Radio France continues the digital conversion of its production trucks. First in 2002 there was its converted truck based around a D950, now we have the control room 2, based around a SSL C100 in its “mixing” area and an EtherSound / AD8HR / DM 1000 configuration in its “production” area.
Radio France has always fitted out its own variously-sized OB production and recording trucks. The OB trucks they use at events such as the Tour de France, the Francofolies festival in La Rochelle, concerts at the Cité de la Musique or the La Roque d’Anthéron piano festival, for the national stations France Inter, France Musique and FIP, or France Bleu stations, are always emblazoned with the words “Radio France”. Large vehicles are generally divided into two parts, i.e. a “mixing” area for live stereo mixing (and multi-track recording, if necessary) of the concert itself, which is quite separate from the hall’s sound system, and a “broadcast” area where the various sound sources are managed, i.e. the stereo mix of the concert outputted from the mixing console, the programme’s presenters and their guests, usually located near to the stage and other sources (CD player, commentary tape recorder, Nétia’s automated broadcasting solutions etc). The broadcast produced in the truck is then sent, via codec, to Radio France, ready for broadcasting.
These 19-tonne trucks used to carry analogue consoles in the 80s and 90s. One by one, these have gradually been replaced over the last few years with production trucks fitted out with digital mixing equipment and digital consoles connected to stage box units via optical fibres. After Control Room 1, introduced in 2002 and based around a Studer D950, Radio France has just (at the end of March 2007) brought Control Room 2 on stream. Once again, a 19-tonne vehicle has been chosen but this time fitted with a SSL C100 96-channel console for the “live” area. For the first time, a Yamaha DM1000 has been chosen for the “broadcast” area along with an AD8HR (Yamaha) pre-amp, an EtherSound ES8out (Digigram) and an AVRed-ES (AuviTran) comprising an EtherSound signal transport device.
“The DM1000 is very widely used at Radio France: this model has gradually replaced all the 02Rs, 01Vs and the other equipment used within the Organisation for small- scale sound engineering, for example. We’ve got more than a dozen of them… but in this case they are being used for something else; for broadcasting! For the truck’s first outings we planned to use a “real” broadcast console in the broadcasting booth, but this turned out to be rather complicated and a lot more expensive” explained Michel Rangon, Systems Engineer in the Specialist Engineering Department at Radio France. “The only reasonably priced “easy” equipment we found for remotely controlling the levels of the various microphone pre-amps positioned near to the stage (for the presenters and their guests) from the production truck, was the Yamaha EtherSound, with an AVY16-ES AuviTran board in the console and a AVRed-ES/EtherSound ES8out assembly, connected to a Yamaha AD8HR pre-amp. We decided we would need up to five microphones for the presenters and their guests / musicians, who are usually positioned near to the stage. As we have 8 channels on the link, we use these to retrieve the sound if the stereo mix is broadcast over the location’s sound system. These signals therefore reach the DM1000 in the “broadcast” area of the truck on their own network, which is completely separate from the “mixing” area. If we have a problem in the truck’s “mixing” area, we switch to the sound system’s mixing console and we have presenters at the console all the time. We use an Elmann control information network”.
What’s the performance of the DM1000 when used for broadcasting, which is not its most obvious application? “Great! It can be used to automatically start playback when the fader on the corresponding channel is pushed up; it can put a red ‘on air’ light on via GPI1 to let our presenters know they are on air and that their microphones are open; and their ergonomic design is excellent. It hardly takes up any space in the “broadcast” area and can easily control all the sources necessary!” And EtherSound? This was used for the first time at Radio France a few years ago to record the opera Carmen at the Stade de France, when all the signals were transported using this equipment. It is a very handy system and has since become very popular. We have used it in this production truck”. We should like to point out that the production booth enclosures which are PSI A 17-2s from Switzerland, are both accurate and small.
The equipment we have in Control Room 2 enables us to meet 90% of the requests we receive at Radio France: we only have to use the D950 in Control Room 1 when events require us to use more than 100 microphones. A few days after our visit, the truck set off for a concert at the Cité de la Musique; it was then going on to Bourges, then Le Mans, and will be used at most of the festivals this summer – listen to it on Radio France’s broadcasts.
