Epic acquires SSL System T for broadcast
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The new system, comprising an S500 large-format modular mixing console and dual redundant TE2 Tempest Engines plus various Net I/O interfaces, including MADI Bridge units, that handles a variety of broadcast, music production and multi-media post-production projects at the studio.
Audio-visual media team leader Paul Micksch, an audio engineer, composer and producer who has been with the company since 2006, explains: “This space is used as the broadcast facility for the meetings that take place in the auditorium. I record and broadcast to 15 countries. In addition to that, I run the media team here and do a lot of production and post-production for our video media, including making music beds, and for any of the other audio and video media that we use.”
Founded in 1979, Epic’s ever-growing campus is home to more than two dozen office and service buildings, a 65-room training centre, a 5,800-seat auditorium and the 11,400-capacity Deep Space auditorium, next to which is the audio studio. The Deep Space auditorium was built in 2013, at which time Epic installed an SSL C100 HD digital audio console, principally to broadcast software introductions and other events from the new venue. The studio, which has an attached live room, is also used to produce and post-produce media for those events and for Epic’s various products and platforms.
“We try and offer information in an entertaining way, so we demonstrate software scenarios on stage and have a skit as part of our keynote executive address,” Micksch elaborates. “Our CEO will talk to gathered attendees and we put on a demonstration of various aspects of our software theatrically. That can have all sorts of sound effects and music cues.”
Micksch was so satisfied with the performance of Epic’s previous Solid State Logic console and with the company’s technical support, which continued long after the console was no longer manufactured, he says, that he jumped at the chance to install a System T when it came time to upgrade. He couldn’t be happier with the performance of SSL’s latest generation broadcast and music production platform, he says: “System T has really taken me into what feels like the next century of digital consoles.”
