Zen Broadcast Chooses System T

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Sound Supervisor Kevin Duff with SSLs System T

The Zen Broadcast Mobile.

OXFORD - ENGLAND - After extensive on-air testing, leading recording and audio services provider Zen Broadcast has confirmed SSLs System T as the new tool-of-choice for its re-fitted mobile unit. The truck will feature a 48-fader System T S500 console with two T80 Tempest Audio Engines for full redundancy, with a high capacity Dante AoIP network and additional SSL Network I/O to support external SDI, MADI, AES, and analogue as required.

A Transcendent Truck Zen Broadcast is a relatively new UK-based company, born of the considerable combined experience of Directors Andy Deacon and Terry Tew, and regularly delivering both live and recorded high end programmes for clients such as ITV, BBC and Sky, both nationally and internationally.

I know the truck's rooms sound great, and weve had lots of different consoles in there from most manufacturers you can think of, but with the SSL plugged in everything changed. It brought everything to life.Andy Deacon

The Zen Broadcast mobile was designed to fulfil a market requirement for a facility that could turn up at a European broadcast studio or event with two separate mix areas, another recording and tape specific room with comms, and with full support for Dante AoIP networked audio as well as AES67, MADI, SDI, and SMPTE 2110. It was originally intended to be a space where various consoles could be moved in and out, depending on the requirements of the Sound Supervisor and the job at hand, ensuring it was equally adaptable to complex broadcast events, classical recording sessions, music festivals, and more. But it was while we were working on The Voice last year that a colleague, Ben Milton, suggested an SSL might fit nicely into the truck, recalls Deacon, That was mainly based on Ben's very positive experiences with the SSL Live consoles at events like The Glastonbury Festival.

First Impressions Deacon managed to find space in the diary to test System T in the Zen Broadcast mobile, though it was the busiest time of the year with several very large live broadcasts booked in immediately afterwards. Initially, the truck was parked at SSL HQ in Oxford, England. Deacon: I know the truck's rooms sound great, and weve had lots of different consoles in there from most manufacturers you can think of, but with the SSL plugged in everything changed. It brought everything to life.

Right there, Terry and I discussed the idea of putting System T into the truck permanently. Even though it was originally designed to take any desk, it seemed ridiculous not to put a desk in that makes the final output sound so much better.

There will always be option of taking it out and putting something else in if other Sound Supervisors request that, and even using something else in the B studio, but I think that once they try the SSL they will feel the same as us.

Kevin Duff, twice BAFTA-award winning Sound Supervisor, Dubbing Mixer, and Zen regular, was present for those first tests: The sound was simply stunning, he says. And that is no exaggeration... the soundstage of a band I have recorded for 5 years had immediately changed.... The detail was astonishing. In particular, the channel dynamics impressed from the beginning... It gave me confidence to know the headroom was available to cope with unexpected challenges as they appeared.

On-Air Auditions

The BBCs Passchendaele centenary commemorations, live broadcast from the Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium (Photo: Reuters)

Immediately after the Oxford tests, Duff agreed to try System T on The Voice Kids UK 2017 live final, the live final of Pitch Battle (popular UK choir competition), and finally the recent live Passchendaele centenary commemorations Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium - all complex productions requiring different solutions to many technical and creative challenges.

On Pitch Battle, Duff had to cope with over 60 handheld radio mics, many of which were swapped between choirs, and he had no idea until the actual show which choirs would be singing against each other. This show really got me into the automation snapshot world of System T, and heavily into the layer manager, he recalls. The speed of moving and editing layers became a saving grace here as I was copying and pasting faders from sound checks to other faders and moving layers all over the place... Its so funny that I had been apprehensive about using a new desk on such big shows, but a week in I realised that I would have really struggled to cope with this show on my previous desk.

For the Passchendaele event, the Zen Mobile unit went to Belgium, to mix a complex three-hour live event. This event was huge, says Duff. And a meeting of genres in that we had a live orchestra on one stage, plus performers reading, singing, and doing excerpts from plays and from West End shows such as War Horse and Wipers Times... This was going to be one of those shows where just getting the faders up and down in the right order would be enough, let alone worrying about the art!

The transmission was a success, with lots of praise levelled at the production and technical teams right across the event, including the sound. The desk performed perfectly on both speech and music, reports Duff. Many colleagues of mine commented (unprompted) on how clean the audio sounded too, so it wasnt just me hearing the difference.

If the System Fits....

The Pitch Battle live final - another challenge for System T.

According to Deacon, System T fits in very nicely with Zen Broadcast and its own unique appeal. Its about flexibility and adaptability for the modern broadcast industry. We need to be able to accommodate the needs of all Sound Supervisors and events. Whilst I'd love to say it's the truck that generates the work,

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