Omrop Fryslân has been working with the Axia Quasar XR -back then simply called the Axia Quasar- for its TV broadcasts since October 2020. In 2022, two more Axia Quasar SR consoles were added to their radio studios. We will discuss this with Martin Wijbenga, Broadcast Engineer at Omrop Fryslân.
"I can be quick about Axia Quasar; I am very enthusiastic about it.
It looks neat, the workflow is right and they also sound very clean with good EQ and pleasant dynamics."
The choice for the Axia Quasar XR in the TV studio wasn't an intentional one, only one version of the Quasar was available at the time. "The choice for Axia Quasar was very conscious, though. This integrates seamlessly with the Telos Infinity intercom panels in our control room and the reliability of the smaller Axia systems already present was the deciding factor." This studio not only hosts daily news broadcasts, but also an entertaining Saturday morning program and other talk shows. With the preset show profiles that an be selected in the Quasar monitor module, this poses no problems. Sources, monitor selection, volumes and settings for the Telos VX are automatically applied in the profile. Each user can therefore get started right after selecting their own show profile.
They work partially self-supported at the radio studios so there was a need for a simpler work surface. Because of this, the choice was made for the Quasar-SR fader modules. Both radio studios of Omrop Fryslân have an identical mixer consisting of a monitor module with 16 faders. For the talents, this ensures that they can easily switch to the other studio without having to change their workflow.
Now that all systems are running on Livewire+/AES67, you can see the advantages of working with fully-fledged network-based audio. Martin points out: "Sources are available everywhere, for example to record something at an editing spot. Routing sources is very easy to do in the consoles, without relying on separate applications, and the addition of Axia Pathfinder in the network allows you to go all the way with creating control panels. For example, our producer work-spaces consist of an OmniPlayer machine with an HTML5 insert of a control panel from Pathfinder, with which you choose presets and open and close faders."