Live TV Mix & simultaneous record

[mspence@mac.com]

Wow! So I'm going through old posts and just enjoying the reading when I come across Daire's post about some remote recording he's getting ready to do. I keep reading through the post thinking, man, this is sounding familiar. All of a sudden it hits me, I DID that gig with those guys! Hell, there's even a couple pictures with me in them! Steve and Daire, I had no idea you two had hooked up for that gig through this forum, and I find that the perfect story to demonstrate what an excellent board this is. My first thought after reading this, is if you had walked up to me after I had listened to Daire working on the mix in Steve's truck, and had told me that Daire had never done a live mix before, I would have told you to get lost. Daire found the pocket for that mix fast, and it kept it's pocket through all of the nightmares that a broadcast chain can inflict on a mix. The fact that very little post had to be done on his live two-mix attests to that. Jeez, I thought you were a veteran broadcast mixer, Daire! The whole gig was a Hell of a set-up, two video trucks, Steve's two audio trucks, two sat trucks, and Rush/Rob Scovill's Gamble EX56 doing a string sub-mix in a Russ Berger designed room that was part of the venue. It all went off flawlessly! OK, some minor AC feeder problems during the out, but Steve rectified that in his ever-charming way :-) I know I'm very late to this post, but I couldn't help but jump in say Hi. BTW, rumour has it that it might happen again in 2006?

Later,

Michael Spence
justpushplay
Pro Tools HD Remote Services
michael@justpushplayav.com

PS: Steve, I bought the Pro Tools rig! Yup, this fool went for it!

[Jim vanBergen]

Looks like one of the 48 channel HD3 rigs from Jim Flynn. You bought it direct, or is it from someone else?

Just curious, I rent a rig like that once or twice a year from Flynn for B'dcast and DVD work I do for a cheap broadcast company that wont pay for an audio truck. :>(

JvB

[mspence@mac.com]

The PT rig in Steve's pics? Yup, if I remember correctly, that was a Jim Flynn rig. Mine wasn't at the gig we were talking about. I didn't get called for that gig until a day or two before the trucks rolled in. The one I bought was from a good friend of mine. He paid for it and I designed it. :-) We had a very lucrative one-off come up, so we took his then little Mix 24 rig with only 8 in, and punched it out to 48 tracks in. Did the gig, it paid for all of his upgrades, and then later, we went HD. It got to where i was renting it from him on an almost continual basis. Recently, I just went ahead and bought it from him, and am now in the process of hardening it for hazardous duty. It's been a real solid rig over the years, and if Pro Tools is set up properly, in my experience, it's damn near bullet proof. My rig's turn-key too. I just need a 48 pair fan and 30 amps, and a room. The perfect mix of all my studio and live experience rolled into one :-)

Later,

Michael Spence

Here's a pic of it right before I bought it, on a symphony/choir gig for "The World's Largest Concert"

[Jim vanBergen]

looks great, and well packaged!
Thanks for the answer- makes good sense.

Peace!

JvB

[Beech]

"All of a sudden it hits me, I DID that gig with those guys!"

Well glad to see you finally made it man! I gotta say that that gig was a gas... and thank you for jumping in and managing the stage mixes. It was a complicated little setup as I recall. And it was a four hours long with only a 20 minute interval. I feel we could take on the Superbowl next time with the audio team we had.

Not sure about it happening again... I'd be surprised if there's another live broadcast, seems like the tv people may not be able to hold their nerve for that long! Might be a show to record though.

You're right about Pro Tools being bullet proof EXCEPT perhaps when locking to timecode/house sync. On two gigs I've done where we were locked up, Pro Tools dropped out. It actually happened at that Branson show. The Tascams backup stayed with it though. It also happened last year, again when the TV trucks were around. I kinda wish the Sync I/Os were more tolerant. Do you do much tv work? If so, do you set the Sync I/O to jam sync or give it a freewheel time (up to 120 frames I believe).

Anyway, Michael, nice to hear from you.

Daire

[Remoteness]

Originally Posted by Beech

"...It was a complicated little setup as I recall. And it was a four hours long with only a 20 minute interval. I feel we could take on the Superbowl next time with the audio team we had...

Daire,

Believe it or not, I was thinking of the same thing.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=


Michael,

I too am glad to see you finally made it to this thread. As they say, better late than never!


Yeah, the ProTools dropped out because the vidiots gave us the wrong SMPTE TC feed. I believe the TC was not directly coming from the "music" video truck. The "pledge" truck was feeding our TC going through some screwed up interface if my memory is correct.

The Tascam DA98HR/DA78HRs did what they supposed to do once again. They should be destroyed for making PT look so bad! ...Hello.

[mspence@mac.com]

Yeah, the ProTools dropped out because the vidiots gave us the wrong SMPTE TC feed. I believe the TC was not directly coming from the "music" video truck. The "pledge" truck was feeding our TC going through some screw up setup if my memory is correct.

The Tascam DA98HR/DA78HRs did what they supposed to do once again. They should be destroyed for making PT look so bad! ...Hello.[/quote]

Hey Guys!,

Yup, every time that I have EVER had trouble with PT in in a live tracking situation, it was TC related. For some reason, video people seem to think that SMPTE and video ref can loop through a bunch of cameras, then go down 300' of coax to my sync I/O, and it will all be just ducky. PT never crashes in these situations, it just simply parks, and says, WTF? I've tried freewheeling, at the max of, I think 120 frames, and sometimes that will work, but if in doubt, I just jam it. I then tell the producer or director, that post might be a pain because on a two hour show, there's the possibility of drift. And it all could have been rectified by simply renting a master generator, preferably sitting right next to me, with THEM on the end of 300' of coax. :-) I can also generate TC and video ref, but for some reason they just can't grok that concept.

I'm thrashing on the rig as we speak, and last night it went over 4 hours at 48 tracks, 48k, 24 bit, generating TC, with 96 voices and track punch enabled, and it didn't quit until it ran out of drive space. Then it just simply parked itself. I hit save, and all was good. That was also with 96 Focusrite plug-ins instantiated. Today is start and stop day, which tends to fragment the drive faster. All this on a single Lacie Porsche Firewire drive. A worse case scenario. I also made a two hour recording of SMPTE, put it on my iPod, locked the PT rig to the iPod, and got two solid hours of record using an iPod (!) as a TC source. It's really fun scrolling the iPod, and watching 90k of gear scurry around and chase it. :-)

I am seriously looking at a pair of Mackie's for backup, though. Radars would be nice, if the budget will allow it. (Budget? There's a budget?)

Speaking of Stupor Bowl, let's get together with some people on this forum, build a team, and go after it. Fer chrissakes, how much worse could we possibly be than the way its been done so far ? :-)


BTW, remember this guy hanging out in the splitter room?

[mspence@mac.com]

Oh yeah, I forgot about this one. On one especially ridiculous video shoot, I made the video guys send me video off one of the cameras, ran it through my Sync I/O, and did a window burn w/ TC, and fed it to a video monitor out of frame on the downstage left of the stage. For every take, the director, once all cameras had speed, would make them shoot a few seconds of the window burn, to help them line up in post. How much more trailer-park can you get after that? "-)

Michael Spence

[Beech]

Nice pics Michael. That guy looks like he knows what he's doing.

I would like to talk more about Pro Tools and sync issues in general but I think it deserves to be a separate topic.

Hold on a sec, that's Pam Tillis's steel player I bet!

[Remoteness]

Hey Michael,

Isn't that the same splitter room we used on the DOD live broadcast?

[mspence@mac.com]

Yup, that's the one. That whole house rig was a Clair Bros. install back when they built that facility, in 1994, I think. I want to say Steve McCale designed it, but not positive. He's the guy that helped design Digi's new FOH consoles. Really cool guy......

[ClickTrackAudio]

Originally Posted by Beech

You're right about Pro Tools being bullet proof EXCEPT perhaps when locking to timecode/house sync. On two gigs I've done where we were locked up, Pro Tools dropped out. It actually happened at that Branson show. The Tascams backup stayed with it though. It also happened last year, again when the TV trucks were around. I kinda wish the Sync I/Os were more tolerant. Do you do much tv work? If so, do you set the Sync I/O to jam sync or give it a freewheel time (up to 120 frames I believe).

Have you guys tried inserting a reclocking device like the brainstorm destripalyzer or big-ben between your timecode source and the sync I/O? I've heard a few people comment about the Sync's intolerance to a less than perfect TC and wonder if one of these boxes would help the situation and provide a solid TC signal to your Sync I/O when your TC source is a little lacking.

Thoughts?

[Remoteness]

Yes, we had a Distripalyzer inserted into the SMPTE TC chain and a video DA for video black distribution from the video truck. Matter of fact the DTRS machines kept running when they saw the bad code source. The DA98/78HRs switched to internal sync when it received the ghastly code. The PT rig said, “I don’t like this and I’m not doing anything about and that was that.” Those DTRS machines saved our arses once again. I never leave home without them.

The video company gave us a dreadful TC source. The tech from the video department told us it was sourced from the wrong truck. We should have received our code directly from the music video truck and not daisy chained from the other video truck. It had to do with laziness and nothing to do with the PT rig. It was completely about the original source code. The way I see it is, when external code becomes naughty, a professional recorder should understand the problem and switch to its internal clock until the external code improves. The DTRS machines had no problem switching to their internal clock when it took delivery of that bad code and back to the external clock when it obtained the right stuff. Shouldn’t a professional tool do this kind of thing?

Remember, the TC source we received was more than “a little lacking.” It needed serious help. We have a Distripalyzer on each of our mobile units and portable rigs. They distribute, reshape and analyze the TC source. They don’t jam sync the signal or fix problems beyond their means.

IMO, professional machines with external SMPTE timecode capabilities should be able to switch to their internal clock when it’s crucial and necessary to its proper operation without missing a beat despite the problems that may or may not occur outside the box! That’s why they’re called “professional.” The term seems to be used loosely in this case.

[ClickTrackAudio]

Originally Posted by Remoteness

Those DTRS machines saved our arses once again. I never leave home without them.

Funny...pre-truck, I had a rack of DTRS machines. About a week ago I was trying to convince the business partner why we *should* re-invest in obtaining a few more of these mechanical machines that require more TLC than their harddisk counter parts. I should send him to this thread ;)

Originally Posted by Remoteness

IMO, professional machines with external SMPTE timecode capabilities should be able to switch to their internal clock when it’s crucial and necessary to its proper operation without missing a beat despite the problems that may or may not occur outside the box! That’s why they’re called “professional.” The term seems to be used loosely in this case.

I hear you and you're right..the Destripalizer doesn't provide any support for replacing the dead code until it resumes...I read your problem slightly wrong. And I fully agree that yes, a machine should be able to jam sync if external TC goes away.

You remind me of a pucker mode-moment where running in a jam-sync mode saved OUR bacon. It was a festival where each act was normally up for a 45-minutes to an hour. One night, however, the final performer decided to play WAYYY beyond his alloted time. Being the last one up..who cares, right? Well the video guys weren't prepared for a long taping and only used an hour long tape. Since we were being fed TC from tape, we suddenly see time code just stop in the middle of the performance.

"Uhh...guys....what happened to our Time code?"

"Oh we had to do a tape change. That shouldn't affect you, though, right?".

Luckily, because we jammed and didn't slave our transport to their running TC we were fine, but it did give me a moment of "the sinking stone in your stomach" until I realized the recorders were merrily moving along....*whew*!

[Remoteness]

That's why the video decks should be set to E to E so, video and TC doesn't drop out on tape changes. Even better the TC and video black should be coming from the master clock source...

But, in any event you were jamming in more ways than one!

[Kalara]

Beeches,

About the DA-98/78 rig, great idea if you're going straight to Pro Tools.....how are you splitting into the 2 systems????????

If you are going to HD, always use a different format as back up. I've found teh best results when doing 48 or more tacks down a firewire 400 cable is to round robin between 2 80 gig drives. Always use smaller drives!!!!! I;ve been successful with 72 track 24bit/48k session to a 500 gig LACIE, but please let my painsful experiences shy you away from tears. For more info, check out www.vmetro.com. You should know about the media you're recording to.

As a redundancy thang, try to keep everything seperate. Tell the video truck you need 2 blackburst runs, that way if you need to work on the PT rig (heaven forbid) during the show, you are not attached to the other system. This should also apply to timecode. In my rig the point of failure is the mic pre's....the split happens there. The output of my pre's is split to both the PT rig and the back up system.

As far as the mix...live TV is cool...except for RTS and ClearCom (barf). Often, when I know a show is going to be remixed, I send the video deck the FOH mix. This would be in the event of not having a truck or a mixer. (get to know the PA guys, for they are the bridge between success and your fault). If you DO have the opportunity to create your own mix, kudos! and make a DAT or CD copy of the FOH mix. Usually, I burn a copy of that mix anyway to PT. This may help in post to nail some of the cool effects (pre determined delay times and such).

Also, get to know your director. What does he want to hear? It's been more than once that the director wanted REALLY upfront vocals (you know, Shania Twain on steroids), and although the final didn't end up that way, and my hair was standing on end, he was happy. He has to cut the show to your mix, and you may be surprised on how much work the guy behind the cameras can offer. Don't get me wrong, your client is the most important.

Sound like a lot of fun. Oh yeah, don't let it blow you up too big, but remember.....chances are you wouldn't have gotten this gig, were you not the right guy.

Ranting and Raving

Mark

[Remoteness]

I can answer for Daire since my company provided the audio facilities.

We split to the dual setup via 24 channel ELCO Y cords, two of them that is which came from a MASS W4 to ELCO box we've built for this kind of stuff. Each ELCO output 1-24 and 25-48 was then attached to ELCO harness' to each of the two systems.

Yes, we always run a different system from the master setup. Sometimes we have a backup to the backup.

The redundancy of two separate black burst runs is a very good idea.

You could run double the mic pres if you’re concern about the potential failure.

Our show was live to the bird so going to ten milion homes -- We had to mix on location. Daire did remix the show at his studio in Ireland for DVD and such.

We usually feed the FOH mix to the master recorders as another backup in the event something happened to the truck’s console or something to taht affect. A live mix of the show also ended up on the multi-tracks.