DORTMUND, GERMANY – WestCom Media Group, which produces live daily content for the Northern Westfalia region of Germany, recently installed a 24+8-fader Solid State Logic C10 HD Compact Broadcast Console in its new studio facility. WestCom Media Group produces content for the private television station SAT.1, the television news channel N24, the public service channel ZDF, and the German PBS station WDR, among others. The C10 HD provides WestCom Broadcast Services GmbH with a streamlined, feature-rich and cost-effective console that is able to tackle the various projects produced at the facility.
“We chose the SSL C10 because it was the best console solution for our production needs, giving us the most power and price/performance ratio over the competition,” says Heinz Ulrich Hütker, CTO for WestCom Broadcast Services GmbH. “We really appreciated working with the SSL team as they were very responsive to our needs during the planning stage for the new facility. The C10 gave us the operational flexibility we required with features that no other manufacturer could offer. We really like working with the C10.”
WestCom Broadcast Services GmbH works on a wide variety of programming, each with its own unique setup. For example, “17:30 SAT.1 North-Rhine/Westphalia” is a daily magazine-type program that includes live interviews and discussions, while the studio also produces news programming that is distributed to stations around Germany. The C10 streamlines the production schedule through its powerful recall feature.
“We really like the way the C10 can be configured to match the different operational approaches in our daily work,” explains Hütker. “We have stored a number of very different prepared setups for our lineup of productions and the C10 reliably brings the settings back instantly. With the C10, there is no longer any need to try to manually create EQ and dynamics every night to get the best sound on air. This is a great benefit considering our pressing schedules.”
The new location for WestCom Broadcast Services GmbH features an open air approach for the production studio with large windows looking out onto the city streets in the background behind the set. This was done to deliver a visual sense of connection to the audience. Because of this new visual approach, the audio quality needed to match the visual presentation.
“Sound quality is very important to us and our clients to help bring the visual excitement of our productions to life,” Hütker states. “The C10 delivers a great sounding program which is what you would expect from an SSL console. As we have many levels of engineers running the console, the feature set of the C10 allows us to reliably run the shows every day with minimal staff. We also like the unique Eyeconix feature that gives us a picture of the sound source under the channel meters. This feature offers intuitive help to the engineering staff.”
According to Hütker, the C10 fit not only the budget requirements, but also the physical and HVAC specifications, delivering large console power into a cost effective space without the need of a separate machine room and associated cooling. “We really appreciate working with the SSL team to give us exactly what we wanted,” explains Hütker. The agreed delivery slot was precisely met which was very important as we only had a very small timing window when we moved to the new location. We are very happy with our decision to install an SSL C10.”
Solid State Logic is the world’s leading manufacturer of analogue and digital audio consoles and provider of creative tools for music, broadcast and post production professionals. For more information about our award-winning products, please visit: www.solidstatelogic.com.