Daystar Television Network has upgraded the audio capabilities at its production studio complex in the Dallas-Fort Worth region with the installation of a custom configured, dual-operator Solid State Logic System T S500 broadcast audio platform and a pair of SSL Live L550 Plus mixing consoles.
Additionally, Daystar integrated two System T Furniture Fader Tiles, one with a Tempest Control Rack, together with an SSL Live Remote Expander plus a pair of Live Remote Tiles.
Installed in Daystar’s Broadcast Audio Control (BAC), the System T platform features a dual S500 frame outfitted with two master sections and three touchscreens with five Fader Tiles providing access to 80 channel faders. Powered by redundant TE2 Tempest Engines licensed for 800 paths at 48 kHz, the control surface provides two operators with independent control over their respective mixes and duties.
The principal mixer handles all dialogue and vocal microphones as well as video roll-ins and external remote sources, including a direct feed from Daystar’s studio in Jerusalem. The secondary mixer, in addition to managing the band instrument sources, handles mix-minus feeds, playback sources and 192 channels of DAW recording and playback. The room handles both broadcast and post-production mixing or remixing. For broadcasts, the BAC System T generates a 5.1 mix along with stereo and mono downmixes, mix-minus dialogue, dialog-only and instrument-only feeds.
The network’s flagship broadcast, “Ministry Now,” produced live daily, is hosted by Daystar co-founder and president Joni Lamb. “The main live show that we do here has a band and singers,” explains David Ribb, Director of Audio. “There’s so much traffic going on and, because of the pacing, we have found it easier to have two people mixing. Plus, twice a year, we do a special version of that show. That was the main reason we made the System T surface as large as we did, in addition to our input count.”
An SSL Live L550 Plus in Studio Audio Control (SAC) sends more than 60 feeds to various line arrays and nearly two dozen speaker zones in the 10,000-square-foot main studio, which houses multiple set locations in addition to a band performance area, as well as wedge monitors and wired and wireless IEM and IFB feeds. A second SSL Live 550 Plus on the studio floor manages monitor mixes for the singers and the band, feeding over a dozen IEMs and a 128-channel KLANG immersive mixing system with a combination of direct sources and mix stems.
The SAC L550 Plus has head amp control of all studio-sourced inputs, controlling input gain for both the System T and the L550 Plus monitor console. It also has a 192-channel DAW recording and playback rig for virtual soundcheck purposes that additionally provides a broadcast safety capture. The SAC L550 Plus is coupled to an SSL Live Remote Expander to create an extended control surface with six Fader Tiles (a total of 72 faders) and two touchscreens with a central master section. The Live Remote Expander can be used as an extension of the main SAC console or for remote control of the L550 Plus monitor console, which is integrated with a third 192-input DAW record/playback rig, on the studio floor.
Just in terms of live microphones, there can be as many as 14 lavaliere mics and up to 12 handheld wireless mics for speech applications on Daystar’s flagship show. In addition, there are typically 12 to 14 singers with a large house band and potentially up to 10 guest vocalists, while a further 32 channels are reserved for guest band instruments. To handle the high microphone channel count, Daystar is making extensive use of SSL’s Automix functionality, which is found on both System T and Live consoles.
The three SSL consoles access a variety of SSL Net I/O interfaces and converters over the Dante network, including nine SB32.24 Dante Stageboxes interfaced via a pair of X-Light Bridges. A Blacklight-II Bridge and a pair of MADI-Bridges further facilitate I/O across the Dante network. Additionally, there are three SB 16.12 stageboxes and a single SB 8.8 stagebox, plus an A16.D16 interface.
Daystar has installed one System T Furniture Fader Tile with a Tempest Control Rack in the equipment room to provide BAC console redundancy. A second tile will be integrated at an engineering position at a future date for QC or other remote operations. Two Live Remote Tiles have been set up on a rolling desk in the studio as an alternative for operators to fine-tune monitoring in the space rather than from the SAC Live Remote Expander.
— Reporting by Jeff Touzeau
