How "digital" are modern radio studios?

[cdonelan]

How "digital" are modern radio studios, commercial or otherwise? How much use is made of digital media sources, digital mixing and digital signal processing?

I'm not talking about just using CD's, MD or MP3 juke boxes but end to end integrated systems. Digitizing voice, all output comes from digital sources, the mixing is done digitally and even compressors and stereo encoders are implemented on DSP's before an analogue output is created.

Would there be any objections to a system such as this? Would the lack of physical mixers and controls bother those who see DJ'ing as their craft?

The reason I ask is I was recently working on a new hardware platform that was optimized to direct extreme processing power on digital media streams. These systems are commercially quite common in applications where money is no object. I was wondering if any of this technology has filtered down.

Colm.

[Tabasco]

Very few, if any, radio studios in Ireland are fully 'digital'.

Sure, all stations play digital source material, from CDs, MDs, PCs etc, but few have digital mixing desks - no independent stations that I know of.

There are a number of radio mixing desks available, some better developed than others. For example, RTE recently bought some Soundcraft RM1d digital desks but still can't get them working properly - software problems. I was told this by someone in Harman Audio - Soundcraft's parent.

But I've seen Logitek digital consoles in use at Radio City in Liverpool, and several other UK stations, like Virgin, use Klotz digital desks.

Studer made two very nice - and fully proven to work properly - digital desks, but unfortunately there are nonein use here yet.

RTE made a song and dance about Lyris being 'all-digital' but in fact the Calrec desks they have don't talk very well with other digital equipment, so the audio path from desks to processing is analogue, and Lyric's processing is also analogue at present.

Even new independents here are still putting in analogue desks, mostly Alice products. Maybe the installers aren't confident enough about digital desks yet.

It seems the all-digital radio studio is slow coming to Ireland!

[Guest]

The reason a lot of stations have kept away from fully digital studios is the DSP delay. Alot would have digital production, as a delay is acceptable there, but a 50-750 millisecond delay is unusable. All , to the best of my knowledge, digital mixers for on air arent modular. If a line fader goes.... the whole desk has to sent back to china! - thats another thing, any good techie can have a go and fix an alice or soundcraft, but digital mixers are soooo complex. All surface mount components....

[JamesDeane]

One station does have a digital mixing desk, does anyone know which though!

Not RTE (although they could have!)

[Tabasco]

No, I'd be interested to know who has a digital on-air console, and which one.

Delay isn't actually an issue with desks; There is negligable delay in broadcast desks.

Where the delay comes in is the transmission chain: Link transmitters/receivers, audio processors etc.

Both Orban and Omnia digital processors exhibit delay: the Optimod 8200 about 5mS (no problem to use), the Omnia 6 and Optimod 8400 between 12 and 20 mS depending on settings. 20mS is just about bearable, people do get used to it, as it's below the threshold where an echo is heard.

But add in the STL delay with any processor and can become annoying for off-air monitoring.

It's the price we pay for more louder-sounding audio processors!

But modern radio stations would provide an alternate processed feed for the headphones, with alarms etc to indicate tx fail.

I've had to provide this even in stations not using digital processors, simply because some presenters couldn't handle the delay caused by the digital STL.

[Daithi]

Is it an automated station - like Sun?

[Tabasco]

No I think my learned friend might be referring to Live 95, who use an Audionics digital desk.

But this desk is in fact digitally-controlled analogue audio path, so doesn't completely qualify!

(Although it is a good desk but with one major flaw....)

[Nick]

Virgin in the UK have a completely digital studio, which is a bit sill when their primary output is on AM - they're probably thinking ahead!!

Everything in the studio is fully digital, as far as I know.

[Serge Auckland]

Originally posted by Simon Mayonaise
[.........All , to the best of my knowledge, digital mixers for on air arent modular. If a line fader goes.... the whole desk has to sent back to china! - thats another thing, any good techie can have a go and fix an alice or soundcraft, but digital mixers are soooo complex. All surface mount components.... [/B]


Regarding the issue of modularity, digital desks are modular in a different way: In conventional analogue desks, the input module and control surface are one and the same, so if a fader fails, or an input dies, you have to change the channel strip, and you're back in business. However, you can seldom change the channel with the console on-air, so it is an "off-air" maintenance task. In the Logitek system, the inputs and outputs are on cards, normally installed in the racks room. If an input or output fails, then the card with carrying that input or output can be exchanged in a few seconds. The control surface carries no audio, the faders and switches send control signals to the rack unit, so, if a fader or switch fails on the control surface, the simplest thing to do is just to reallocate the source to another fader, one not immediately needed, and carry on. This can be done with no interruption to the on-air signal, although it may disrupt the Presenter's calm. Digital consoles are a lot more flexible than analogue and easier to manage, once the concept of the separation between faders and sources is understood.

As to repair, it's true that modern surface mount components can't be tackled with a gas poker and a mole wrench, but this is true of the latest analogue consoles as well as digital.

regards

Serge Auckland
Preco Broadcast
(Logitek Distributor for UK, Ireland, France)