Fremont, CA, USA - Blackmagic Design announced today that G-ROKS Inc., which operates a rehearsal studio for professional artists under Korg Inc., one of the world's most popular electronic instrument manufacturers, has built a cutting edge studio in Tokyo for recording and live streaming centered around Blackmagic Design products. The new studio, named Studio Extreme Tokyo, is using Blackmagic Design switchers, routers, converters and monitors for everything from green screen shooting to high quality streaming with high fidelity audio to recording and streaming live performances.

In addition to manufacturing electronic musical instruments such as synthesizers and digital pianos, KORG has been part of some of the biggest artists and performances in music since the 1960s. As part of working with some of the world’s best musicians, KORG has continually built and improved rehearsal spaces as well as recently capturing and streaming performances in 4K.

The popularity of KORG’s G-ROKS music rehearsal studio led to the need for the new Studio Extreme Tokyo, equipped with a video recording room, a control room and a waiting room where visitors can experience spatial sound. The studio is also equipped with KORG’s own streaming system called Live Extreme, which is capable of streaming video up to 4K and lossless or high resolution audio.

Blackmagic Design products used at Studio Extreme Tokyo include the ATEM Constellation 8K live production switcher paired with ATEM 1 M/E Advanced Panel 10, Teranex Mini IP Video 12G converters, SmartView 4K monitors, HyperDeck Shuttle HD desktop recorder and both Mini and Micro Converters. Blackmagic Design DeckLink and UltraStudio capture and playback devices are also used as part of Live Extreme.

Soushi Yamaguchi from the Technical Development division of KORG and manager of Studio Extreme Tokyo, explained the rationale behind adopting Blackmagic Design products: "We have been using Blackmagic products extensively because they are affordable, and their compatibility with various manufacturers is a plus.

Also, since this studio operates as a rental studio, not only ourselves but various clients visit. We thought it would be best to include equipment that everyone is familiar with. For example, while there are switchers from various manufacturers, almost no one who visits this studio has not used Blackmagic products."

Yamaguchi continued: "The ATEM Constellation 8K can not only transmit 4K but also serve as a routing device when taken to the adjacent G-ROKS studio or when purchasing additional Blackmagic Design cameras. Its numerous outputs also allow for displaying multiview on monitors beside the cameras."

The switcher is operated using the ATEM 1 M/E Advanced Panel 10 control panel.

Hwang Eojin of G-ROKS said: "The ATEM Advanced Panel feels like it's designed with the user in mind. Initially, I was overwhelmed by the number of buttons, but when I actually started using it, I found it surprisingly intuitive to operate. Additionally, the ATEM series in general maintains consistency in operation across models, so even if the model changes, there's no need to relearn how to operate it. Also, Blackmagic Design's support is excellent, with thorough equipment training and responsive support in case of any issues."

One of the core components of the workflow is KORG’s use of Teranex Mini IP Video 12G to transmit IP between the adjacent G-ROKS studio and Studio Extreme Tokyo for tasks such as camera control.

Eojin explained, "Mixing audio in G-ROKS is challenging, so we perform that task in this studio. However, it's not practical to run multiple cables from the building. While NDI was an option, we decided on IP transmission because converting to NDI would require our clients to control it via a computer, making it less user friendly. So, we chose to transmit IP and introduced the Teranex Mini IP Video 12G to support that."

"There are still few studios performing IP transmission like this. It was a workflow that would have been difficult to realize without Blackmagic Design products. While Studio Extreme Tokyo is capable of music streaming, we hope to see it used by many for various purposes beyond music streaming," concluded Yamaguchi.