Katowice, Poland (September 30, 2022)—Polish Radio Katowice celebrated the 95th anniversary of its founding with the total renovation of the control room attached to its Concert Studio, including a new SSL console.
Polish Radio Katowice was established in 1927 and the current building, constructed after World War II, has undergone several renovations in the decades since. The Concert Studio, a two-story-high, 2,000-plus-square-foot space with seating for up to 180 people, was modernized in 2001, according to Krzysztof Kurek, the principal sound engineer at the facility, but it was time to overhaul the control room.
In place of the previous digital audio system, the Radio Katowice sound engineering team decided to install an SSL Duality. Warsaw-based distribution and integration company Audiotech Commercial supplied the latest version of the SSL console, the Duality Fuse, which features an integrated Fusion multi-processor that provides control of drive, equalization, compression, image width and other sonic color enhancements with routing and patch access from the desk’s inputs and buses.
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“One of the reasons we chose the desk was because it’s analog,” Kurek says, noting that a computer and DAW are almost certain to fail at some point in their lifecycles. “When we were thinking about which desk to choose, we said, ‘Duality is the best, because it can work with a 24-track tape recorder instead of a computer.’ That was one reason why we didn’t choose a hybrid solution.”
He continues, “We also wanted to get something that we could use for 10 or more years. Also, the old system was 32 channels and we thought we needed more. Now we’re very happy to use 48 channels. It’s perfect for what we’re doing.”
Regarding the latest iteration of the Duality desk, Kurek says, “I tested the Fusion rack unit and when I listened to how it sounded, I thought it would be great to enhance rock music or other modern music. I didn’t think I would use it here at the studio, but once you have it on the desk, and it takes just one push of a button to use it, well, I’m even using it on choirs. Once you turn it on, it always makes things better.”
