ORF buys two Soundcraft Vi1 consoles from Harman
Austria: Austrian national public service broadcaster, Österreichischer Rundfunk, has added a pair of Harman’s Soundcraft 
digital consoles to its inventory to be used for live broadcasting, FOH mixing and general recording purposes in the Innsbruck/Tirol region.
The order was placed with Soundcraft’s Austrian distributor Kain Audio by Landesstudio Tirol, one of nine regional studios operating under the ORF umbrella, after carrying out extensive tests against other brands.
According to ORF tonmeister, Jürgen Brunner, the old set-up was desperately in need of upgrading. “We considered a number of different factors, such as price, size, quality and ease of use. We concluded that the Vi1 was the best concept for us, very easy to use, with the Widescreen Vistonics interface, and with no quality limitations.
“The internal filters sounded excellent as did the graphic EQ, and it offers good flexibility, with external Stagebox, MADI option and offline editor — all packaged into a really good price. With a digital console like the Vi1 there is no need to pick up dozens of graphic EQs or other external effects.”
One of the compact Vi1’s will be for portable use while the other will be permanently installed in ORF’s Innsbruck broadcasting hall for FOH and recording purposes (using RME MADI cards and M-16 DA extension).
While the desk’s footprint had been one of the overriding criteria, ORF also needed the ability to save and recall different shows with different cues — and to handle everything over a WLAN network in the future. After its first outing — broadcasting a live folk music show from the centre of a ski resort, 2200 meters above sea level — Jürgen Brunner felt the decision had been 100% justified. “The Vi1 is exactly the right console for the things we need — it’s very easy to use and to configure, and it sounds great.”