ITN has installed an Artemis Light digital audio console from Calrec Audio in the Channel 4 News production gallery at its London headquarters. Now the primary console on the Channel 4 News programme, the Artemis Light desk provides ample digital signal processing (DSP) power, scalable I/O options, and faders.

"Getting more DSP power was critical for us. Before we got the Artemis Light, our lack of it prevented us from making full use of outside sources," said Andrew Colgan, ITN technical projects manager. "The Artemis Light has a huge number of standard processing paths when compared to the competition. Having so much DSP power allows us to load all of our sources and destinations into memory and recall them almost instantaneously, making day-to-day programs a breeze. At the same time, we can easily accommodate complicated changes."

ITN installed a 40-fader Artemis Light console featuring Calrec’s Bluefin2 high-performance signal-processing engine with 240 channel processing paths. Calrec’s Hydra2 plug-and-play audio routing system is equipped with 24 mic/line inputs, 48 line inputs, 48 line outputs, 64 AES inputs, 64 AES outputs, 48 opto inputs, and 48 relays.

One feature that has proved especially important to ITN is the desk’s Automixer, eight of which are available internally at no extra cost. Automixer assists ITN with mixing more than one source of speech, which has been a critical tool during multiple-guest interviews in an acoustically challenging studio.

"Before we had the Automixer feature, mixing the studio required super dexterity to equalise the sound if a guest jumped in with a comment," Colgan said. "We simply couldn’t react as quickly as we can with Automixer assisting us."

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