Minnesota Public Radio has just completed an upgrade of its facility’s 24 Axia Element Consoles to Axia Fusion Consoles.
It was a big undertaking for MPR, one of the first Axia customers. That initial partnership saw the big pubcaster outfit its entire facility with Axia Element consoles.
Today, more than a decade later, a studio-wide console upgrade is being undertaken — rather than go with a different company for similar devices.
MPR’s Chief Engineer Bill Dahlstrom and Director of Engineering and Facilities Tom Nelson went with Axia Fusion for performance reasons, and for its role in the Livewire ecosystem.
“Essentially, we are one of the earliest adopters of Axia,” says Dahlstrom. “Our Axia Elements were more than 10 years old and had served us well. We were so impressed by Element and it gave us such good service that we decided to replace them with more AxiaBeing part of the Livewire ecosystem also certainly simplifies things. It cuts costs because we are not interfacing physical outputs on devices. We favor products from other manufacturers that are a part of the Livewire ecosphere.”
The MPR console upgrades come as software update v3.2 for Fusion Console Mix Engines, including the Axia PowerStation and Axia StudioEngine, is now available.
Both can be used with Axia Fusion mixing consoles as a standalone studio solution or as part of a larger IP-audio network.
V3.2 has several new features, most notably an automix function for situations where one has multiple microphone faders open—for instance during a talk show with multiple guests. Also, the addition of AES67-compliant SIP connection management for unicast allows for the exchange of audio over a high-speed managed WAN using AES67.
“One of the most requested features for Fusion is automatic mic mixing,” says Marty Sacks, VP of Sales, Support, and Marketing at the Telos Alliance. “Multiple mics are the rule in lots of studios these days and the automix feature helps presenters focus on their show and not operating the console. Our team worked hard on developing a very capable algorithm and we’re excited to bring it to customers.”
This release also provides full AES67 compliance.
