After nearly two years of R&D, Calrec Audio introduced its new Artemis console in the United States at the AES show in New York City earlier this month. The new console is based on the Apollo platform, which was launched at NAB in April 2009, and utilizes the same core technologies such as Bluefin2 and Hydra2 networking.
Calrec said the new capabilities give the console an enormous routing and processing capacity that belies its midsize footprint. Using a combination of OLED displays, touch-screens and light-emitting knobs, the soft Artemis control surface provides instant visual feedback and allows the user to reconfigure the desk on the fly.
Artemis utilizes Bluefin2, the next generation of Calrec’s Bluefin High Density Signal Processing platform, to provide substantial resources at multiple sample rates. At 48kHz, Bluefin2 gives Artemis up to 640 channel processing paths, 128 program busses, 64 IFB/Track outputs and 32 auxiliaries.
It also features a second compressor/limiter in each channel, more than 70 minutes of assignable delay, and three independent APFL systems for multiple operator use. These facilities do not share resources so that they are available to the user at all times.
Central to the Artemis console is a dedicated integrated router so that its I/O functions can be performed by Hydra2, the networking system. Hydra2 uses high capacity 8192 x 8192 cross-point routers and makes available a variety of I/O units to provide analog, AES, MADI, SDI and Dolby E formats. All use copper or fiber connectivity, and can be fitted with GPIO cards. Console routers can be connected together to form large networks, and stand-alone routers will also be available.
