21/08/2026
At German broadcaster NDR, 24 analog channels with mic preamps and AD conversion are installed in their AX32 units, and the channels are divided between two rooms.
Studio 3 is a larger room suited for tracking of one or several actors, as well as Foley recording. The secondary room, Studio 3a, is designed for recording of single voices such as recording of e-books.
Each of the AX32 units connects to two individual Sequoia systems via MADI, but they are also cross-connected via MADI for redundancy purposes. In fact, redundancy is a major focal point at NDR. This is not based on specific bad experiences in the past, but simply because live radio, or productions with extremely tight deadlines demand a reliable system from end to end.
Therefore, the two Sequoia systems run in parallel for redundancy, and likewise the microphone channels from Studio 3 go to one of the AX32 units, while the microphones from Studio 3a go to the second AX32. Even if one of the units should need service, NDR will always be able to operate and for a broadcaster the only things that is more important than an efficient production workflow is to avoid downtime.
Overall, six stereo signals are being routed to the sound engineer, and assistant sound engineer, a producer, an editor and two voice talents in separate recording booths. The first four signals mentioned are going through the DA converters of the AX32 units to studio monitors and headphones in the control rooms, but the audio streams going to the talents are kept within the digital domain, connecting via Audinate’s Dante IP Audio protocol to KLANG:quelle headphone amps.
Read more about this setup in this user story.👇👇👇
