David R. is awesome

[balzout]

I hope David reads this because wow dude....awesome episode. You should come in more often. You say you have no content but you showed you definitely do have content on that episode. I love seeing the behind the scenes stuff (Its why I always liked hearing/seeing Keith)....Great job David.

[taswizard]

Completely agree - we need to see more episodes like this one. I was wanting more by the time the end of the episode came around.

[movingrushmore]

I also loved the studio tour. I got to get my Radio and TV/AV geek on.

[j5onfield]

Just what we want to see. Of course he did a great job on this ep(i think everyone agrees). Geeky (thumbs up for more)

[slickricks]

Cool episode, I always like to see behinds the scenes stuff!

I was a little disappointed about the explanation of a few different things that were talked about. Let me pitch my 2 centz in here.

A fresnel is a light that has a variable beam from flood to spot with a soft beam edge. Fresnel is actually the name of the lens in the front. And yes, people who don't use the safety chains should be shot.

The second light is not a gobo, lol. Sarah Lane called it a gobo in one of the early eps too. It is called an ellipsoidal or a leco. A ellipsoidal can be focused so it has a tight beam edge, which is why they are used for projecting gobos. In addition to metal gobos they can also be used to project full color 20,000 dpi photo glass gobos for some sick looks. The light that he called a gobo was probably a ETC Source Four, which is a kick ass light. I have 26 of the source 4 Jr. (575w) and one of the regular (Sr. 750w) with a dual gobo rotator.

I am perplexed why they chose Mackie 3280 and all those patch bays. You could have got a Mackie TT24 or a Yamaha LS9-32. Both are digital boards and make a crap ton more sense to me than that 3280. Both give you limiters, compressors, and fully parametric EQs on all channels and not to mention exponentially more routing capabilities than those patch bays. All the mics for the studio should be compressed a bit to give it that hot sound anyway. If you put either the TT24 or LS9-32 with a digital snake and you have more ins and outs that you could ever need! Although I suspect that you are using the Roland digital snake in the studio cause that is a 32 x 32 snake. But having the snake so from A/D and then D/A into the mixer and then A/D into the computer is 2 too many steps. A digital board would be one A/D from mic to computer and thats it. And yes, every conversion looses a bit of quality and adds delay to the audio (which most people don't know). But there must of been some reason for the 3280. You cant to everything for .5 mil!

Alesis is pronounced uh-lee-sys, not uh-lys. :)

Dave has his crap together with the video but hopefully this clears a few of those other details up!

Good job.

[smes]

Nice slickricks! Have you worked in theatre or television production as well? I'm glad I'm not the only one who cringed when Dave called the entire light a gobo.

[drandolph]

Cool episode, I always like to see behinds the scenes stuff!

I was a little disappointed about the explanation of a few different things that were talked about. Let me pitch my 2 centz in here.

A fresnel is a light that has a variable beam from flood to spot with a soft beam edge. Fresnel is actually the name of the lens in the front. And yes, people who don't use the safety chains should be shot.

The second light is not a gobo, lol. Sarah Lane called it a gobo in one of the early eps too. It is called an ellipsoidal or a leco. A ellipsoidal can be focused so it has a tight beam edge, which is why they are used for projecting gobos. In addition to metal gobos they can also be used to project full color 20,000 dpi photo glass gobos for some sick looks. The light that he called a gobo was probably a ETC Source Four, which is a kick ass light. I have 26 of the source 4 Jr. (575w) and one of the regular (Sr. 750w) with a dual gobo rotator.

I am perplexed why they chose Mackie 3280 and all those patch bays. You could have got a Mackie TT24 or a Yamaha LS9-32. Both are digital boards and make a crap ton more sense to me than that 3280. Both give you limiters, compressors, and fully parametric EQs on all channels and not to mention exponentially more routing capabilities than those patch bays. All the mics for the studio should be compressed a bit to give it that hot sound anyway. If you put either the TT24 or LS9-32 with a digital snake and you have more ins and outs that you could ever need! Although I suspect that you are using the Roland digital snake in the studio cause that is a 32 x 32 snake. But having the snake so from A/D and then D/A into the mixer and then A/D into the computer is 2 too many steps. A digital board would be one A/D from mic to computer and thats it. And yes, every conversion looses a bit of quality and adds delay to the audio (which most people don't know). But there must of been some reason for the 3280. You cant to everything for .5 mil!

Alesis is pronounced uh-lee-sys, not uh-lys. :)

Dave has his crap together with the video but hopefully this clears a few of those other details up!

Good job.

Wow, you know what your talking about and thats great to see people in the forums. While a lot of what you have said is good and right, this gives me a chance to show my geek off.

The video was edited down from almost an hour and a half of talking down to less than 30 minutes so they missed my explanation of fresnel lens so its glad to see others filling in the gaps. As for the safety cable, that was my nice explanation. In the past I have been quoted saying much worse about safety cables, much worse. Its my biggest hang up (pun intended)

gobo versus leko, Have you ever worked with people who are stuck in their ways? Depending on where I'm working or who I'm working with, I will change my dialog so that I don't get that blank look. But yes, technically that is wrong to call it a gobo. BTW we have the ETC source four Sr. fixtures.

3280 versus TT24 or LS9-32: all of them were on the drawing board. Personally I like the LS9 series, i think the interface is much nicer and its easier to add to automation and AES is my favorite audio format (besides embedded HD-SDI). So why 3280? Every piece of equipment we own has analog audio in and out, not too big of a deal since most equipment has AES as well but staying one format does help (fewer places for failure). However the biggest deciding factor was the controls and simplicity. There is one inherent problem with digital mixers, configuration files. The buttons on a digital mixer and processing are all layered. So it requires a very qualified operator to run the board properly. With the 3280, every single option and function is labeled, has a LED and very visible from a distance. Also the learning curve is very easy. Since we do not have an audio operator on staff and almost half the staff has side work being a DJ I figured it was best to have a simple analog board that I can train people on the fly and get them up and running. This was the hard device for me to spec out in the room as I would have rather gone digital personally but the company environment did not call for that much function. Oh and I got the board for a super duper low price.

Hope that answers your questions about why the 3280.

As for a 32x32 snake, nope I laid individual cables for every connector. The panel is solder XLR connectors and all go to 3pin bittree patch panels. Why not punch down panels? Its easier to get interns to move around 3pins that to teach them punch downs. Also most punch down panels have different points for Normally opened/closed. So if someone punches it down wrong, you might get results you dont want and spend forever trouble shooting it. Why all this worry? Well I build a bunch of studios and when I do I always consider the environment if I'm not around. Do they have a full staff/infrastructure that can handle different problems if I'm not around. Revision3 does not have this (I'm the only engineer) so I did things that anyone who has ever plugged in a microphone could handle.

How dare you question my pronunciation! I say Uh-lys so it must be right and next time your say it, you better say it my way. Just kidding, I screwed up that day, my bad.


Always great to see good questions and comments in the forums.

[philbert]

I'm in the industry myself, but haven't spent much time in a studio where stuff is recorded live, I'm in post production and 3D animation. It's cool to get a look behind the scenes!

[slickricks]

I feel ya Dave, learning the LS9 can be overwhelming for someone who isn't' into audio hardcore.

I feel ya on that snake too. I just made a 16 CH quick disconnect snake so we can roll our drum platform off the stage with all the mics wired. I have 16 channels on a disconnect with 8 for drums and then 2 4CH 25' subs that live under the drum platform. One of the best things I have ever came up with for quick setups.

Good stuff.

I actually work full time for a church in Western NY as the Technical Director. I came on about a year and a half ago and only really knew audio. Now we have 72 ETC dimmers with 150 light fixtures, movers, scanners, color changers, hazers, fog chillers, it's crazy. Lighting is probably the simplest thing when you are looking at AVL stuff.

I need to get my skillz brushed up when it comes to video. We are trying to run a 3 camera shoot every sunday and live mixing it to DVD for reference purposes. Still working the kinks out!

Keep up all the good work!

Dave B

[drandolph]

I need to get my skillz brushed up when it comes to video. We are trying to run a 3 camera shoot every sunday and live mixing it to DVD for reference purposes. Still working the kinks out!

Dave B

If you want post your equipment for video switching here and i would be happy to comment on it for you and see if i can guess the kinks your are having. If you haven't purchased a switcher yet, there a some good small format switcher options out there.

http://www.datavideo.us/products/mixers_editors.htm
http://www.broadcastpix.com/
http://www.newtek.com/tricaster/
http://www.thomsongrassvalley.com/products/switchers/indigo/

[crumbles]

If you want post your equipment for video switching here and i would be happy to comment on it for you and see if i can guess the kinks your are having. If you haven't purchased a switcher yet, there a some good small format switcher options out there.I would just like to reiterate once again how awesome Dave is! Which other REV3 employee comes to the forums and volunteer's their time to geek out with the forum members!

You rock Dave.

[slickricks]

If you want post your equipment for video switching here and i would be happy to comment on it for you and see if i can guess the kinks your are having. If you haven't purchased a switcher yet, there a some good small format switcher options out there.

Our video gear is a hodge-podge of consumer, pro-sumer and quasi-pro gear. So please be nice here. :) Our audio and lighting gear is much nicer but we are just getting started here.

Cameras we have a Panasonic DVX-100B, Panasonic AG-DVC20 and a Sony DXC-3000 from the Jurassic Era. I know all but the DVX are crap but we are working piece by piece here! The Sony probably was a nice camera back in the day. 3-CCD 2/3" sensor with a nice Canon F1.8 lens. It has manual focus only which sucks, but you can use it with a CCU (which I don't have). Not that a CCU would matter because the camera is old and does not have the same out out of the other cameras, it's dull looking.

Amplifiers I have a Kramer VM-9YC (for the DVX), Kramer 123VXL (DVC-20), and a Elite Video BVP-4 Plus Proc Amp (for the Sony).

It all gets mixed with an Edirol V4 and the out put of that gets split and goes to a consumer DVD recorder, and a Kramer VP 719 xl switcher scaler that outputs to our 2 projectors and to a Kramer VP 8x8 VGA matrix/switcher. The VP 8x8 outputs to 4 42" LCD and 1 more projectors. Soon we will be dumping the video mix into a PC via a firewire capture device.

It is not the easiest to work with a range of gear pro(ish) to consumer but we make the best of it. This year we are going to be getting another 2 cameras probably with native widescreen because we will be changing our 3 4:3 projectors to one giant 16:9 projector making for one resolution to deal with between the projectors and the LCDs.

We use 3 PCs, a DVD player and the live video feed from the V4 for our content. I have once PC running Media Shout (presentation app that uses video backgounds), one machine runs power point (cringe) and the other machine has 4 video out puts (on 2 PCIx16 vid cards) running 4 video loops (at 1366x768) all of the time for digital signage.

The matrix unit allows us to put any of 8 inputs (only using 6) on any 8 outputs (in any combination). It is not the smoothest thing because the matrixer does not scale the video nor does it generate a sync so the displays do a little jiggle when then are switched, which doesn't always look so hot.

There it is. I suggested a tricaster when we first started getting into this a year ago, but they wanted to start small, work some bugs out and then get the right tool once we established what we were going to do with the video.

Let me know if you see anywhere that I could improve. :) But don't say all of it cause that is fairly obvious.

[drandolph]

Our video gear is a hodge-podge of consumer, pro-sumer and quasi-pro gear. So please be nice here. :) Our audio and lighting gear is much nicer but we are just getting started here.


OK, first step is find the biggest garbage can you can find...... JK
I've worked with setups like that and you must have the patience of a saint. I bet you even have to setup and break down parts of this system every sunday. I can understand where all of your glitches are coming from, because i am betting that you have long cable runs (proc amps) and since you can sync those cameras you have a problem with the pulse dropping and your edirol switcher locking black internally causing the edirol to drop sync and displays and projectors flickering or in some cases flashing blue screens. With all the cable and the lack of sync be careful you dont drive the amps to high or that will do just as much damage as not having any amp at all. Next think is that i wonder if you are using pre made cables or did you make your own, when you start running a lot of analog composite cables you can get into trouble quick, watch the systm episode of cable making if your interested in making new ones there. The last reasonable tip i could recommend is getting the same cameras across your system, color difference are easily noticeable and can vary greatly from camera to camera.

Considering your setup if they were willing to spend money and i could only recommend one big upgrade i would suggest the broadcastpixs slate 2100 switcher with a few options. DVI card for starters. You can buy it in an SD or HD format and upgrade later if you wanted. What i like about this switcher and why it could be a good fit for you is that it has 3 aux out busses plus the program output. So with its 2 clip playback options and video feeds, you could fill 2 monitors with a looping animation, 2 monitors with a program output, 2 monitors with the powerpoint presentation, 2 monitors with the slide show over moving video, all in one box and at you choice switch any of the monitor pairs to anything else. Not to mention, keys and the cg system built in. Now the outputs will be SDI(or composite) which i bet your displays dont have inputs for. AJA makes a converter called the hi5 which converts hd-sdi or sdi to hdmi for consumer displays. Which even if you dont plan to go hd makes it a good idea to still go hd on the switcher so computer displays look really good on those big screen. One thing i forgot to mention is that the switcher takes 2 computer inputs directly so theres no conversion needed

as for cost as everyone always ask
about 35k for the switcher with all the options
$800 for each aja converter


Then after they recover from the cost of a switcher and the aja converters you can swap out your old cameras one by one till you have all new hd cameras, it makes a difference as im sure you know.

oh did i mention in addition to outputting to the displays it records it internally on the switcher so you can burn a dvd or even prep for download to psp/iphone/youtube/etc and if your church wants to reach out more it will also output a live internet stream they could host on their webpage.

Sorry if it sounds like you should replace everything but you said you already knew it. So if any of the band-aids i recommended earlier don't help you can tell them that you have givin them the maximum effect with the minimal resources.

Once again after seeing your setup you must be a man of extreme patience and i salute you from one wire wrangler to another.

[eponymous_bosch]

Dave was awesome. I really, really enjoyed that walk through.

Kudos to you Dave.

Simon

[billoneeg]

I thoroughly enjoyed the "Behind The Scenes" show with Dave Randolph. This man conveys his enjoyment with the tech side very well. It was the first time I watched a "How To" show & wanted it to continue. Mr. Randolph...You're Goooooooood!!!!!

[kilroyperrywinkle]

I have no idea what you guys were talking about but I couldn't stop reading. LHS... T-1000... Mixers.... Head explosions. I just came in here to say that I too think Dave R. is the balls.

Wow... my geek tank is full to overflowing.

[scoobydiesel]

wow dave...rock on!

Glad to see your so into the posting an geeking out.

[ryuho]

I watched 3-4 of the latest episodes and I must say I love this show. It's really refreshing to be able to see behind the scenes of various shows.


Subscribed on Miro on "Keep Forever" :)

[haigis]

Yeah the episode with Dave was defo the best yet, it was proper behind the scenes and he got his geek on which is what it should be all about!