Fusion Audio Mixer / Recorder

The Zaxcom Fusion is a high-resolution solid state audio mixer / recorder for reality television, surround recording and ENG.

There are two different models to choose from:

Fusion 10 is a 10-track recorder / 16 channel mixer.  This unit has 8 mic or line level analog inputs and 6 analog outputs.

Fusion 12 is a 12-track recorder / 16 channel mixer.  This unit has 8 mic or line level plus an additional 4 line level only analog inputs and 8 analog outputs.

Universal Fusion Features:

Touch Screen Interface
Fusion’s full color touch screen interface is the key to ultimate functionality.  It provides instant control of over 300 mixer cross points and over 200 user parameters.  It’s easy to read in direct sunlight and offers a lock feature to prevent accidental operation.

Analog Inputs
Fusion incorporates eight very low noise, low distortion microphone preamps with 48V phantom power.  Many Emmy® and Oscar® winning productions have been recorded with the Zaxcom preamp.  The transformer-less design enhances audio quality by eliminating low frequency distortion common in transformer-based microphone preamps.  Each of the eight inputs can be switched between mic and line-level operation and feature a powerful 48V phantom power supply.  The Fusion 12 has 4 additional line-level only analog inputs.

Analog Input Limiter
The Fusion’s analog input limiter prevents high-level audio from over-driving the A-D converter in the analog domain.

Digital Inputs
The Fusion has four AES input pairs with sample rate conversion, allowing each input to have a different sample rate.  This is key on location where it’s not always possible to lock external AES sources.

Mixing
Fusion can mix 16 inputs to eight output busses and record up to ten tracks on the internal Compact Flash card.   The mixer has extensive routing capability: any input can be routed to any output pre- or post-fader, with or with phase inversion.  The Mix-8 and Mix-12 control surfaces can also be utilized to form an all digital location recording and mixing package.

Recording
The Fusion records 10 or 12 tracks simultaneously to two Compact Flash cards creating a 100% solid-state recording with backup.  CF cards were chosen because of their immunity to extreme temperature and vibration.

Audio is recorded in two separate file formats, MARF and FAT32.  The main CF card records in Mobile Audio Recording Format (MARF), which is designed to be fault tolerant, ensuring that if power is lost during recording all audio up to that point is recoverable.  The MARF system and its audio-centric operation has eliminated several of the reliability issues associated with FAT32 recordings.

The backup card records using the common FAT32 file system, so cards can be given away to post or copied to any computer.

Hirose Camera / Stereo RF Link Connection
The Fusion 10 connects to cameras directly through a standard 10-pin Hirose connector providing a two channel camera feed with audio return.  It can also connect to a TRX900AA transmitter with a Stereo Adaptor for a two-channel camera RF link with return audio and timecode transmission.  All audio connections are balanced line-level, which eliminates the mic-level ground loop noise common in FM wireless systems.  The Fusion’s camera output level is 0 dBu and is directly compatible with most cameras without the use of external amplification.
On Fusion 12 the 10-pin Hirose is used for the additional four line-level inputs.

Metering
The Fusion provides metering of all input channels and output busses in four different formats, based on user preference.  Channel metadata is superimposed on meters to aid in meter identification.  Signal levels are color coded to aid in rapid identification of overload conditions and touching a meter selects individual channels for PFL solo monitoring.

Firewire Port
Fusion acts as a master to power and control external Firewire hard drives and DVD-RAM drives.

RF Interference Protection
The Fusion was designed from the ground up to operate in close proximity to sensitive receivers.  Wireless devices can coexist in the sound bag with the Fusion running from the same power source.

Timecode
A full-featured SMPTE timecode interface is standard.  All common frame rates and timecode modes are supported, including auto-load.  The Fusion can automatically enter Record and Stop modes based on incoming timecode.  The Fusion’s timecode clock continues to run even when the power is off.

Input Sample Rate Conversion
Fusion will accept any unlocked AES signal with a sample rate of 32 to 192 kHz.  The dynamic range of the sample rate conversion is 124 dB offering completely transparent conversion of digital audio from one sample rate to another.

Effects Package:

The Effects package is unprecedented in a portable mixer for location use.  Fusion’s powerful 32-bit floating point DSP provides three-band EQ with peak or shelving filters, notch filters, soft knee compressor, expander and delay on every channel.

A software based effects package ensures there are never any differences, channel to channel, due to passive component ageing.  A Fusion will sound as good in 10 years as it does today.

All effects are constant delay so a channel with EQ has the same phase and delay as a channel with no EQ selected.

EQ
The Fusion has six filters per channel.  The EQ is phase accurate channel-to-channel and totally adjustable.  Shelving and pass band  filters are displayed graphically and sound alike on any channel they are assigned to.  EQ filter audio quality and flexibility cannot be equaled with an analog EQ system.  Two notch filters per channel are an excellent tool to remove any periodic noise such as 60/120Hz hums, lighting ballast noise, etc.

Compressor
A full-featured soft-knee compressor is optional on each input channel and standard on each bus output, this is a total of eight or 16 compressors.  Ratio, Threshold, Attack, Release and Makeup Gain are all controlled separately on each channel.

Expander
The Expander is a great new tool that expands the dynamic range of audio.  This function can be used to lower the noise floor of a noisy microphone or recording environment.

Fusion Specifications

Why Fusion?

For a recorder with an internal mixer to take the place of a traditional separate mixer and recorder it’s got to have enough inputs, outputs, internal routing, monitor capability and effects processing to do the job without compromise. The Fusion does this on the most demanding productions.

Here are some advantages and of the Fusion:

• The Fusion offers a full 3-band parametric EQ per channel including peak and shelving filters, 2 adjustable notch filters, high pass filter and a soft knee compressor on each input channel. The EQ is presented on a real time graph for enhanced user feedback. Three EQ filter bands with peak and shelving type filter per channel is essential to the use of EQ in production sound mixing.
• The Fusion 10 is a 16 input recorder (8 analog & 8 digital) capable of recording up to 10 isolated tracks or any combination of 16 iso tracks mixed to 10 recorded tracks.
• The 8 mic/line inputs with 48V phantom power are presented on 8 full size XLR connectors, eliminating the use of adaptor cables necessary when different input connector types are used.
• There is a separate external slate mic input.
• The Fusion has 8 full output mix busses and can output 8 digital direct outs at the same time for a total of 16 different outputs. For added integrity the direct outs operate independently of the central DSP so a backup recorder won’t be affected by a fault on the primary recorder.
• The Fusion offers a full color, sun light readable touch screen interface that provides intuitive instant access to all functions.  This large display controls all mixer x-points in a single easy to use menu. Metadata can be directly entered on the touch screen display both on and off the sound cart.
• Fusion is a solid state recorder. It features total immunity to motion, draws very little power and gives off no discernable heat. In comparison, some compact multi-track hard disk recorders can easily exceed the 140F degree maximum hard disk operating temperature causing erratic operation and lost data.
• Fusion’s primary recording media is instantly removable preventing a production delay if internal media needs to be quickly replaced.
• The Fusion user interface operates in the same way when used on cart or in a sound bag. Removing an attached Mix-8 or Mix-12 control surface doesn’t change the way the user interface operates or restrict the control and operation of the Fusion to a less capable control interface.
• When paired with Fusion, the Mix-8 and Mix-12 control surfaces offer dedicated input meters and do not require the use of external computers for enhanced metering. Dedicated input level pots with end stops are always available for input trim adjustment and visual indication of the input channels level..
• The Fusion and its control surfaces are part of ZaxNet, providing an integrated system for remote control of Zaxcom wireless microphones, RF distribution of timecode & metadata and instant replay and rerecording of production tracks. This eliminates the possibility of dropouts in your recorded audio.
• Fusion records on its primary media card in the MARF, our native audio specific high reliability operating system. MARF’s redundant directory system and its infinite buffering system helps eliminate the loss of audio data due to bad media and constant directory accessing common to all FAT32 based recording systems.