FX & Total Audio co-host Pyramix event at Shepperton

London hire specialist FX Rentals has hosted an evening at Shepperton Studios, in conjunction with UK audio distributor Total Audio Solutions, to showcase the Pyramix Virtual Studio digital audio workstation and Vcube hard disk recorder.
The event was attended by more than 30 film and television recording engineers, including members of AMPS (Association of Motion Picture Sound), APPS (Association of Post Production Studios) and IBS (Institute of Broadcast Sound), plus Shepperton and Pinewood engineers.
Claude Cellier, Managing Director of Merging Technologies, the Swiss manufacturer of Pyramix, together with technical consultant Maurice Engler, and Total Audio's business manager Paul Mortimer were also on hand to demonstrate the benefits of using Pyramix in a film environment.
FX Rentals was the first UK hire company to invest in Merging Technologies' Pyramix Virtual Studio digital audio workstation, purchasing three fully-configured systems from Total Audio to meet the requirements of its film and music clients.
FX Rentals' inventory has recently been boosted by the addition of VCube, a hard-disk based video player/recorder system designed specifically for use in audio post production. VCube can operate as a standalone unit, or as part of a multi-system network, fully integrated with Pyramix, through standard Ethernet.
One of the evening's attendees was location sound mixer and sound designer Alan O'Duffy, who has worked on more than 50 television productions and feature films.
"The evening was informative, fun and businesslike, and it was great to meet the guys behind the Pyramix system," he said. "FX are a great bunch; I normally only see them delivering boxes, so to meet these guys who get me out of trouble, and catch up with their news was cool. Pyramix seems to be a user-friendly vehicle for location sound guys to get their heads around and deliver the product to the cinema seat. What intrigues me is that the tracklaying business can now virtually be done on a laptop."
Pyramix Virtual Studio, which runs on the Windows XP platform, is a sophisticated and intuitive audio workstation providing up to 64 simultaneous inputs and outputs with real time editing, cross fades and comprehensive mixing functions. It can be configured as a dedicated system for TV and film postproduction with video integration, multichannel music and mastering for CD, DDP, DVD AND DSD/SACD. A range of I/O options are available including ADAT, AES/EBU, TDIF, SDIF, analogue and MADI.
Pyramix also offers instant sync to PAL, NTSC and HDTV, and a range of audio effects and plug-ins.
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