Audio, audio everywhere but not a port to spare.

Had a gig this morning where I was brought in to video the Joyce Kaufman Show because she was being taped by a crew from another country doing a story on how talk radio affects politics and the upcoming US election, Joyce having been taken out of context and attacked by media before and having a considerable amount of distrust of them wanted to have her own wall to wall video copy of show just to keep them on the up and up and for her YouTube channel.

I arrived at the station almost two hours before she would go on-the-air got two cameras setup one the studio with a tight shot of Joyce and one in the control room with a wider shot through the glass to pickup her and the anchor who would be asking questions while the show proceeded.

Now in this station no one is authorized to connect anything to the board because they are uber sensitive about anyone getting near anything that could cause silence, which is not golden in broadcasting.

My solution is to jack into one of the guest headphone jacks in the studio with a TRS cord, run that to a passive matchbox that converts the nominal 32 ohm impedance of the head phone bus up to 200 ohms and lowers the output to microphone level and from there I connect a wireless ice cube to get the audio out to the cameras.

Having completed this task and with time to spare I left the station and go to Sadie’s a local eatery which has one of the best breakfast menus in North Broward.

So there I am sitting a Sadie’s about half way through my foot long smoked sausage, scrambled eggs and their oh so good give you a heart attack home fries when the phone rings and on the other end is one of the stations production crew members and the conversation went something like this, the crew from XYZ television has a major problem, all they have is XLR stuff and they cannot figure how to connect to the headphone bus, is there any chance you can come back over here NOW and help them out?

In the back of my mind I am thinking f’em, if one fly’s a crew across the ocean and that crew has not prepared for every possible contingency, oops too bad for them, but the front part of my mind reminds me of the term goodwill and knowing the station is hosting them and I working for the shows host cheerfully tell the caller I will be right there and hang up, after which knowing I have a solution mumble to myself f’em let them sweat a little while I finish breakfast.

I arrive back at the station about 20 minutes before going live and the cameraman is in a bit of a jam, she has Joyce and her talent lav’ed up but her producer wants to record program audio to be used later to sweeten up the production but having no way to adapt to a ¼ inch TRS plug to XLR she was up against a hard spot, I asked her can your camera handle a line input, the answer being affirmative I then advised her I have a solution and I could tell by the "look" I received that comment took a whole bunch crap off of her shoulders.

The solution was simple, not pretty nor perfect but simple, I jacked a nine dollar ¼ inch to XLR adapter into the headphone amp added a gender bender so the XLR cable would connect to her camera whereupon she put on headphones and smiled a very pretty 30 something smile.

I love keeping the ladies happy.

I am almost embarrassed to post this picture as it shows a real piece of Southern Engineering with the red gaffers tape on the TV taking the weight of the adapter off of the headphone amp but should serve as a reminder to anyone who wants to do video and audio in the real world to be prepared for anything the world tosses at you, in the theoretical world this should never happen nor would it be acceptable, but in the real world chit happens and one must always be prepared to work around it.

I find it funny since moved from the education about the TV World to working in it, How different everything its.

In the education side every bit of kit you use is designed for the job and works with everything is a very simple way.

One you get into the real world a lot of it is just making things work by what ever means, cable ties and duck tape are like gold.

A bag full of adapters and random cables will save your life over and over.

Having the right kit for the job is very important but being able to work around any problem will get you work again and again.

"So there I am sitting a Sadie’s about half way through my foot long smoked sausage..."

So you were smoking a sausage?

Real world TV should be straightforward and simple, but rarely is it.

I had a very similar situation this past weekend while on an assignment in St. Louis, MO. I was told by the chief photog that I was only allowed to bring 50lbs of gear in each of my two cases and one of them included my clothes and overnight bag. OK, so I slimmed down my normal audio package to the bare minimum. I have an bag of audio connectors that would make your head swim. With it I can usually connect to most audio outputs. Including a Karaoke machine one time. But for this trip, I couldn't take it as that one bag weighs in at about 10lbs. So I took one extra 25' xlr, my 25' breakaway cable, a set of wireless hops to go from my audio bag to the camera, an extra Sennheiser G2 wireless to act as a producer IFB, a crap load of 9v and AA batteries and my usual 5 channel mixer/recorder and the 3 Lectro wireless units and mics in that kit. I also packed my 8' boom pole and Schoeps CMC6/41 mic.

Day One) Wireless hops to camera deployed, all is working great for most of the day. Then the camera op hears a slight buzz in channel 1. I look into it, but can replicate it again. We march on.

Day Two) The buzz comes back and now we are being pressed to make sure we don't have any delays as we have a long day. I then switch over to the hardwired breakaway cable. All is good for most of the day until the camera op decides to drag my audio bag after him and the breakaway cable does breakaway. This is a thick cable that has 10 smaller cables on the inside of it. It attaches to my mixer via a 10 pin Hirose connector and terminates with a left and right XLR as well as a stereo mini so I can listen to the camera as it records. Because of the dragging of my 35lbs bag across the floor the right channel cable as well as a couple other cables at the breakaway section of the cable got trashed. S now that I don't have all my extra bits of backup cables, connectors and spares, I have to start channeling MacGyver and create a solution.

By this time I have determined that the failure with the wireless hop system is with a single XLR to TA5 cable I can't reliable use the Lectro wireless hops anymore. I have several spares of that cable in my bag of connectors at home. The breakaway cable is still good on channel 1 and the headphone confidence connector. So I take my only 25' XLR cable and wrap it around the 25' breakaway cable and connect it into channel 2 of the camera. I take channel 1 and headphones from the 10 pin Hirose connector and channel out of my bag from the XLR outs and set it to line level. It looked bad, but it worked perfectly.

Lesson learned - Always bring extra gear and connectors and then stop and think out all your options. I had two other options that I could have done as well, but they were lower on the list and many not have produced as good of a result.

The really suck part was, the person that told me that I could only take so much gear was wrong. When we got to the airport to fly out to St. Louis I was informed that there was no restriction to traveling with only 50lbs bags. The guy I was flying with had a press credential and we were given up to 99lbs when flying United. GGGGGRRRHHHHHHHH!!!!

AlexMcCranor wrote in post #15005467
WayneHaving the right kit for the job is very important but being able to work around any problem will get you work again and again.

That is so true, I have picked up more than one client by solving problems that where not mine to solve.

Wayne

ChasWG wrote in post #15015030
"By this time I have determined that the failure with the wireless hop system is with a single XLR to TA5 cable I can't reliable use the Lectro wireless hops anymore.

Which end broke?

Wayne

Channel One wrote in post #15015494
Which end broke?

Wayne

On those cables its always in the cable itself, right before the TA5 connector. Sometimes the TA5 gets mangled and that's a big problem. The cable has to form a tight 180 degree bend and they just get banged around all the time. They last about 2 years and then they need to be reworked. The sad part is that I have like 4 extras in my connectors bag of wonder, but it was at home. I've had it happen several times before. Thats why I always keep extras.

ChasWG wrote in post #15015566
On those cables its always in the cable itself, right before the TA5 connector.

We had the same problem with the AT-1800's as the audio output is on the bottom of the receiver so when the camera was set down the cable would get pinched and after a while failed.

Lectrosonics solved the problem for us with the RATPAC, they seem a bit pricey but when failure is not an option they are priceless.

Wayne

Channel One wrote in post #15015603
We had the same problem with the AT-1800's as the audio output is on the bottom of the receiver so when the camera was set down the cable would get pinched and after a while failed.

Lectrosonics solved the problem for us with the RATPAC, they seem a bit pricey but when failure is not an option they are priceless.

Wayne

http://www.bhphotovide​o.com …%3CSPAN%3Ego%3C​%2FSPAN%3E

Wayne

Hmmmm... interesting idea. That could also work to me and keep the cable protected and safe.

Thanks!

ChasWG wrote in post #15017009
Hmmmm... interesting idea. That could also work to me and keep the cable protected and safe.

Thanks!

This is what the RATPAC looks like.

Oh, I've seen those before up close and personal. Keep that allen wrench close at hand. That allen screw tends to come loose and that's not a good thing. Once you get it set and locked down, use some Lock-Tight on that screw. If it starts to come loose and twist around, those tiny cables can cross and ground out.

ChasWG wrote in post #15029635
Once you get it set and locked down, use some Lock-Tight on that screw.

They are supplied with threadlock from the factory.

Wayne

Channel One wrote in post #15030701
They are supplied with threadlock from the factory.

Wayne

Thats only because they had so many issues with the first ones they sent out. I'm now looking into getting a new Lectro SRa Dual channel reciever and two new transmitters to go into my audio bag or use as a camera hop. I like the idea of having a lighter, dual channel reciever in the bag. Eventually getting another one and having 4 talent mics in a much lighter bag.

Then I will for sure have to use those right angle connectors.