixing of major artists and events for broadcast, either via TV or internet streaming using a turnkey digital audio recording/mixing/networking solution built around a Lawo mc²56 digital console with Optocore fibre-optic networking.
Yasta was keen to test its methods of audio workflow management in a TV studio environment, so in addition to handling the music premix, it offered to set up and manage the audio signal chain from the stage to the OB van. ‘A traditional solution in a TV studio environment would probably take the audio from the stage via analogue microphones before being split to go to all the other destinations (FOH, monitors, premix, OB van),’ says Yasta’s co-founder, Louise Bardet.
‘In each case it’s just an A-to-B link that no-one else can see or manage. Our solution differs in that it is fully digital from the stage all the way out to the OB van – in the case of Rising Star, all of the microphones, except the presenter mics, are digital as well. Everyone in the chain has access to all the signals from everywhere in the network. That way, if something goes wrong at some point in the chain, or if we decide at any point to change things around, the signal can be instantly and seamlessly accessed from elsewhere and either re-routed or intervened upon in whatever way is necessary.’
‘It is the combination of Lawo and Optocore that makes this solution so uniquely powerful and flexible,’ continues Yasta co-founder, Benoit Gilg. ‘The size and power of the Lawo matrix is simply awesome, and now that Lawo has given Optocore the possibility to emulate Lawo’s Dallis interface, it’s as though the console sees its own I/O cards and can thus control Optocore’s preamps as if it they were its own. This means that we can harness the combined power of Lawo and Optocore for optimum results.
‘It’s true that we’re blown away by the power of the matrix, which is particularly pertinent for us and the way we use the desk, but the mc²56 is simply the most amazing console in its own right,’ Bardet says. ‘The sound quality is just unparalleled – what you hear through this desk before you’ve done anything to the sound is more musical than through any other console I’ve used. I also love the fluidity and ease with which you can configure your work surface however you like depending on the job you’re doing and the way you like to work. On this job in particular, it’s also a big bonus that I can manage all of the digital microphones directly from the console.’
For Rising Star, Yasta is managing 768 audio signals in total – with the exception of the analogue presenter mics which are handled directly by the OB van, all of the microphones including the ambience mics are digital and all premixed by Bardet before being sent to the OB van. In a traditional analogue set-up, the ambience mics would be sent to the OB van to be mixed directly with the video, but in Yasta’s all-digital implementation, the ambience mics can be piloted from the mc²56 along with the rest.
But as she points out, it would be the work of a moment to re-route them to the OB van or elsewhere if that worked out better: ‘We can literally do anything we like with this network. That’s the beauty of it. Furthermore, as well as being much more powerful and flexible than a traditional solution, ultimately it’s far more cost-effective as well because we are able to pool resources, which avoids any costly doubling up of equipment, and it’s much lighter in terms of cabling. We are delighted that Euro Media gave us the freedom to prove our methods on Rising Star, and I hope that this will open doors for us in the future.’
