Calrec Audio has unveiled a new audio mixing system, Argo, that offers a new approach to audio mixing and is designed to keep pace with the changes broadcasters are experiencing in their production workflows.
Argo is fully modular with interchangeable hardware panels and uses Calrec’s time-served Assist UI at its core. This means that whether users are working on physical hardware panels or on a remote GUI, the user interface is both familiar and easy to drive.
Its modular panel system encourages broadcasters to adapt surface hardware to meet their unique requirements, with two mid-level rows of interchangeable panels on the larger Argo Q model, and one mid-level row on the compact Argo S model, the company said.
Argo is built around an expanded version of Calrec’s popular ImPulse IP core. ImPulse can also be located anywhere; the location of the control surface is not tied to the processing core. It can power up to four independent mix environments, including headless mixers accessed on the public internet, with each mixer able to access more than 2,350 processing paths on a single console; this provides enough power to deal with the biggest immersive and NGA mixing demands, the company said.
Argo’s panels are also interchangeable and can be placed wherever they are needed. This makes it easy to grow and adapt the console to individual requirements and it means the desk can easily be split for sub mixing or mixing in other locations.
Like all Calrec consoles, Argo builds on Calrec’s broadcast-specific and industry-leading surface redundancy. All control elements can be duplicated so an operator can use any panel to access inputs and controls, while fader scrolling functionality adds more protection. When combined with redundant hardware as standard, Argo provides SMTPE’s hitless packet merging alongside a second layer of hardware redundancy to guarantee broadcast uptime.
Argo includes optional AoIP IO modules which can be fitted directly into the control surface, with a variety of I/O options. These can be fitted into every section of the console to give the operator a variety of input options, make cabling more efficient and save space in external racking.
New operational features include: Key Inputs and Ducker; full EQ and Dynamics on Auxes and Tracks; Flexible Spill; User configurable colours for faders; Control Links; Inserts on Auxes; Variable slopes on EQ shelves and filters; Flexible panel layouts (Wilds). Argo has an increased DSP engine which provides 2496 channels on a single console, and physical flexibility up to eight sections to provide up to 96 faders. Multiple sections can be combined or geographically diverse, while the enhanced ImPulse core provides enough horsepower to drive up to four Argo mix environments on one IP core.
