Axia Control surfaces/engines

[shure]

Anyone using the Axia Element/SmartSurface "consoles" and audio engine? Impressions? Holding up after use? Thanks.

 

[test123]

I have been wondering the same thing. I consult a network that is looking to build new studios. Axia is one of the choices.

I have heard some folks have had installation issues. Apparently you need a good bit of IT knowledge to make it work.

Test123

 

[FFoti1]

I have been wondering the same thing. I consult a network that is looking to build new studios. Axia is one of the choices.

I have heard some folks have had installation issues. Apparently you need a good bit of IT knowledge to make it work.

Test123

Hmmm...Judging from the hundreds of studios that have installed Axia in the few short years it has been available, have not heard about many installation issues.

-Frank Foti

 

[cmac]

I have had an Axia system installed for 2 years now. Awesome!! We have both an Elements and Smart Surfaces with about 18 nodes. Surfaces are holding up better than any analog console I have even used. The only issue has been with one fader needing replacing, but it was as a result of a coffee spill. Upgrades are relativley painless. As a company we have about 20 locations where we have installed Axia, from small markets to large ones.

Cheers

 

[DoctorWu]

I've got a good deal of experience with the Axia gear, having installed it in several studios and assisted in the installation of several others. Here's my take, FWIW:

• It's amazingly flexible. You can make it do just about anything you want to do, from building really intricate automated routing scenes to sending custom mix-minuses to multiple codecs. And there's about 5 different ways of accomplishing any one thing ;D
• The consoles take abuse well and don't break. I've been working with them for 3-4 years now and have not yet had a module out of service due to switch or fader failure. The jocks like them too because they can be given individual setups that can be recalled quickly and automatically apply voice processing.
• You can add more network capacity by plugging in a few more boxes whenever you need, and the I/O is in the studio instead of some remote card cage. There's no mainframe and the network architecture is distributed, so if some noob weekender dumps coke into a network switch in one studio, the rest of the network stays up.
• You can have really small consoles or really big ones; it's all customizable with a lot of module choices. There's special modules for controlling Telos phone gear, but you can hook it up to any other brand easy enough.
• The installed cost is low. I had to do a full cost comparison for the first few studios I put in, and their claims of saving money are true. Installation especially goes fast; what used to take me a two weeks to do I can now get installed in 3-4 days.
• It sounds amazing! All the spots and music stay digital right to the STL, so there's no A/D/A conversions to deal with. Where there are A/D converters, like for mics or Denon decks, they're HQ units with great headroom and no noise.
• You can administer the whole thing off-site. I love this!

Now some things to be aware of:

• It's a network, and just like any computer network, you need to do a little homework, assigning IP addresses and such. It's not plug-and-play, but once you've set up a room, you've got the hang and the next one goes fast. I've configured all my installs by hand, but they've got a new software tool that'll autoconfigure the network for you. I haven't tried it yet but I plan to.
• You've got to read the manuals the first time through. Like I said, it's very flexible, and there are a lot of options to set up initially.
• There are SO MANY options that it can be a little confusing to set up at first. In fact, I recommend locking the consoles so that the jocks can't play with things like EQ, voice processing, phase inversion, stuff like that. Set it once and lock it down.
• Setting up the network switch can be a booger, but after my first couple I found out that if you ask, Axia will set up your switches for you no charge.

As for installation issues, I haven't had any more than with any other system. Just like SAS or Logitek, the bigger the system the more complicated it gets, but the Axia support guys are good and they're on both coasts. There's a bunch of Axia studios out there now, so I'd say go do a site visit and talk to the CEs yourself.

- Doc