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| The FE Mobile parked at Perivale |
High Audio Specification
The Floating Earth truck has been designed from the outset with the very highest audio specification in mind. It has recently been re-fitted with the first SSL C200 digital mixing console in the UK. This replaces the 48 track Sony console previously installed. The console has 96 microphone inputs and is capable of 5.1 and 7.1 monitoring. We have optic fibre connections to the stage boxes which provide high quality A/D conversion at the stage end at 96 kHz if required. In the truck there are two multitrack Pyramix recorders which are connected to the console by MADI giving a possible 64 channels of recording per unit. These systems are fully compatible with all major DAW's such as Pro-Tools, Radar, Akai etc. Recording is made to fast SCSI disk drives intially and then copies can be made to firewire drives as required. In broadcast situations "clean" archive tracks can be laid down at the same time as an on-air mix is made. Internally, much attention has been paid to the acoustic design, taking into account many of the inherent short-comings of mobile trucks from this point of view. In particular we have attempted to address the issue of obtaining a really accurate and comfortable listening environment that allows proper balance decisions to be made on the spot rather than later during a mix.
| Interior View showing SSL Console |
DVD and Surround Audio Capability
Also central to the design has been the inclusion of true surround sound monitoring in 5.1 audio format. The SSL digital console allows easy switching between stereo and surround monitoring and this has been fully implemented in our truck. The stereo monitoring is flexible allowing a range of different speaker systems to be used while the surround monitoring is provided by an active Genelec system including a sub-woofer.
| Rear View showing client area and pyramix editor control |
On board Editing
The truck is equipped with a two 64 channel Pyramix editors made by merging technologies. This PC based system offers unparalleled flexibilty for multitrack editing and mastering. Among the huge list of features are automatic conform to picture and instantaneous play of more than a hundred tracks via 64 output channels. It is also compatible with ProTools and other DAW's allowing recording projects made in the truck to be taken away and edited directly on external systems at a later date.
Communications and Webcasting
This truck is supplied with an fully integrated communications system appropriate for live broadcasting. The vehicle will carry live encoding computers according to clients specifications to allow live streaming on the internet via fixed ISDN link. We anticipate that this may be one of the main growth areas for us in the future and will be developing the list of available formats to reflect current trends in internet use. At the moment we are encoding for RealAudio, QuickTime and Windows Media.
click here for Detailed Truck Specification
click here for QuickTime VR 360 degree picture (needs QuickTime Plugin)
click here for More Internal Pictures