The hosts of The Voice of Georgia
The Voice, a hugely successful singing competition reality show in America, recently had its premiere as The Voice of Georgia in Georgia. Imedi TV, Georgia’s largest privately owned television broadcaster, handled the show’s live mixing, recording, and broadcast from September 2012 through the middle of January 2013. The program was highly anticipated and turned out to be a huge success, with the biggest audience the channel has ever had for this type of show.
Before the show began, Gerard Albo, FOH mixing engineer for Imedi TV, was on a mission to build the broadcast studio from scratch. He immediately selected an Avid VENUE Profile System with a MADI Option Card, with help from Sound City LTD, a sound equipment rental company in Georgia. “I’ve relied on VENUE Profile ever since it first came out for all of my shows, including Amy Winehouse, Anastacia, Patti Smith, and many more,” says Albo. “VENUE Profile is the logical choice—affordable yet compatible for a demanding live broadcast environment.”
The Profile System is perfectly suited to a show such as this, as it provides the studio-quality sound needed to enhance the performances, with the power, ease of use, and flexibility that fast-paced broadcast facilities demand.
“The VENUE software is of an exceptional design, extremely reliable, and one of the most distinguished features of the Profile [System],” Albo says. “It allowed me to work with ‘lightning speed’ and concentrate on my mix rather than technical issues.”
To integrate the system into the broadcaster’s existing infrastructure, the MADI Option Card also proved to be invaluable. “The VENUE MADI Option Card to the system was an absolute must,” Albo says. “The card allowed us to do multitrack archives of the shows, to record sound checks and dress rehearsals, and to then tweak my mixes during downtime. Swapping the source from the Stage Rack to MADI is an easy and fast process.”
Gerard Albo, broadcast mix engineer for Imedi TV, and Edgar Sebis, owner of Sound City PA in Tbilisi
A view of Imedi TV’s The Voice of Georgia studio and stage