Originally built in 1941 as part of “Film City Vienna”, Synchron Stage Vienna was one of the world’s premier recording studios for recording film scores with large orchestras. The Vienna Symphonic Library (VSL), a developer of orchestral sample libraries and music production software, purchased the building in 2013 and renovated the entire building over the next two years, returning it to the original purpose of orchestral recordings. Synchron Stage Vienna covers an area of over 21,000 square feet (2,000 square meters), offering ample space for several studios, control rooms, instrument storage, and regeneration areas for artists. The return to its former standing as a go-to orchestral scoring stage for the modern era was made possible in part by Audinate’s Dante audio protocol. Dante’s low latency transmission, ease of signal routing, and high adoption rate amongst Pro AV manufacturers made it the perfect choice for the retrofit.
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During renovation, VSL identified a need to playback and record up to 144 channels in different sample rates from 48-192 kHz on multiple digital audio workstations (DAWs) simultaneously. The recordings needed to be made using the lowest possible latency with minimum setup time to be able to record several sessions in a single day. System designer Walters Storyk Design Group (WSDG) and integrator TSAMM were brought in to provide the technical solution for VSL’s audio requirements.
“A MADI-based system serving around 500 channels at 192 kHz would introduce too many routing issues and potential points of error,” said Mario Reithofer, director, TSAMM. “We had discussions with a number of manufacturers offering audio-over-IP (AoIP) products before we found one that was able to accommodate VSL’s requirement. It also happened to be a Dante-enable product which was perfect for our needs.”
Two control rooms are connected to the huge 5,800-square-foot (540-square-meter) Main Hall and smaller Stage B, as well as several screening and editing rooms. Both control rooms feature multiple DAWs interconnected via Dante, resulting in up to six different sampling rates traversing the audio network at any given time. Extensive testing was conducted to ensure the lowest system latency could be achieved, clocking in at a stunning 0.7 milliseconds. That low latency was especially important for representatives of film production companies and award-winning composers who attend live recording sessions remotely at Synchron Stage Vienna to accommodate their often grueling recording schedules.
“Synchron Stage Vienna is a beautiful architectural space befitting its status as a leading scoring stage,” said Bernd Mazagg, technical director and chief recording engineer, VSL. “With Dante’s low latency and huge number of supported endpoints, it was the obvious choice for connecting all the rooms and equipment together.”
