INNOVASON votes for Democracy Now!

Democracy Now!, an award-winning national, daily independent news program that airs on over 500 radio and TV stations in North America, has recently taken delivery of an INNOVASON Sy48 digital mixing console and a remote Stage Box to handle a live news broadcast five days per week. Pioneering the largest public media collaboration in the US, Democracy Now! is broadcast on Pacifica, community and National Public Radio stations; on public access cable television stations and satellite television; as a podcast and on the internet.

Democracy Now! chief broadcast engineer, Nick Marcilio, explains why he opted for an INNOVASON console over anything else. "There were a number of reasons," he remarked. "I'd seen the INNOVASON board side by side with a number of other digital console brands at a recent AES show, and was struck by the versatility of the design. Whereas the majority of competitive consoles seemed as if they were trying to emulate analog control surfaces, the INNOVASON is clearly rooted in the digital domain. The fact that any fader can be assigned to any function; input, output, VCA whatever, really demonstrates the versatility of the control surface. This leads me onto the second issue, which is price. I feel that the INNOVASON product is extremely reasonably priced for what you get – in fact, it does more than what some of the more expensive broadcast consoles do in terms of routing flexibility and configuration, and on top of all that, the sonic quality is excellent."

The Sy48 is taking care of a live news broadcast that is aired five days per week. The show varies from remote studio guests and phone guests to several guests on the studio floor. Nick pointed out that with a round table discussion format, routing flexibility between the audio console and the intercom, TELOS, ISDN and local monitoring is essential. "The INNOVASON makes this so easy – our analog days aren't far behind us, but it's just a different world, and not one that I'd want to go back to!" he quipped. He also noted that Democracy Now! has just installed an Omneon Media Server whose audio outputs go direct AES/EBU into the Sy48, and as a result has taken the place of VTR playback in the system.

Democracy Now! is about to move premises, having outgrown its current location. Nick Marcilio observed that the minimal INNOVASON infrastructure and small footprint would simplify the move enormously. "In fact, we made the jump from an analog to a digital board during our move to the temporary studio. That transition already reduced costs for us as we didn't have to invest in any infrastructure to support what had become an obsolete console. When we move to the new place, all we have to do is drop the console into our new control room. All the microphones come from the Stage Box, which is easy, and the outboard gear – the little that we have left, because the Sy48s A/D and D/A conversion capacity has enabled us to reduce the amount of external processing we use – is tied in via a patch bay. It'll be a piece of cake!"