Moving into line with BSkyB’s UK broadcasting facilities in Osterley, London’s Sky Vision Sound Studios has recently completed a major upgrade of its Fairlight equipment. Serving three studios, two mix rooms and a prep room, the Fairlight upgrade includes a Constellation console with a Fairlight EVO, six of which are already in use at BskyB, and a Xynergi system.

‘As work often moves between BskyB’s sound studios and ours, it made sense for us to have identical equipment,’ says Audio Supervisor & Senior Dubbing Mixer, Robert Thompson. ‘The dubbing mixers at BSkyB were obviously happy with their Fairlight EVOs and this, combined with our own experience of Fairlight, meant we had no qualms about upgrading our own desk.’

Sky Vision Sound Studios handles a variety of programming, ranging from wildlife, docudrama, documentary to children’s TV, scripted content, sports and comedy. The challenges presented by the diversity of work is matched by the turnaround.

‘Last year we completed more than 70 hours of broadcast TV, which for two mix rooms is pretty good going,’ Thompson says. ‘That’s just shy of three hours a month – a lot of work by anyone’s standards. It is a credit to Fairlight that we achieve what we do, because you simply couldn’t get through such a large quantity of work without having a system that is so reliable and flexible.’

Sky Vision Sound Studio’s affiliation with Fairlight goes back to 1999 when the facility was set up by dubbing mixer Trevor Barber. Thompson, was brought in some years later to help increase the facility’s output: ‘I didn’t start out as a Fairlight user – in previous jobs, and as a freelancer, I had mostly used Avid Pro Tools,’ he recalls. ‘But Trevor installed a Fairlight MFX hard disk recorder in Studio One and as soon as Fairlight introduced the Xynergi range, he came onboard straight away. In fact, the Xynergi system we own and use today is No.5. It still works perfectly. The only thing we have changed is the operating software, which we have just upgraded again to the latest version.’

Thompson adds that moving from Constellation to EVO has been straightforward: ‘Both Russell Skellon, who mainly works in Studio Two, and myself have been using Fairlight for a long time and we have so much experience that the system is almost second nature to us,’ he says. ‘I would say the same about Xynergi and the upgrade to the latest software version. Setting up the XCS controller on the EVO so that it works the way we are used to was very quick to master and it was all so seamless that we were up and running almost immediately. The only thing that is taking a bit of time is exploring the new software features. We are now finding out all the new tricks it can do and it is already offering much greater functionality.

‘We often have to deliver shows to multiple broadcasters worldwide, and with Fairlight I am able to build consoles and workflows that produce all the deliverables I need very efficiently,’ he continues. ‘I also find editing on Fairlight intuitive because I can use the Picture Keys on the XCS to make my own controller and editor, which I design around my personal preference. It’s also nice to personalise my common functions and assign them a macro so they can be done with the push of a button. It gets me away from mouse-based editing.’

Thompson adds that Fairlight’s ability to accept and export multiple file formats is useful when the facility gets project from outside clients, ‘but to be honest we’ve honed the workflow between ourselves and Sky Vision to a point there this isn’t really relevant,’ he says.

‘What is useful, though, is Fairlight’s ability to give users two picture tacks at the same time. If you are re-versioning and don’t get an EDL file that tells you what has been cut where, this can be a very tedious and time consuming process. With integrated video, we can streamline the process by running two picture tracks and comparing them in real time. This makes it much faster to manually make the cuts.’

The software’s new background recording feature also appeals: ‘I’m still checking this out but it looks like another really useful feature,’ he says. ‘You can record while you are scrolling and jog shuttling. It basically records anything passing through a specified output as a background task. I can also see this being useful for ADR because it saves the timeline becoming littered with takes.’

Despite the features the new EVO console offers, Thompson is still most persuaded by Fairlight’s sound quality: ‘I suppose I’m a bit of a musician at heart, which is why I like the smoothness of the Fairlight I/O. Some of our clients are composers and musicians as well so it’s no surprise they also comment on how good it sounds.’

More: www.fairlight.com.au