PARIS, France—Leading French radio station Europe 1 has recently outfitted its studios with a pair of HARMAN Studer OnAir 3000 digital consoles. The consoles were sold through Audiopole, Studer’s French distributor.
In existence since 1955, Europe 1 is owned and operated by Lagardère Active, a subsidiary of the Lagardère Group. As part of a redesign to its studios, Europe 1 required an upgrade to its audio system. After an extensive review of console options, the network opted for the OnAir 3000 consoles, installing the first one at the end of December 2013 and the second in April. The consoles are Modulo types, featuring rack-mountable mainframes that house the power supplies and host processing. The consoles are mounted into the studio desks, integrated with the attractive décor of the rooms.
“We already have had good experiences with an OnAir 3000 a couple of years ago, the console is reliable, modular, flexible and robust,” said Michaël Allouche, Europe 1’s head of engineering. “So it was quite natural to stay with the same model.”
The OnAir 3000 design is based on a completely modular desk and a new DSP engine. The fader module includes six fader strips, and up to eight fader modules may be fitted, giving a maximum console size of 48 faders. Layout options range from a highly comprehensive engineer-operated continuity console to a single fader panel for DJ and newsroom use or even a PC-operated system with no physical desk controls. The console has three main stereo mix buses plus an audition facility, four stereo aux. buses, 16 mix-minus sends, configurable as AUXes and three independent studio monitoring circuits and offers full dynamics, EQ and input/output routing in each channel.
Since the OnAir 3000 consoles have been installed, Europe 1 is very pleased with the results.
“The console is very easy to use and the users are happy to get extensive talk-back capabilities on the console from the control room to the headphones in the studio and to external phone lines and codec as well,” said Michaël Allouche. “Using the snapshots is also very useful, there are many different users and they have all their own configuration.”
For more information on Europe 1, please visit www.europe1.fr
For more information on Audiopole, please visit www.audiopole.fr
HARMAN (www.harman.com) designs, manufactures, and markets a wide range of infotainment and audio solutions for the automotive, consumer, and professional markets. It is a recognized world leader across its customer segments with premium brands including AKG®, Harman Kardon®, Infinity®, JBL®, Lexicon®, and Mark Levinson® and leading-edge connectivity, safety and audio technologies. The Company is admired by audiophiles across multiple generations and supports leading professional entertainers and the venues where they perform. More than 25 million automobiles on the road today are equipped with HARMAN audio and infotainment systems. HARMAN has a workforce of 15,200 people across the Americas, Europe, and Asia and reported sales of $5.1 billion for the last twelve months ended March 31, 2014.
