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The move to virtualiza on started with the virtual mixer. Then, broadcasters began developing their own unique virtual interfaces and along the way, something unexpected happened.
“It turns out that what we’ve learned about so ware apps is directly transferable to hardware,” said Kelly Parker, Wheatstone’s eld engineer who oversaw the design of a new con gurable console based on his years in the eld designing and installing new studios.
By making hard surface controls completely programmable – and con nually re-programmable – through a GUI similar to ScreenBuilder, we can say goodbye to xed hardware. Instead of mapping physical switches, bu ons and knobs to a par cular func on on the console that can never
be changed, any physical bu on anywhere on the LXE console can be programmed at any me for talkback, cue, start/stop or for toggling between func ons, which can also be ed to di erent elements on the network such as microphones.
We owe much of this adaptability to the matura on of IT and the evolu on of Linux in par cular. “We’ve gone to Linux kernels that are easy to manipulate, and a lot of them are open source so we can run them on di erent kinds of
back ends, and that opens the game up to do all kinds of things,” commented Parker.
Among the many new capabili es resul ng from this exible
architecture is a more dynamic split-console con gura on, whereby two or more board ops can
work o of separate LXE fader banks in the same room
or separate rooms networked together in order to share mutes, tallies, speakers and other resources. Un l now, there were limita ons to spli ng up fader banks. “IP audio consoles were tradi onally bound to one mix engine for every surface and that really limited how they could be used,” explained Parker. Close collabora ons of this nature o en required a complete console reboot, making real- me sharing of resources and mixes imprac cal for many studio work ows.
With this new exible architecture, we now have the ability to network mul ple surfaces through a shared I/O engine or network a surface to mul ple engines. With mul ple consoles accessing a common I/O point, talent can share sources and feeds in real- me, plus open and close
mics, apply signal processing, handle IFB backlinks and essen ally work closely together from separate LXE fader banks located anywhere inside, or outside, the studio. They can even co-produce from an auxiliary LXE Windows tablet in real- me while another board op is ac vely producing on the main LXE surface!
All the bu ons and surface hardware on the LXE is programmable through standard scripts that can be set up through ConsoleBuilder, a pla orm similar to ScreenBuilder but speci c to LXE. You can write your own custom scripts to create func ons unique to your studio, and add your own graphics, logos and images as needed. Even more signi cant, you can do so much more with the hardware you do have. One bu on can do a myriad of func ons;
it can change color when it changes state to another func on, for example.
In addi on, remember the virtual news interface we told you about earlier, the one with clock, weather, profanity delay status, mic status and RSS feed all on one handy virtual screen? You can add this or any customized screen of your crea on onto the LXE desk. Everything is on one, mul -func on screen for monitoring and controlling elements in the WheatNet-IP network as well as news feeds from a local channel or weather feeds from NOAA.
The LXE forever console is the rst of its kind that can be reprogrammed for any applica on, any me. l
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