On notable trends: “Most of the studios I walk into these days have a lot of different variations of what was once served by the traditional console as many of us remember it. There are now small turret-like and rackmount mixers, and entire consoles under glass on touchscreens or fader wedges of one console connected together. Even what looks like a “standard” console isn’t really, because we now have soft controls on that console surface that change with the show or talent or station. A guest can sit down to a talent interface and a producer can sit down to a virtual mixer on his laptop or you can sit down to the same console you sat at yesterday, and with one control it can be totally changed with new sources, mix minuses and TB, etc. You have any imaginable amount of mobility and control.” – JD

On planning new studios: “The number of studios needed today is largely determined by how many live shows and events happen at one time, not by the number of sources and signals needed, as was the determining factor before. What that means is that instead of a studio for every station, you can now have one main studio for every two or three stations and a smaller “budget” studio that serves multiple purposes. An increasingly common multi-station layout for our studio builds these days includes two large studios with LXE or L series console surfaces for staggering morning and afternoon shows, and another smaller studio with a more value priced console surface such as our DMX for voicetracking and producing the occasional live news or sports event.” – JD

On the implications of software and cloud-based mixing: “In the same way that cell phone service is important to the iPhone, IP audio access is important to consoles. We can see – and we’re developing toward that inevitability – a future when it’s an everyday occurrence for a producer from anywhere to interact with his talent from anywhere. We have many of the pieces already, like server software for streaming as well as connectivity protocols like RIST, which is widely supported by the industry. RIST, for example, is used in our Blades and streaming appliances for reliable, fast connectivity that will be important to real-time applications like remote mixing.” -JD

On the rise of custom scripting: “Scripting takes all of what you have on the console surface and makes it routable and controllable. For example, for one recent project, board talent needed a way to quickly switch between callers, reporters and guests for a live show. Inrush integrators programmed the OLED buttons on an LXE panel to run scripts locally on the panel itself as a way for talent to page through options to talk to callers, reporters, guests and hosts in other studios. If the microphone is on, the intercom shows up in the headphones and if the mic is off, it shows up in the cue speaker.

Similarly, being able to seamlessly switch any studio in and out of the airchain via scripting is such a useful thing. We leverage the utility mixers built into WheatNet IP Blades to combine automation and live elements, but the operator doesn’t need to understand how any of that works – they just have to dial up which station they want to take the studio live for and they’re on the air without a blip. It means you can build a facility based upon how many simultaneous live dayparts that you have and be able to serve your community out of fewer square feet.” -JD