If the following isn’t a testament to our ability to play just about any venue, we don’t know what is.  

Picture a large media center for a TV station, two radio stations, multiple streaming channels, and a statewide public media service. All in a five-story building, complete with two live performance stages for everything from a small orchestra and live bands to political debates.  

Then add the players: Ross production automation for TV, ENCO DAD playback automation for radio, and consoles ranging from our larger TV production mixing console to smaller radio surfaces and virtual interfaces…all tied together with WheatNet-IP networking. 

The studio gigs don’t get more fitting for us, a company with quite a few musicians, than WOSU Public Media’s new 52,000-square-foot media center located on the campus of The Ohio State University, Columbus. 

Going the WheatNet-IP route meant the pubcaster could standardize on one common AoIP platform for all studios, media workflows, and presenters − from television and radio talent to college students and the occasional corporate or orchestra performance space rental. “That’s what got us into Wheatstone,” said Michael Meadows, Director of Technology for WOSU Public Media. 

“We needed a higher end production board for TV and the live performance studios that had all the EQ functions and the ability to do multitrack through it. But we also needed everyday radio console surfaces for the on-air studios. Only Wheatstone gave us both, and once we IP’d that audio we could manage and route it anywhere,” he explained. 

Livestreaming is accessible everywhere in the media complex, flowing from radio to TV to streaming channels and even across the campus and the 15th & High University District. “That’s where the true connection comes in, because while the entirely of our new $32 million facility is connected – most of it through WheatNet-IP audio networking – it’s also connecting into the community,” said Meadows. 

WOSU Public Media serves the local arts and education community as well as greater Columbus through its WOSU PBS television station and its NPR WOSU 89.7 news and Classical 101 FM stations, along with a number of podcasts, streaming channels, and digital media outlets.

Centralizing all of that into one media center, instead of scattered across the campus as before, made it possible to share programming and control between multiple media and purposes. WheatNet-IP feeds WOSU’s statewide network of radio transmitters and links into the WOSU Classrooms multimedia lab, which is supported by the WOSU television and radio studios.

The WOSU project was the perfect gig for Wheatstone because it includes all the players: consoles ideal for TV and radio; fixed, turret, or virtual interfaces; true native IP audio into both radio and TV automation systems; and just about every product from every AoIP category known to broadcasting.

It involved almost a dozen Wheatstone consoles, 24 talent stations, 30-plus I/O Blades (including MADI Blades for I/O between networks), and routable mic processors for three on-air studios, five production/multipurpose studios, a large news suite, two TV studios (with associated control rooms and master control), plus two performance spaces. Eleven audio studios are devoted to 89.7 FM and Classical 101 on the second floor alone, all installed by Diversified Systems.

One of the two performance spaces is the open 2,200-square-foot Ross Community Studio event space that can seat up to 120 people. It can be routed to our larger TV mixing consoles with true native IP audio into the Ross production automation system for producing live events and other multi-mix productions. Robotic cameras hanging in the space (as well as in the radio talk studio) are automated to microphones through the WheatNet-IP audio network, the audio of which is embedded into video through the Ross production automation system. 

The same large-frame console also sits in the two WOSU TV control studios for live mixing local shows such as Broad & High, Columbus Neighborhoods, and Columbus On The Record, the mics of which feed into a stage box that includes our I/O Blades so audio can be routed to anywhere there’s a Wheatstone console. 

Another smaller performance space sits on the second floor adjacent to the Classical 101 on-air studio for live performances, which are mixed on a WheatNet-IP console surface made for radio with the ideal balance of audio tools onboard and in the network. 

The result is that anyone can record, play, or produce a program from any talk or performance studio or remote location, and just about anyone −from A1s producing a concert to first-year students learning the ropes − can mix it in any studio in the building. 

The gigs don’t get much better than this. 

200+ interconnected AoIP elements engineered, manufactured, and supported under one roof.

Here, in the Wheat Lab, is where it’s all staged, preconfigured, and tested before arriving at your facility as a plug-in-ready WheatNet-IP audio network system. We set up all console surfaces, I/O Blades, talent stations, mic processing, and control panels for multiple studios, all networked together. We include Ethernet switches, AoIP drivers and apps, specialized scripting, and all IP addressing and logic control.

We run the entire multi-studio system through its paces, including GPI/O triggers and machine starts and stops, before sending it to you as a complete, ready-to-go network. Wheatstone factory staging can save time and onsite engineering expenses, and because it’s all done under the same roof as our manufacturing, engineering, and support, we can easily test, adjust, and reconfigure your studio system as needed before it even leaves our factory. Entire multi-studio WheatNet-IP audio networked systems arrive at their destinations plug-in ready, and even the final setup can be done online by factory technicians. As always, because it’s WheatNet-IP, once it’s all powered up and plugged in, additions and changes can be done with just a few clicks.  

The Wheatstone Lab is located in our factory, just a few steps away from where we engineer, manufacture, and support the 200+ AoIP elements that make up the WheatNet-IP audio network.

Our studio experts Chris Penny of Agile Broadcast and Marcus Bekker of Southern Broadcast weighed in on virtual versus hardware consoles in a recent Wheatstone sponsored panel discussion during #RadioWeek.

“Especially dealing with these bigger studios, these guys and gals are working with tactile [console controls] a lot … They can’t get that with touchscreen, but touchscreen has cost advantages, maintenance advantages, it’s compact. You can integrate it nicely into the furniture. There are applications for both.” -Marcus Bekker 

“If you ever get the opportunity to watch a racing broadcast, they are basically doing an OB every three and a half minutes and these guys are playing [the console] like a piano. They’re watching stats on screens and it’s an artform and they need faders and tactile control. The other end of the spectrum is voicetracking in a studio, and you can get away with not having a console and just a screen there.” -Chris Penny 

Get more tips from our studio experts Chris Penny of Agile Broadcast and Marcus Bekker of Southern Broadcast, along with Mike Dorris of Inrush Broadcasting Services, by clicking on a replay of Studio Project Planning, which was moderated by Jay Tyler and held during #RadioWeek last month. You can also download our Studio Project Planning ebook for additional project planning tips and tools.