Majestic Sound Productions agreed to face one of the biggest challenges of live production so far: the live TV broadcast of the opening of a sarcophagus in the middle of Egypt. For live audio mixing, the company chosen by Discovery Channel decided to adopt the Calrec’s Brio36 compact digital broadcast audio console.

It wasn’t easy, but according to Mark L. Butler, owner of Majestic Sound Productions, the Calrec device overcame the challenges it has to face: “Being in the middle of the desert made for a lot of logistical issues and problems. We dealt with sandstorms, rain, high winds, and even poisonous cobras and desert vipers, but the Calrec Brio offered the perfect amount of ruggedness to get the job done.”

Although the core of the show was the live event, Butler also explored the tombs during the pre-taped segments and while planning out the show with Calrec solutions: “We climbed down 30-foot ladders and then had to crawl through tunnels and climb over sarcophaguses. In one tomb, we had to make our way through a 40-foot-long tunnel, all the while trying to avoid stepping on 3,000-year-old skeletons and artifacts, in order to set up our RF system. We were not allowed to bring in any antennas or source the RF gear from outside the country, which proved to be the biggest challenge of the shoot. We were using a lot of mismatched RF gear to connect the talent to multiple receivers.”

It was the first time Majestic Sound Productions used Calrec Brio, but the results were optimal: “I generally work on Calrec’s Apollo or Artemis, so this was my first show on the Brio. The learning curve was pretty easy and soon I was navigating as though I work on it all the time. There is so much power in such a compact package, and I loved being able to ‘draw’ EQ on the screen. Before the Brio, smaller trucks wouldn’t necessarily have the budget or the space for a larger Calrec, so the Brio really fills a missing piece in the mobile audio puzzle.”

Helen Carr, regional sales manager at Calrec, is proud of Brio’s performance: “This is literally one of the most intense productions we’ve ever seen, and we’re glad that Calrec was part of such an historic event. Mark was mixing on a Brio in incredibly inhospitable conditions, so this is a great example of how portable, lightweight, powerful and rugged the Brio console truly is.”