Tall Audio goes full stream ahead, upgrading its Solid State Logic System T S300 console with new S400 interface tiles

Broadcast

31/07/25

London, U.K., 31st July 2025 – UK sound specialist Tall Audio is meeting the changing needs of its client base with a fader tile upgrade to its 32f SSL System T console in its Sound Mobile 2 production unit. Purpose-designed to deliver full 7.1.4 immersive content, the company says the ability to switch out the desk’s S300 fader tiles with S400 tiles gives its operators even more direct channel information on the control surface, helping them cater to a wider range of OTT clients looking to engage their audiences in more immersive ways.

Founded by sound supervisors Alex Wrigglesworth and Paul Stadden in 2010, Tall Audio work on a diverse range of productions including The Martin Lewis Money Show, Springwatch for the BBC, a host of film premieres and remote and in-person motorsport events for TNT Sports. The company also has a reputation for high-end broadcast and OTT music clients, including Amazon and Apple Music.

“A lot of the work we do is a hybrid of film, music and broadcast, and clients like Apple Music are pushing the boundaries of content creation with full cinematic cameras and spatial audio,” says Wrigglesworth. “Apple has been a significant force in driving the development of spatial audio and specifies the 7.1.4 format for all its in-house post-production teams. It means we have to work closely with them to meet their needs and there is always a lot going on at these events.

“We often run up to 100 independent comms units and coordinate film-style camera teams where each camera has a team of three or four people with grips and focus pullers. Dealing with that level of communication means the main control room is very busy.”

A recent example was Tall Audio’s coverage of UK hip hop artist Central Cee at London’s O2 arena. Utilising around 30 ambient mics, a high multitrack count, and monitoring in full 7.1.4, the System T console did a lot of heavy lifting, while time restrictions meant that the Tall Audio team had to be in and out in one day.

“System T gives us the flexibility to achieve all this,” says Wrigglesworth. “We set everything up in advance and on the day, we were effectively just rigging mics rather than building a whole new OB truck and multitracking.

“Meanwhile, System T makes monitoring in 7.1.4 very easy. The fact that you can assign any channel, any aux, any stem and any bus as immersive is so flexible. We use Audio Technica’s BP3600 immersive microphone as an extra mic and System T natively receives this in a 4.0.4 channel. It is so intuitive and easy to manipulate that it lets us concentrate on mixing rather than worrying about assigning resources to use immersive formats, and the downmix parameters are very easy to adjust.

“The future is not just about the terrestrial channels and we are 100% focussed on our non-traditional broadcast clients,” says Wrigglesworth. “We recently covered the Ivor Novello awards for streaming on Twitch, but the event was still produced like a high-end TV show; all our OTT and streaming clients adopt the same disciplines and high standards as traditional entertainment clients.

“We are all having to adapt, and System T’s flexibility makes these projects much easier to produce. We bought into Dante at an early stage and System T’s comprehensive adoption of the Dante protocol means things never get too complicated. It means we are not tied into SSL’s infrastructure, we can use kit from specialist third party suppliers, and we can make good use of equipment that we already have in stock. Plus, System T sounds great - you just fade the faders up to zero and you’re already halfway there.”

“When you are under time pressures and everything is about being more efficient, these things make it much easier to do a better job.”

Live music has been in Tall Audio’s DNA since its inception, having started out producing Virgin’s long-running Acoustic Sessions on its first ever job, and although the company still delivers music content out of the box, the company’s client makeup has markedly changed over the last 15 years.

SSL Broadcast Product Manager Berny Carpenter explains that System T’s flexible integration, ease of use, and upgradability are all key factors in helping a production company’s capacity to pivot in today’s fast-paced broadcast environment.

“System T is an ever-evolving family of products, benefitting from the experience of our amazing R&D team. The ability to easily upgrade individual control surface, processing or I/O elements of a system as production demands evolve can be a real benefit to our customers who are adapting to changing industry requirements,” he says. “It enables our customers to continue to deliver a broad range of content to their clients using the same production hardware and flexible control processing without major CapEx investment.”

Solid State Logic looks forward to meeting its customers and partners at IBC 2025 and will be offering live demonstrations during each day of the show. To learn more, register for IBC, or book an appointment with an SSL broadcast expert, please visit SSL's IBC event page.

Tall Audio goes full stream ahead, upgrading its Solid State Logic System T S300 console with new S400 interface tiles

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