ASA upgrades to DiGiCo for Seven Network
Published: ASIA
AUSTRALIA: Audio Systems Australia (ASA) has recently purchased DiGiCo SD9 and SD11 consoles in order to meet the growing demands of its primary client Seven Network, for which ASA handles broadcast audio for its Sunrise and The Morning Show programmes. Group Technologies supplied the DiGiCo consoles.
‘The team at Seven usually comprises Ivan Ordenes of Dubology Studios and myself,’ said ASA’s head of sound, Randy Fransz. ‘When we do an outside broadcast we use Ivan's Dubmobile mobile recording truck which is fitted out with a DiGiCo DS-00. When the truck isn't available, I'll use his D5 Live console. Having used these consoles regularly for some time without any issue, choosing DiGiCo for the upgrade was really a simple choice.’
Commenting on his reasons for the purchase, Mr Fransz said: ‘Size and flexibility were among some of my reasons. Having all that processing power in such a small device was another. The quiet and very transparent mic pres as well as ADA were also a winning factor.’
Mr Fransz reports that both consoles are almost permanently installed at the Martin Place studios, where the SD9 is used as the broadcast console while the SD11 is mounted in a rack on the studio floor for monitors. ‘Having said that, we do take the consoles out from time to time,’ he added.
‘We are running the two consoles on separate D-Racks to give us more local outputs,’ he continued. ‘The SD11 has a D-Rack with the extra eight line outputs giving Ivan a total of 24 outputs. Meanwhile 16 are used for IEM and eight are used for floor monitors. The SD9 also has its own local D-Rack giving me a total of 16 outputs that are routed to different parts of the studio. As the SD9 is used for broadcast I needed more than the two AES I/Os on the console, therefore the second Cat-6 connector on the console is routed to a DiGiCo little red box which converts it to Madi,’ he explained.
‘General feedback has been great,’ he enthused. ‘I get messages asking if the act was miming when they were not. The sound is probably one of the main reasons I chose DiGiCo. The SD9 and SD11 have made my job fun again and I am no longer trying to make a console sound good, I don't have to.’