02/2003
In terms of time, the refurbishment of four studios at BBC Elstree takes some beating. "We were given a four week window for Studios A, B, and C," said Dave Whitaker, Project Manager for ATG Broadcast, "and just two weeks for Studio D".
The refurbishment was part of the BBC’s continuing transition to digital technology, the rationalisation of the four studios seeing production of East Enders moved into Studios A B & C, freeing up D (where the serial was formerly produced) for the production of a new children’s magazine programme to be transmitted daily on CBBC.
"It’s a joint thing," explained Alan Pimm, Sales Director at ATG. "As the system integrator we have to look at price and flexibility. For audio we selected a Yamaha DM2000 from our good friends at HHB, because it can store and restore many different configurations, giving the flexibility required."
Dave Godwin from the BBC was more explicit about the demands the re-furbished Studio D would present. "The short time frame meant that if nothing else the desk had to be an ‘off the shelf’ item, but if I could point to one single attribute it would be vertical layering for stereo. There’s a new show we’ll be making – FlipFlop - a bit like Tweenies, with eight animatronics characters; 8 channels taking mic/line, 8 stereo sources from VT/Gram, and 8 radio inputs. We wouldn’t have been able to fit the 8 returns from DD8 on the top layer. Yamaha have done themselves a huge favour with this desk - that unique vertical layering makes it a hands-down winner over other desks."
Which all rather confirms Pimm’s closing assertion, "The Yamaha is an operating surface that engineers seem to like," and not without good reason.
