Held at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles, the 2011 Video Music Awards (VMA) show was broadcast by MTV using the MTV Networks’ Remote Unit 8 mobile recording truck. Equipped with two Lawo mc²66 digital production consoles, the truck handled the main music mix on the show,
The larger of the two desks has 48 main faders plus eight additional faders for the master section, and is stocked with eight DSP cards in the system’s core. Additionally, the console is set up for use with Lawo’s Plug-in Server. Designed as a dedicated environment for VST-type audio processing plug-ins, the server facilitates seamless integration with the mc²66 while providing flexibility in the use and routing of processed signals – all while freeing the host recording platform from the system overhead typically associated with plug-in processing.
Remote Unit 8’s second mc²66 console is configured with 16 main faders and eight additional faders plus 3 DSP cards in the system’s core. On this year’s VMA’s, the smaller of the two consoles was used to mix the house band and whatever other live music was used going in and out of commercials.
MTV audio engineers Marc Repp and Browning McCollum, along with Jay Vicari and Paul Sandweiss, mixed this year’s event. ‘First and foremost, ‘the Lawo mc²66 is, without a doubt, one of the most intuitive, user-friendly mixing consoles available anywhere,’ Repp says. ‘Having all the features in the world means very little if the desk is tough to grasp conceptually, and this is where the Lawo boards excel. The mc²66 makes it easy for guest engineers to get up to speed quickly. For Paul, it had been almost a year since he was last on this desk, but because of its ease of use, Paul was able to sit down and, in just a few minutes, move around the board as though he used it all the time. Jay is equally upbeat about the design of the mc²66 and has become a vocal supporter of the console.’
The console’s snapshot facility was used extensively during the VMA Awards. ‘I love the way snapshot automation is implemented on this desk,’ Repp says. ‘We took one-to-two snapshots for each and every musical act on the show. This makes it very quick and easy to recall the right mix settings for every change of act. Everything was recorded to multitrack, which for us, involves two 144-channel Pro Tools systems – one for redundancy. When you take the ease of operation, the snapshot automation, and Lawo’s AMBIT processing power, you have an unbeatable combination.’
The AMBIT upmix tool is a new DSP module available on surround channels, offering the ability to convert stereo sources to 5.1 surround. AMBIT features algorithms such as Lawo’s Auto Centering function, a special front processing algorithm designed to achieve a stable front image, and Lawo’s rear processing. AMBIT 5.1 Upmix is available on any number of Surround channels simultaneously and is processed in real-time with extremely low latency.
‘AMBIT was extremely usefully during the VMAs,’ Repp says. ‘As we’ve done for the past five or six years, we recorded the show in 5.1 surround sound. The AMBIT section, which enables us to take a stereo signal and expand it to 5.1 channels, helped us immensely. This tool enabled us to take some of our stereo reverbs and convert them to 5.1 for use with the 5.1 mixes we were making.
‘I couldn’t be happier with the way everything turned out,’ Repp reports. ‘Other than the usual last minute challenges that invariably pop up on projects of this nature, everything went incredibly smooth. Paul mentioned that he really enjoyed working on the mc²66 and that he’d like to see more of them in the field. The Lawo desks are world-class in every aspect of their operation and design and that’s precisely why we use them.’
More: www.lawo.de
