Sirius XM’s operations director Jackson MacInnis (left) and engineer Michael Taylor.
Washington, DC (October 26, 2015)—Satellite broadcaster SiriusXM recently upgraded studios in New York and Washington, DC by installing SSL C200 HD live production consoles.
SiriusXM has over 200 satellite channels, 400 web channels and 30 million subscribers. To service all of these, the company currently has several main production centers, in New York, Washington, Nashville, and Los Angeles, with a total count of about 150 broadcast studios, along with five music recording and live music broadcast studios.
Jackson MacInnis, director of operations at Sirius, who is directly responsible for the music production studios, says, “We produce the special recording sessions and live music broadcast events for 200 channels of everything from hip-hop, to heavy metal, to classical. We have produced around 20,000 songs over the 15 years that we’ve been active. Often we only get three hours with the artist, and we’ll try to get 45 minutes of music out of them. Speed and quality is our game.”
Sessions range from multitrack recordings with an audience and a fast-turnaround mix to live broadcast performance sessions. “Our operations are so fast turnaround that even that extra few minutes to reset a console versus the speed of the C200 HD can make a difference,” says MacInnis.
The luxury of having every control available all of the time on the C200 HD was a major factor in the SiriusXM choice. “You can stand in front of it and instantly know the channel layout,” he explains. “Even if you haven’t worked on an SSL you can still see exactly what’s going on and not need to get into the menus or any of that.
“I can hit the lead singer’s high pass filter in the blink of an eye, as opposed to having to access it, then hit another button, and so on. The speed of this thing is something else. I can literally close my eyes and mix.”
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