Following the NASCAR circuit to eight cities this year is the Speed Channel’s new traveling talent/variety show “Fast Track to Fame,” in which a talent contest is held the night before Sunday’s race for a live audience. The televised show is aired on Monday night on the Speed Channel. Along for the ride is CP Entertainment’s new HD audio trailer, which houses a 32-fader Stagetec AURUS digital mixing console.
The trailer is responsible for the providing the 5.1 surround submix for all the performances of the evening. At the stage, located in “merchandise alley” outside the racetrack, are 64 mic preamps and 32 line returns connected via fiber to the truck. With a different setup at each location, fiber is the best and lightest option for interconnection, which is standard for the AURUS. “It’s nice to be able to pull up to the compound, run the NEXUS stagebox out with the fiber cable and not have to worry about any separate connections for sync and control” said Kevin O’Brien, the EIC for the CP trailer.
Manning the console controls is John “Boots” Mehrmann. After the season’s second production of “Fast Track” in Atlanta, he said, “The AURUS is ideal for this type of application. Being a versatile console that can be set up how I like to operate, I was quickly feeling comfortable and able to concentrate on the performance and the director. Whatever requests were thrown my way, I was able to get the system configured and signals routed where they needed to go.”
Designed around a direct-access aesthetic with analog-style access to all functions, the AURUS is Stagetec’s solution to a wide range of broadcast applications. With its record of high-profile use in Europe, the AURUS has proven increasingly popular in American OB trucks for its fast setup time, compact size, full redundancy, low power consumption and outstanding audio quality.
