Rock in Rio 2017 was supplemented by TV broadcasts on Globosat, this year supported by the first use of a Lawo mc²96 Grand Production Console at a large-scale music festival.

Its use of the mc²96 console was part of a rental package of equipment, support and training provided by Lawo for the event.

The festival was staged over ten days in September in Rio’s Barra Olympic Park, and included performances from Guns N’ Roses, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bon Jovi, Aerosmith, Justin Timberlake and Maroon 5 headlining on the Palco Mundo stage, with Sepultura, Ceelo Green, and Nile Rodgers and Chic among those appearing on the Sunset stage.

Through Latin American system integrator and Lawo partner LineUp Broadcast Systems, Lawo provided Globosat with a 40-fader mc²96 fitted with Ravenna, AES and MADI Cards, along with a Sample-Rate Converter and a Compact Core for the console. The console was integrated with a Lawo Nova73 Router using RAVENNA. The setup was able to take advantage of a legacy Globosat structure resulting from the company’s involvement in the Summer Olympics broadcast from the Barra Olympic Park last year.

“In 2015, we made the first live broadcast with 4K and Atmos to some of our viewers and this time we’re trying new mixing ideas, positioning some instruments in 3D with very interesting results,” explained Gabriel Thomazini, co-ordinator of audio at Globosat.

This time we’re trying new mixing ideas, positioning some instruments in 3D with very interesting results"

-Gabriel Thomazini

“For the Rock in Rio festival, we developed a specific workflow with a remote mixing room at our headquarters, 14km away,” he continued. “We received 128 input channels from the Mundo stage and 64 from the Sunset stage – we chose which stage we wanted to mix just by changing productions. For transport, we used Lawo V_link [video-over-IP transporters] and RAVENNA-based streams.”

Lawo’s V_pro8 8-channel video processor was used to provide HD SDI to a Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Shuttle SSD recorder and the system’s embedder. The Globosat setup also used a pair of Sound Devices model 970 64-track Dante and MADI-equipped multitrack audio recorders, while audio monitoring was taken care of by a Genelec system. Supporting an immersive approach to the broadcast sound mix for Rock in Rio, Globosat also received support from Sennheiser.

“Sennheiser is helping us to pick up crowd noises with Esfera microphone systems and the new Cube setup from the 3D Ambeo concept,” Thomazini confirmed. “It is important to bring a different approach to break pre-conceived ideas.”

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