RAS Audio Use SADiE On Prank Patrol

A Cambridge-based UK manufacturer of audio interfaces, test and measurement equipment and logging systems, has highlighted the power and flexibility of the SADiE PCM8 for television audio production.
The company employed it on the forthcoming series of CBBC's extremely successful Prank Patrol.
RAS Audio Services have 'pushed the boundaries' in their new project, produced by Bakermedia in Manchester.
Scheduled to air from January on BBC2 on Saturday mornings, the series follows the team of Barney and the Ninjas as they play elaborate pranks on viewers’ unsuspecting friends and family.
Mummies come to life, aliens land, robots bust through walls... all of which is a far cry from RAS Audio Services’ core business of recording brass bands, choirs and chamber music.
Richard Scott from RAS commented: "The show is very in your face and has well over 1000 spot effects in just under half an hour.
"There's a lot of topping and tailing to do and cosmetic editing of the dialogue, some of which is of necessity not ideally recorded.
"It's also quite a complicated show; during the prank itself there will usually be up to 8 live mic streams, plus voiceovers, multiple effects tracks and two or three music beds. As a result I obviously valued SADiE's very fast editing and processing abilities."
The combination of Richard's experience and the SADiE PCM8's features meant that RAS Audio was easily up to the new challenge.
Not only did this include handling a huge amount of spot effects, but also dealing with the clandestinely recorded sound captured from the hidden mics as the pranks unfold.
The PCM8 is an 8 input/8 output system running full SADiE 5 software. Hardware comprises a PCI plug in card and provides 8 channels of line input and output as well as digital I/O.
It also utilises the SADiE Series 5 hardware platform to meet the demand for more powerful high-speed processing of today's high-resolution audio formats up to 192kHz/24bit.
In terms of its audio workflow, Prank Patrol, is offlined on Final Cut Pro, after which Richard receives an OMF for the audio and a QuickTime movie for guide pictures.
"I use SSL's Pro-Convert to convert the OMF to AES31, which SADiE then opens directly," he explained.
"I have the full SADiE video option, which directly plays the QT movie in its own window within SADiE. I mix the programme down in the box with some external processing onto a spare stereo stream, then convert to MP3 within SADiE to send for approval. I send the final mix as Broadcast WAV either on disk or via FTP, where it is then imported back into FCP for the online."
He concluded: "So far we've had no issues at all with standards and sync, the master just snaps straight into place on the online system."
(BMcN/BMcc)