Wheatstone History

A History of Wheatstone Corporation

...as told by Andy Calvanese, Vice President of Wheatstone in charge of Technology

I’m probably uniquely qualified in the company to tell the story, because I’ve known Gary Snow and worked with him since before there was a Wheatstone. He and I used to work together in the same company at our day jobs and in the evenings maybe we’d get together and play a little music or, from time to time, we’d make a little box of some electronic goodie for somebody, and that’s how the company got started.

2008 WNIP 420

We introduced our WheatNet-IP system and showed a whole bunch of BLADEs at the NAB show. We also had some new Vorsis products, but WheatNet-IP was the star of the show, garnering an award. It’s a very strong product line and is in use in most of the larger radio stations and a lot of the smaller ones today. And growing strong.

This year also saw the AIR-1, along with the Vorsis AP-2000 and VP-8.

2009 D8 420

We introduced the IP-88 Mic BLADE and some more TV consoles - the D-8 and D-16. We got another award for WheatNet-IP in 2009.

 

 

 

 

2010 AirAuraEtc 420

This was a very busy year. We launched the Vorsis AirAura, VP-8+ and the FM-4. Audioarts got the AIR-3, and we came out with our Gibraltar mix engine card – you know, it’s a PC card, how exciting can that be? But for us, it was a huge step in capability. We could now make systems that could process over a thousand signals all at the same time. That’s what you need to do in a large, major-market television facilities, and that’s what Gibraltar gives us.

2011 420

We came out with more WheatNet-IP gear – we had our VE blade (which became the Aura8-IP), we added the SideBoard so you didn’t actually need a console to work with the system, and an Audioarts version of a surface that would work with WheatNet-IP – the IP-12. And our new TV surface was the Dimension One. Quite a year!

2012 420 LX24

This is when we introduced the LX-24 console. Everybody, including everybody in our own company was talking to Mr. Snow and myself about, “No, you don’t need to be making a console like that. You don’t need to be making … people want stuff cheaper. They don’t want more expensive, more capable. They’re not after that.” And the market has responded to the LX tremendously. It’s reawakened our interest and aptitude to make the best consoles that we can. That’s what we did from the very beginning. We always tried to do the best that could be done at each point in time. With the recession that hit in the broadcast industry and everywhere else, people were talking price, price, cheaper, cheaper. And it was kind of frustrating, because that was not what we wanted to do as a company. The LX-24 basically proved that we could still do that, and that there is a market for it.

2013 420

A lot of new stuff. We got a bunch of awards. We’ve came out with our talent stations, we had our new mic processor BLADE, and of course the IP Meters app which has been very well received. New software for AirAura, meriting an X3 designation. Not to mention the L-8 control surface, the Logic BLADE, the FM-531HD processor and the M-4IP 4-channel mic processor BLADE. It was a phenomenal year!

 

 

 

 

 

 

BLADE DNA ANIMATION 4002014 was a spectacular year for Wheatstone! We introduced our new BLADE-3s which literally rewrite the DNA of IP Audio network as well as being AES67 compatible so the other folks can play too. We released our Dimension Three and our Series Four TV consoles, our L-12 radio console, our FM-55 processor and SG192 Stereo Generator. AND the D-76, the long awaited successor to the acclaimed D-75. Whew!

VP Image 3002015... well, we're still in it, but it's been a spectacular year so far. For starters, we opened the world of TV Audio networking to IP with our Gibraltar IP Mix Engine (which has one several engineering awards, thank you very much). For TV, we also introduced our IP-64 IP Audio Network TV Console, brought out our Series Two TV Console, added Touch Screen capabilities to the Dimension Three, introduced our EDGE (to enable using our IP networks with wireless IP radios for things like STL, etc). Added the AM-55 and FM-25 audio processors, and introduced the Audioart AIR-5, and the 08.

Let's see... is there anything else? Oh yeah! We acquired Audion Labs and their incredible real-time digital audio recorder/editor VoxPro!

What a year (so far...)

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