Audioarts Lightning 16 – Digital Console

Audioarts and Wheatstone introduce the Audioarts Lightning, a new radio mixer for live on-air use as a standalone console with the latest modern conveniences such as USB and Bluetooth® connectivity. The Audioarts Lightning comes in 12 or 16 channel configurations and features a modular design with four channel input panels and a Master/Monitor panel with linear faders for headphone and control room level control. All faders are made of conductive plastic and all switches are LED illuminated. Input channels have A / B source selection, with balanced line on source A and trimmable line from -10 to +4 on B. Audioarts Lightningstandard features include four stereo program buses, two auto-mix-minuses for calls, four microphone preamplifiers with variable gain adjustment and selectable +48V phantom power, plus integrated headphone and CUE speaker amplifiers. Additional four-channel mic preamp cards can be installed if required. “This is the perfect console for studios that have microphone or analog source inputs, and where a lot of studio routing is not required. It doesn’t have the extensive A/D, D/A conversions of a typical digital card, but you do have access to editing software, Skype or other external sources via USB and Bluetooth connectivity.” The built-in USB and Bluetooth connectivity is useful for playing audio directly from a PC or outputting audio for editing in VoxPro or other recording software, as well as receiving and recording calls from Bluetooth-enabled cell phones or playing MP3 player playbacks. The console also contains a pluggable AES input to connect the digital source to any fader, and integrated A/D conversion for the main program output so that operators can access the Program Air feed as balanced analog, digital AES3 or both simultaneously. The new mixer is the latest addition to the Audioarts console range, which varies in size and features from the 8-channel Audioarts 08 and Compact Air-1 to the 12-channel Air-4 and 16-channel Air-5. “This console is comparably priced to the AudioArts R-55e console that was popular in its day, but has many more features and is a better overall design.”