Axel Technology - Oxygen 1000 Rack

The Oxygen 1000 Rack takes a different approach to traditional broadcast consoles: there are no fader controls built into the chassis. Its 2U rack format allows all the mixing electronics to be housed in a control room where space is limited, whilst all operations can be carried out via Oxygen Remoter. The app replicates the control surface and allows remote access to the console’s faders, buttons and parameters. Multiple Oxygen units can also be controlled from a single software environment.

The audio architecture remains entirely digital and is based on an Analog Devices ADAU1452 DSP. It offers a nominal latency of 0.7 ms between an analogue input and an analogue output, as well as internal routing to organise the various sources to the PGM, SUB, AUX 1, AUX 2 and PFL buses. Each input features a five-band parametric equaliser, whilst the microphone inputs also include a compressor and an expander.

Despite its compact size, the range of connections covers many of the requirements of a radio installation. Three microphones can be used with the Automix, in addition to four analogue stereo inputs, four analogue outputs, one AES/EBU output, two USB audio interfaces and a Bluetooth interface. A POTS/PSTN telephone hybrid is built-in, and an N-1 Telco link allows an external telephone system to be connected. Up to four additional Telco channels can be created by reallocating available resources.

An optional Dante interface provides eight stereo inputs and eight stereo outputs over the network, with support for AES67 and SMPTE ST 2110-30. When this option is installed, the USB audio interfaces are disabled.

Finally, the HDMI output provides a remote display of levels, sources, timers, clock and On Air information. The web interface complements Oxygen Remoter for configuration, maintenance, backups and updates.