Promoting the teachings of Dr David Jeremiah, US broadcast ministry Turning Point recently installed a Solid State Logic System T S500 broadcast audio platform the control room of its new TV Studio 1 in San Diego, California. An SSL Live L100 Plus console with a 16-fader Remote Tile has also been installed in the studio to mix audio for the audience. A System T S500m, a streamlined chassis version intended for mobile audio applications, has additionally been delivered ready for the ministry’s remote broadcast truck.
Turning Point first installed a C200 broadcast console when building its remote truck in 2008. ‘I really wanted to stay in the SSL family,’ says Eric ‘Ric’ Seaberg, Turning Point’s long-time chief engineer.
‘It’s so easy to mix on C200 and the System T is even better,’ he contines. ‘Especially as a music mixer, I find it so much easier to mix, because you’re not fighting with a bad quality signal. You’re starting out with great preamps, so you’re not having to clean things up; you’re just balancing the music. And that’s even more so with the System T, because the mic preamps and the processing are a double step better than the C200.’
For instance, Seaberg says, ‘The thing that was really easy for me to pick up initially was the whole concept of changing your fader layouts for individual tiles. I have a master template that we build everything from. But today, I might only want to see these faders on this tile, and it’s so easy to jump around and change things. That’s been really great.’
Both System T S500s have dual redundant engines with 256 processing paths and are configured with 48+2 faders. In the 6,500sq-ft studio, which seats about 150 people, the L100 Plus provides 24+2 faders with the associated Remote Tile. Two SSL Net I/O SB 16.12 and four SB i16 interfaces support 96 inputs from the stage while an SB 32.24 is positioned at FOH for audience microphones and other sources. The truck system travels with a pair of SB 32.24 stageboxes.
‘The entire ecosystem, tying the System T in and having the L100 Plus tied into that, with the Remote Tile, and sharing the stageboxes in terms of gain adjustments and so forth, is very, very nice,’ says Greg Praniewicz, the facility’s engineer-in-charge.
‘The whole infrastructure, with the SSL backbone and with everything being Dante and clocking and working together, plus the expandability, is hard to beat,’ Seaberg agrees. The facility’s production area, encompassing five control rooms and five edit bays, is already networked over Dante, and will soon expand to include six more edit suites, he reports. ‘So we’re really excited to be able to network the two halves of the building together over one large Dante network.’
‘Our primary requirements were sonic clarity and overall quality, and we recognise that SSL is renowned for that,’ Praniewicz resumes. ‘We do everything under the sun, so versatility and flexibility were also high in our list. Operationally, we’re dealing with different scenarios, like single-person interviews, multiple talent interviews, no audience, full audience, and musical guests with a full band, backup singers and horn section.’
While the Turning Point audio team is still exploring System T’s potential, one feature has already emerged as beneficial for interviews and presentations using multiple micrs on the studio stage: ‘We’ve already had several situations where we’ve used the built-in Automix,’ Seaberg reports. ‘It’s saved so much time, and it sounds incredible. We used Automix on the Live in the same situations – the mixers talk about how easy it makes our lives.’
Turning Point’s multi-camera UHD TV remote truck is used to capture senior teaching pastor Dr David Jeremiah every Saturday and Sunday at Shadow Mountain Community Church in El Cajon, California, about 30 minutes’ drive away.
‘We record everything he teaches, and that becomes part of the television outreach of Turning Point Ministries,’ Praniewicz explains. ‘We bring in over 16 terabytes of data every weekend from all the content that’s recorded and that is edited into 30-minute and 60-minute television programs and translated into about 16 different languages.’
Content is broadcast across the US and Canada, to the UK, Australia and New Zealand, and to the world’s Spanish-speaking countries.
Previously, Seaberg would mix or remix the music tracks through the C200 in the truck. ‘But now that we also have a System T in our facility,’ Praniewicz notes, ‘Ric will be able to do his work here at the studio, and bring in all the raw content, audio files and so forth, and remix everything.’
For this reason, it was important to have two System T consoles, Seaberg says. ‘We wanted to be able to have one setup that we could easily transfer back and forth between the two systems. There are times when I’m running 128 tracks of Pro Tools. On weekends when we’re shooting, I could have 100-plus microphones with full orchestra, a 200-voice choir, full rhythm section and singers on stage, and video roll-ins.’
In TV Studio 1, the L100 Plus is paired with a Meyer Sound PA system. The compact console features 12 faders, with additional controls on the Remote Tile, bringing the total to 26. ‘That’s just enough,’ Seaberg says. ‘We don’t feel limited; in a live situation, we’re good with that. The Live console made perfect sense, given how everything integrates and shares the stageboxes.’
More: www.solidstatelogic.com
