Merging Insider Newsletter Monthly news from Merging Technologies

All our lives are being affected by COVID-19 but this has a particularly devastating effect on our customers who have seen projects cancelled overnight.

It has been heartwarming to see how many have adapted rooms at home to continue working and the innovation and imagination being employed to keep working.
Furthermore, Merging is enormously grateful for the support of our user base who have continued to renew their ASMs in these difficult times. It is a huge support for us and confirms the faith of our customers that eventually some sort of normality will return and music and recording will go from virtual to live once again. Thank you all.

MERGING+ANUBIS, article in Sound-On-Sound

Summary
A surprisingly small but astonishingly powerful RAVENNA network system controller and interface, with the added ability to link directly to a computer DAW, if necessary. The Anubis also features stunningly impressive preamps which offer over 136dB dynamic range, thanks to a dual-path A-D architecture.

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MERGING+ANUBIS Flexibility Is A Revelation To Jeremy Tusz

Originally from Canada, Jeremy Tusz was introduced to Pyramix during his time at McGill University, the Banff Centre, Tanglewood, and during a spell in Europe at Polyhymnia and Galaxy Studios. After returning to Canada and freelancing as an engineer/editor/producer on well over 100 albums, it soon became clear that if he had his own equipment, there were additional recording assignments that could be tackled. Soon after the Merging Horus was introduced in 2012, Jeremy had the opportunity to try one on a session, and he liked what he heard. That led to him purchasing a Horus fitted with 32 input and 8 output channels and two laptops running Pyramix Native. As I/O demands increased for larger orchestral film score work and clients began asking for DXD/DSD capabilities, a Hapi was added along with a PT64 card (for interfacing with a Pro Tools HD Native system), 16 channels of Premium AD and 8 channels of Premium DA to “mix n match” according to the session requirements.

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How To Wish The Danish Queen Happy Birthday COVID Style

The global response to COVID-19 varies from country to country but it seems to be universal that large public gatherings are not permitted. This affects musicians very seriously but it also has implications when it comes to a national celebration. Social media has been awash with inspirational videos of Italians singing from balconies and virtual gigs from musicians and singers who just want to perform. In Denmark there is a popular tradition of “FÆLLESSANG” which can be literally translated as “common-singing”, that is as popular now as ever before. The question is how to celebrate your Queen’s important birthday when public gatherings cannot take place and all of the celebrations are cancelled. The challenge of leading the nation in song was picked up by the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra who wanted to capture more than 100 musicians and singers on video to lead hundreds of thousands in singing Happy 80th Birthday to Queen Margarethe.

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A Rushed Return From The Antipodes

We have appointed tm systems our new distributor in Australia earlier this year. Training and getting the team up to speed was necessary and therefore Maurice Engler was traveling first to Sydney and then to Melbourne and Brisbane to train them and also to participate and accompany them to the annual Entech Road Show. Followed on the way back with stops and a visit to Malaysia with JAA System and Indonesia with Chossy Pratama for seminars and workshops until March 29th... That was the plan.

Departure was set on March 8th via the Middle East and attention was paid during bookings not to take a flight via Chinese territories as Covid 19 consequences were already hard lock down in some territories and airports. Flight from Brisbane to Singapore has already been canceled due to lack of passengers but easy and fast rebooking onto another flight was not a problem by that time.
The first week went well, tm systems were really excited about all the possibilities that Merging is offering and Entech Sydney was a successful show. During that time Northern Italy, neighbouring country of Switzerland with many ties to it, was implementing its lock down. Some doubts started to be raised about the next step to Melbourne, but Australians are positive people….

Monday morning March 16th in Melbourne; getting together with the tm systems team flying in from Sydney and preparing Entech show for the next day. Whilst waiting for their arrival the entire hotel lobby was watching the prime minister of the State of Victoria (where Melbourne is located) live declaring state of emergency over Covid 19. Suddenly reality was clear, many things will change in the coming weeks, days and even hours.
Shortly after, receiving news from Switzerland showed another side of serious changes, the lockdown was imposed, schools closed.
In the early afternoon, checking on the exhibition centre’s website and Entech’s website if the show would be canceled was a repetitive gesture. And this is how the constant check of 100’s of news, airline and information websites started for the coming days nearly 24 hours around the clock.

In the late afternoon, the people from Jakarta (the last destination of the trip) let us know that all events would be canceled. Trip changes needed to be made.

That Monday evening, we still could have a nice dinner with the tm system team in Melbourne, we’ve learned that Brisbane show would be canceled and that the tm system team would return to Sydney the next day.
In the next 48 hours decisions about returning to Switzerland had to be made. Knowing that it is not everyday that Merging can send someone to the other side of the world, and at the same time the longer the waiting time, the bigger the difficulties would appear rebooking flights as more and more people would like to return home.
Reaching by phone the Middle Eastern airline (other means of communication were not possible) on a very costly call centre took more than 1 hour. The idea was to rebook from Melbourne to home instead of Jakarta to Switzerland. And it was possible for the next day, with extra $ of course, as it was a personal decision, so they claimed. This tranquility of mind lasted only a few hours until they cancelled that very newly rebooked flight.
Reaching the call centre again – this time calling the French Middle Eastern airline number as in France, it is forbidden to charge for extra money for call centres – it took 2 hours to get hold of an agent. Who actually wasn’t even aware of those cancellations!

After checking internally the veracity of the cancellations, he offered either to rebook to another date with a cost or to reimburse the flight. Meanwhile it was crucial to see if booking with another company flying from Melbourne to Switzerland was possible; after some search a solution existed with another Middle Eastern company. During the cancelation process of one airline, booking with the other went through. It was important not to lose both possibilities. Decision was also taken to fly to Zurich as it is a hub instead of Geneva which is a smaller airport and could ultimately cancel more flights.
Plane was scheduled to depart very early morning on Thursday March 19th. Would the plane depart? Will the airline cancel the flight? Would Australia allow the plane to land and to leave? All those questions turned in heads with hundreds of checks on websites until reality took place; we took off.

Arriving at early night in Zurich after nearly 20 hours of flight was a shock; a locked down airport and town with a few hundreds of people going through customs without any distancing or checks.
The next morning the empty big Zurich Hauptbahnof train station was confirming that another world was ahead of us... at least for some time.

Virtual Performances

Musicians are constantly creative and look for ways to keep entertaining the listeners and the global lockdown has spawned several interesting and successful productions. All of these were created with Merging equipment integral to the recording, editing and mixing process.
Here are some wonderful performances by Orchestre National de France performing Ravel’s Bolero, from the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra performing Nimrod from the Enigma Variations by Elgar, and perhaps the most unusual, the 80th birthday serenades for Queen Margarethe of Denmark. All are outstanding given the fact that the majority of the recordings were made on smartphones!

For more information on these productions, see the making of Ravel's Bolero by the Orchestre National de France, (in french), of the Nimrod performance by Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and of the 80th birthday serenades for the Queen of Denmark.

DO TRY THIS AT HOME!

Many Merging customers have no choice but to work at home and despite the slowdown in new recordings, it seems many of them have taken their gear home and made some impressive installations.

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RAVENNA/AES67 webinars in French and English

Even if you are not a Webinar fanatic, this could be the proper time for you to update/refresh your knowledge of all things Audio over IP related and join our own Nicolas Sturmel who has presented a beginner’s guide to RAVENNA/AES67 and a more advanced tutorial 24 hours later. These are available in French and English on our YouTube channel.

AES67/RAVENNA (beginners) - AES67/RAVENNA (advanced)

AES67/RAVENNA en francais (débutant) - AES67/RAVENNA en francais (avancé)