Audio & Accessories News

Mixing music at MTV Awards

Thu, 20 Oct 2011 14:48

From an audio production perspective MTV Networks’ Remote Unit 8 mobile recording truck was at the heart of the recent MTV Video Music Awards (VMA) ceremony held in Los Angeles. Remote Unit 8 is equipped with two Lawo mc²66 digital productions consoles. Handling the main music mix on the show, the larger of the two desks has 48 main faders plus eight additional faders for the master section and is stocked with 8 DSP cards in the system’s core. Additionally, the console is setup for use with Lawo’s plug-in server.

Designed as a dedicated environment for VST-type audio processing plug-ins, the server facilitates seamless integration with the mc²66 while providing greater flexibility in the use and routing of processed signals, all while freeing the host recording platform from the system overhead typically associated with numerous plug-in processors.

Remote Unit 8’s second mc²66 console is configured with 16 main faders plus 8 additional faders plus 3 DSP cards in the system’s core. On this year’s VMAs, the smaller of the two consoles was used to mix the house band and whatever other live music was used going in and out of commercials.

MTV audio engineers Marc Repp and Browning McCollum, along with Jay Vicari and Paul Sandweiss, mixed this year’s event.

Said Repp: “The Lawo mc²66 is, without a doubt, one of the most intuitive, user friendly mixing consoles available anywhere. This makes it easy for guest engineers, like Paul Sandweiss, to get up to speed quickly.”

In addition to its intuitive operation, the mc²66 console’s snapshot automation is a huge feature that was used extensively during the VMA Awards.

Repp continued: “We took one to two snapshots for each and every musical act on the show. This made it very quick and easy to recall the right mix settings for every change of act. Everything was recorded to multitrack, which for us, involves two 144 channel Pro Tools systems, one for redundancy. When you take the ease of operation, the snapshot automation, and Lawo’s AMBIT processing power, you have an unbeatable combination.”

Lawo’s AMBIT upmix tool is a new DSP module available on surround channels. It features algorithms such as Lawo’s auto centering function, a special front processing algorithm designed to achieve a stable front image, and Lawo’s rear processing.

SCREENAFRICA Print Magazine – October 2011 (view here)

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