The Core 256 units are important devices on the Spiritland ONE Audio Outside Broadcast vehicle used to mix large scale live music programmes.
 

Spiritland ONE has a Dante ecosystem, fully embracing AoIP technology and all the advantages that brings. With 1024 channels of I/O, and 800 redundant processing paths comes the need to be able to record a greater number of channels. In its initial guise, Spiritland ONE could record 2 x 128 channels with 256 channel backup. The installation of the DAD Core256 has allowed Spiritland to offer 256 record channels in triplicate as part of the standard rig. It acts as the I/O for both primary and backup recorders in the Spiritland ONE Audio truck. 
 

Co-Founding Director Antony Shaw states: “The ability to record this many channels in triplicate with such reliability enables us to keep our focus on the sound of the show rather than worrying about whether everything is going to be recorded.”

The Core 256 is a much needed solution, as the size of shows that Spiritland ONE works on have become increasingly larger over recent years. This means that in order to accommodate multi band setups and capture all incoming channels as well as mix stems and masters, being limited to 128 channels was no longer viable.

Recent examples include the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo 2022, which used a total of 234 tracks, and musical shows for both BBC One and Magic Radio regularly use more than 200 channels. Most recently, the BBC Big Night of Musicals show used all 256 channels.

Immersive formats, which are growing increasingly popular, are another component of recording live shows that increases the necessary channel count. When mixing shows live in immersive formats, the biggest issue is the number of channels used by mix stems that are utilised to build the ‘bed’ output. Previously Spirtland would have to use multiple record machines to stripe all the audio. They are now able to fit the majority of shows, including Atmos 5.1.4 mix stems into a single project thanks to the integrated Core 256 units.
 

Ease of use and reliability were obviously paramount factors. To test the setup, Core 256 was set up via Thunderbolt to a Mac Studio M1 Max, running Reaper. “The device was unboxed and installed on site on the rig day of a show and was up and running within 10 minutes of being turned on. We then routed 256 channels of audio and ran it for 12 hours straight without a single dropout or error. This, for us, ticked both the ease of use and reliability criteria. We love it!"