Operating since 1979, Italian rental company BH Audio provides sound equipment for live events, specializing in classical, contemporary and jazz productions. It took delivery in April of two Lawo mc²36 (MKII) all-in-one audio production consoles, and plans to add them to the inventory for music festivals. Lawo pointed out that BH is its first customer to purchase this recently released model.
Lawo mixing systems and d&b audiotechnik’s Soundscape immersive live audio technology are among the equipment it provides for the annual Ravenna festival of classical music, noted BH.
“We utilize our mc²36 consoles for highly respected musical events that attract the most discriminating audiences, and for our new equipment we wanted a console based on advanced Audio-over-IP technology which provides crystal clear sound, flexibility in terms of workflow optimization, and the reliability which is crucial for every sound engineer in live music setups,” said BH’s Massimo Carli, who oversees the Ravenna Festival system setup.
“The new mc²36 is powered by our latest A__UHD Core technology and provides a total number of 256 DSP channels,” explained Lucas Zwicker, Lawo’s senior technical product manager, Audio Production. “This increased DSP power is vital under pandemic regulations which require one microphone per musician. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, 60 to 80 channels were required for orchestral music productions, now up to 100 channels and more can easily be required.”
mc²36 natively supports SMPTE ST2110-30, AES67 and Ravenna, and provides an I/O capacity of 864 channels including Local I/O connectivity. The console features Button-Glow, touch-sensitive rotary controls, color TFT fader-strip displays, LiveView video thumbnails and HD touchscreen controls.
IP Easy allows for quickly system configuration at any time, even during operation, a feature BH Audio is exploring in their studios right now, added Cristian Merli, one of the BH’s Sound Engineers.
Lawo is also working with BH to integrate a custom OSC interface for remote control of d&b Soundscape object parameters directly from the console’s surface.