Tonzauber installs Lawo mc²36 MkII console in its new OB van

Service provider Tonzauber, which specializes in recording classical music for broadcast environments, has reinforced its OB van with a Les leurs mc²36 MkII mixing console.

George Burdicek, who founded the studio in 1998, confesses that the integration of the mobile unit is the consummation of his dream. The project came along with the pandemic, at a time when agility was essential for the development of his business. Similarly, the Austrian market needed a solution like theirs: ready to mix an orchestra and thus complement an audiovisual production.

After studying various possibilities, from trailers to vans, planning began in August for what was to become a medium-sized OB Van. After a period of integration and design by television service provider Euro-TV, the vehicle was completed in spring 2022.

Among his bets is a bold approach to IP technology: “Our entire vehicle is based on RAVENNA / AES67 technology, which gives me a level of flexibility not available in the broadcast sector before. My smallest stagebox is 1RU and offers eight microphone inputs, 4 line outputs, and is powered by PoE. This makes it suitable for distributed use and can replace long analog multicores,” Burdicek says. “These granular stageboxes, as well as additional devices such as DirectOut’s prodigy.mp for taking over MADI and Dante signals including clock decoupling, leave hardly anything to be desired,” notes Burdicek.

Lawo in Tonzauber’s new mobile unit

Based on his many years of experience with Les leurs mixing consoles, Burdicek decided to integrate a Lawo mc²36 MkII All-in-One production console. With its A__UHD core technology, it offers 256 channels of processing available at both 48 and 96 kHz, making it possible to master large orchestral productions. Its All-in-One mixer is natively compatible with ST2110, AES67, RAVENNA and Ember+, and features up to 864 channels of I/O and local I/O capacity. The mc²36 MkII also offers extensive connectivity, including 3 redundant IP network interfaces, 16 Lawo quality mic/line inputs, 16 line outputs, 8 AES3 inputs and outputs, 8 GPIO connectors and an SFP MADI port.

The demands of the monitoring environment are high, so an elaborately acoustically treated superstructure was mounted on a truck chassis, with the outer shell and interior insulated from each other and fitted with 10 cm thick insulation. Designed for immersive audio, the truck can accommodate mixing for Dolby Atmos and is equipped with a 7.1.4 sound system.

Debut with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra

Tonzauber’s new mobile unit made its debut in May 2022 at the “Fest der Freude” (“Festival of Joy”), an open-air concert by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, a live work for the Austrian public broadcaster ORF. Further broadcasts and recordings of concerts by renowned orchestras followed, such as the London Symphony Orchestra with Sir Simon Rattle, the Bruckner Orchestra Linz at the “Gmunden Open Air”, and a television broadcast of an Austrian operetta at the Summer Arena event at the City Theater Baden.

“The biggest and most elaborate production so far was the performance of the opera Nabucco by Guiseppe Verdi at “Oper im Steinbruch” (“Opera in the Quarry”) in St. Margarethen in the Burgenland county,” Burdicek relates. “I had 128 channels to mix there, so I have to be able to set up the console perfectly in order to keep track of everything and quickly reach buttons or faders without thinking. That’s the only way to handle a live concert mix of that complexity, and Lawo gives me a big advantage doing so because I can label everything very easily, I am supported by the color-coded controls, and I can also work with logos and symbols from the new mc²36 MKII. All of this dramatically increases the overview,” Burdicek emphasizes.