Austria’s PDV Records is a music production and AV services company that specializes in classical music and music for media and motion pictures. Founded in 2007 by Volker Werner, Philipp Treiber and David Menke, the trio’s expertise spans the full audio engineering spectrum, while their two studios – one in Vienna, one in Paris – are kitted out with the most cutting edge technology on the market. Headliner finds out how they have recently upgraded their creative spaces with Merging Technologies’ Horus and Anubis solutions, and why they took the plunge to become a fully certified Dolby Atmos facility.
In PDV’s Paris studio, which is run by Menke and deals predominantly in music for media and film, Atmos mixing was already up and running. Menke, however, was keen to do more in the format, while Werner and Treiber, running the Vienna studio, were keen to harness the power of Atmos mixing in musical productions as well.
Crucial to the firm’s Atmos certification is Merging Technologies, with PDV adding a second Horus AD/DA interface and an Anubis controller to its Vienna facility. The Merging Anubis/Horus combination provides PDV an ideal monitoring solution when using Atmos or any other immersive format on account of its high-end performance audio, easily connected IP networking and cost-effective price point. Furthermore, control of the monitoring setup from Anubis is designed to be powerful, convenient and easy to implement. Indeed, many Atmos recording or mastering facilities already have Merging Hapi or Horus devices.
At the heart of the Vienna studio is a Merging Horus networked audio interface capable of running ultra-high quality DSD/DXD format audio. PDV's initial foray into the Merging universe began six years ago, as Werner, who oversees sound design and picture direction, explains: “We needed extremely high-quality preamps for our recordings. We compared a few systems, and Horus was the one we liked the best from a sonic point of view.
“Initially, some cards needed replacing to integrate it properly within the setup, but those issues were quickly resolved, and since then, the Horus has been functioning really well and is an integral part of our operations - it’s extremely flexible,” he continues. “We use it for onsite recordings where we have a system with 48 preamps and a few outputs. Our main connections are via RAVENNA but we also use MADI if we’re connecting to OB vans, for example. We use the DirectOut mic cards for splits because sometimes we facilitate simultaneous recording and live broadcast at the same time, so this setup allows us to split audio feeds in-the-box, without having to use additional hardware. Also, the numerous AES inputs add to the versatility of production capabilities.”
