Stars of Armenia pulled together cutting-edge 3D image projection, the renowned KOHAR symphony orchestra and 12 Armenian pop stars at the opera house in Yerewan’s Liberty Square for a major open-air concert.
With Cologne’s Record Lab responsible for the technology and logistics required for this amazingly extensive open-air production, a Lawo mc²66 was employed as the central mixing console for the audio component of this production.
Record Lab had previously recorded the symphony orchestra in 2005 in Istanbul and in Syria in 2009. With its own OB van already committed to other events, it was decided that the concert would be handled by an additional OB van – equipped with the same Lawo console used for the earlier recording.
This was Alfacam’s OB 31 HD unit, featuring 18 HD cameras, two wireless links, a spidercam, and a cruisecam, as well as a Lawo mc²66 with 56 faders (24:8:24) and 144 DSP channels. The stageboxes were initially designed for 96 inputs but had to be upgraded due to the size of the orchestra –164 musicians plus 12 singers.
Additional stageboxes brought the number of inputs to 165, requiring the installation of extra Madi cards in the console’s core. ‘The requirements for this production were even greater than in Syria because we had ambience microphones in addition to the mics for the 12 pop stars. With all effects taken into account, we needed a total of about 200 channels’ says Record Lab CEO, Markus Maschke. ‘Luckily, the flexible extendibility of Lawo’s routers took care of this challenge.’
In order to achieve the best possible mix for TV and the Internet, as well as the DVD that Record Lab was also producing, a Tonmeister evaluated the orchestral score during rehearsals and the concert. ‘One advantage of Lawo consoles is the extremely quick access to all tracks, and the ability to trace the source of each audio track. For instance, at the concert in Yerewan, we suddenly had a harmonica on a different channel. Thanks to Lawo’s mc²66, I was able to track down the source of the signal and route it onto a different channel strip within seconds,’ details Markus Maschke when discussing another advantage of Lawo consoles.
Record Lab handled technical management of the entire production in cooperation with Ralph Kessler (Pinguin Ing.Büro). A total of 165 individual audio tracks were recorded. The mix via the mc²66 had to be ‘ready-to-air’ because the event was being broadcast live on TV. In addition, there was a satellite uplink in Yerewan and a downlink located in Cologne, where signals were put on the Internet and made available for streaming from North America, Europe and Asia.
The production required a crew of 70, including control room personnel, camera operators, technicians, as well as cable runners. The vehicles, including the OB 31 HD van and an equipment vehicle, drove to Trieste (Italy) and then continued on to Istanbul via ferry. For the last leg of the journey, they travelled on to Yerewan by way of Georgia. EFM Event Logistics delivered, by air, a spidercam, a cruisecam, and the other equipment required for the wireless camera links. The shipped equipment cargo weighed around four tons, so camera cranes were rented in Armenia.
More: www.recordlab.de
More: www.lawo.de
