Inside Broadcast Production
by John Gatski, 07.15.2008
Although recording studio production often gets the limelight in pro audio magazines and their web sites, etc., Pro Audio Review has always covered the broadcast production world.
I have always been interested in broadcast production. After all, I worked for Radio World and TV Technology for a number of years before creating PAR. And way back in the 1980s, I was a broadcast journalism major.
Since 1995, with the assistance of our sister titles, Radio World and TV Technology in providing us a great list of working engineers to get subscribers, PAR has reviewed products that these end users are interested in. Radio production, TV production, location sound and, of course, the post production end as well.
Broadcast engineers come up to me all the time at the annual NAB convention to tell me they appreciate our product reviews, and that their stations had purchase several of the reviewed items for their production rooms.
Many of the products used in audio production fit right into the broadcast environment. Of course, there are broadcast specific products as well. The 360 Systems Shortcut and Vox-Pro hard disk editors come to mind.
Today it is not uncommon to see full Pro Tools rigs and a full arsenal of software plug-ins, portable FLASH recorders, and high-end microphones in a broadcast facility. Not too many reel-to-reel based facilities out there any more.
To supplement the reviews of gear and software that are useful for broadcast, PAR has created a new, gear-intensive feature, Production Room Profile, which focuses on the gear, techniques and background of a particular broadcast facility
. In this issue, Ty Ford profiles WLOY, a Maryland college radio station, which has its hand in all sorts of innovative areas of distribution and production.
(click thumbnail) | | WLOY Radio Production Studio |
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Look for more Production Room Profiles from various radio and TV stations, as well as independent and network facilities, in the coming months.
A Successful InfoComm
The June InfoComm convention, which included the inclusion of NSCA for the first time, was a great success out in the Las Vegas heat. Attendance at the expo was high, as was the enthusiasm over the latest gear.
We recognized some of the best gear shown at the show through our Hot Gear InfoComm 08 awards, announced in this issue; there are a lot of new and improved speakers and the ever-increasing use DSP across many lines of products. However, there were new analog products, including Yamaha’s new mid-priced, IM8 analog 8-bus, that made our list.
Column line arrays seem to be increasing in popularity. The Renkus-Heinz IC Live demo was impressive, and Community introduced its ENTAYSIS to much fan fare. A company spokesperson for Community said that many dealers have already pre-ordered a number of ENTAYSYS systems.
My favorite new product was the Neutrik’s Converti-Con, an innovative XLR connector that switches instantly between male or female. You’re never without the right cable with this connector.