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AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — On Monday, June 3, Qmusic broadcast its first broadcast from the Mediavaert building in the Amstel Business Park. The new headquarters accommodates DPG Media Nederland’s more than 20 brands, including newspapers and magazines, plus radio stations Qmusic NL and the recently launched Joe. The new studio landscape comprises on-air studios for Qmusic and Joe, control rooms, interview and production units and news booths. The building also houses a 30 m² space for live concerts, with a separate audio and video control room.
“We initiated the project in 2019 with our in-house tech team,” said Almer Veenendaal, DPG Media’s broadcast manager. “An important new element was Qmusic’s content studio, designed for video-related content. The facility has a bar, a huge glass wall and a fully-fledged audio and video control room. Combined with Qmusic’s on-air studio, it represents a big show set up.”
Team spirit building
iDeal Acoustics, fresh from delivering the impressive acoustics for the new Qmusic and Joe studios in DPG Media Vilvoorde in Belgium, designed and installed the acoustics for the Mediavaert studios. Including the Qmusic and Joe on-air studios, the control rooms, the live music room, production booths, news booths, and podcast rooms, the project had a total of 16 studios.
iDeal entered the project in the latter half of last year, when most of the shell construction was finalized. “Because of the time pressure and the many partners involved, I contacted Okke van Bergen of OvB Project Realisation to synchronize the complex operations,” explained Matthias Aerts, CEO of iDeal Acoustics. “The start was an artist’s rendering from interior architects Arf&Yes,” said van Bergen. “We assigned construction company Piet Nagel Bouwmanagement to manage all subcontractors for the studios.”
Van Bergen assembled a team consisting of the Qmusic/Joe engineers, iDeal Acoustics, interiors and furniture providers KBMF, equipment and system integrators Service Connection, and lighting specialists De Werkmaatschappij.
Tailor-made acoustics
iDeal Acoustics started installation in March of this year. “The acoustic panels were specifically designed and shaped on-site for the two different studio set-ups. We used flocked paneling for Qmusic and vacuum-made paneling for Joe — two challenges we successfully met,” explained Aerts.
Because the Mediavaert building was awarded the BREEAM ‘Excellent’ sustainability hallmark, iDeal Acoustics incorporated environmentally friendly elements such as eco-friendly wood, acoustic absorption materials, glue and paints.
iDeal Acoustics had a project manager and six crew working at the Mediavaert building for nine weeks. All the acoustic panels for the Qmusic and Joe on-air studios feature exclusive branding. “We also installed the acoustics for the voice and production booths, news booths and upstairs podcast studios,” continued Aerts.
When you’re in the studio, it’s as if you are in the render of what we planned, but it’s even more beautiful.
Almer Veenendaal, DPG Media’s broadcast manager
Technical configuration
Service Connection steered the radio-technical aspects of the project together with the DPG Media tech team. “The key building blocks for the set-up are all DHD,” said Patrick Schoon of Service Connection. The DHD network uses the new XD3 for the matrix and XC3 cores for the studios as main engines. All the on-air studios have 52/RX consoles. Schoon said that DPG Media opted for these modules for their reliability and because the DJs are used to working with them.
Service Connection also installed a Blackmagic Design visual radio set-up, video switches, matrices, BMD Micro Studio cameras and Panasonic AW-EU 100KEJ PTZ cameras. “The DHD XC3 core has voice detection software, but another option is the Symetrix Radius voice processing directly via the Shure SM7B microphones,” said Schoon. The system uses a DHD 52-7172A XC embedder/de-embedder for image-to-sound switching and video clips for visual radio. “Both Qmusic and Joe’s morning drives use DPA 6066 microphones connected to a Wisycom MTK982 set,” added Veenendaal. “A nice bonus is that when a track is started, studio staff and guests using the DPAs wearing Vision Ears VE2 earphones can communicate off-air, providing new content like quotes and clips for future use.”
Added technical layers
Qmusic engineers added the corporate Liga system. “It’s an extra layer above the AVT telephone hybrid,” explained Veenendaal. “Liga connects the studio hardware with our DJs and producers. It mixes and matches consoles and parameters such as threshold values. Joe’s and Qmusic’s telephone systems are linked to their member database, allowing up to eight phone lines per fader.” The four audio production studios and the two news booths feature DHD 52-1256B multitouch mixer desks, Shure SM7B microphones and Yellowtec Mika microphone arms and display stands.
“We opted to decentralize all studios,” continued Schoon. “Each rack has a dedicated network switch with audio I/O, with the DHD 5200 series XD3 and XC3 cores keeping it very accessible. All technical connections for the DHD domain and the network solutions are fiber. The network links between the racks and the central cores in the MER room are redundant fiber.”
DPG Media set the end of July for the completion of the new Joe studios but gave a specific deadline for QMusic’s launch. “The challenge was the extremely high integration of multiple disciplines,” Schoon continued. “We had visual radio, Qmusic’s seven thematic channels on DAB+, cable network and streaming, and the full redundancy of the technical structure.” Looking back on the project, van Bergen is particularly positive about the collaboration of all building partners. “They all were very constructive and solved problems in the group.”
“The deadline pressure and hard work now lie behind us,” concluded Veenendaal. “When you’re in the studio, it’s as if you are in the render of what we planned, but it’s even more beautiful.”
Based in Antwerp, Belgium, the author began hosting a weekly program at a local radio station in 1980. He then joined the Dutch-language national broadcaster VRT as a reporter and music programmer. He has worked as a freelance writer for various publications including national press, industry publications and magazines since 1985.
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