Signal To Noise Podcast
The Signal to Noise podcast features conversations with people from all corners of the live sound industry, from FOH and monitor engineers, tour managers, Broadway sound designers, broadcast mixers, system engineers, and more.
Signal To Noise Podcast
278. Brian Grahn Of Clear-Com
Brian Grahn, joins the show in Episode 278 to talk about all things Clear-Com. He clears up a lot of mysteries about Arcadia, HelixNet, and Freespeak, lets us in on the new cloud-based Gen-IC Virtual Intercom, and sheds some light on common problems and tricks to getting the most out of good ol’ fashioned two-wire partyline intercoms, and more.
Brian started as a musician, which quickly turned into working as a bar/club sound engineer, and then in turn to running his own company and working variously as a mixer, RF coordinator, comms tech, project manager, and technical producer. He eventually joined on with past Signal to Noise guest TC Furlong as sales and marketing manager before moving to the manufacturer side, where he’s been the Southwest US regional sales manager for Clear-Com since 2022.
Episode Links:
Clear-Com Solution Finder
Brian On Instagram
Episode 270, Justin Tyre and Stephen Bailey of ProdCom
Episode 229: Joe Palermo, The Polar Express Ride Experience
Episode 278 Transcript
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Episode 278 - Brian Grahn of Clear-Com
Note: This is an automatically generated transcript, so there might be mistakes--if you have any notes or feedback on it, please send them to us at signal2noise@prosoundweb.com so we can improve the transcripts for those who use them!
Voiceover: You’re listening to Signal to Noise, part of the ProSoundWeb podcast network, proudly brought to you this week by the following sponsors:
Allen & Heath, introducing their new CQ series, a trio of compact digital mixers for musicians, bands, audio engineers, home producers, small venues, and installers that puts ease of use and speed of setup at the heart of the user experience.
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Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green
Andy Leviss: Hey, you're listening to Signal to Noise. I'm your host, Andy Leviss, and with me, the Stanforth to my Hatfield Mr. Sean Walker. What's up, Sean?
Sean Walker: What's up, buddy? How are you?
Andy Leviss: Yeah, for anybody who didn't get that, you gotta be in the Discord, man. That's what, that's what they made me promise to do in the Discord. So, get over to the Discord, get to the memes channel, and you'll understand.
Sean Walker: Right. Totally.
Andy Leviss: So, what's going on? I feel like, I feel like we should dive in and start Only because we were just talking about it off camera and because there's all sorts of other cool stuff in the background. We should bring back in an old game. What's the coolest thing within arm's reach?
Sean Walker: What's the coolest thing for me? What's the coolest thing with Arm's
Andy Leviss: each of us. Yeah, because we haven't, we haven't done that in a while.
Sean Walker: Uh, the coolest thing with Arm's Reach for me is a pair of DPA 4011s.
Andy Leviss: All right, any particular project in mind with them or just
Sean Walker: Uh, I was using them as drum overheads on the new Aaron Crawford record. I'm, I'm tracking, we're, uh, we're in process of making that guy, making a little country record. And it was, it was, uh, they're my favorite overheads.
Andy Leviss: nice,
Sean Walker: totally. And it was cool to get to go, uh, not get to go. It was cool to go to London Bridge Studios here in, in Seattle and, You know, where all the like grunge records were made, Alice in Chains and Soundgarden and Temple of the Dog and Mad Season.
And it was cool to go track there and they got a killer drum room. So it was, it was great, dude. And they're just, uh, you know, still sitting here. Cause I haven't put it back on the shelf yet. Like a lazy son of a gun.
Andy Leviss: As you do. I was gonna say, I've got
Sean Walker: benefits of being the owner, right? You're just like, ah, you'll get to it in a second boys.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, you've got people for that.
Sean Walker: I don't, but I don't, but I wish I did.
Andy Leviss: yeah, I wasn't, I'm trying to pick because I'm looking, I'm, I'm in a hotel room because I'm out of town, uh, taking care of the little dude because, uh, because mom is, uh, doing a gig this week. So, they made a family trip and so I'm looking around the hotel. I mean, obviously, like, he sort of qualifies as the coolest thing in arm's reach, but if, if we're going for inanimate objects, I've got my, I've got my custom coffee mug, world's okayest dad.
Sean Walker: Word, word.
Andy Leviss: I like to, I like to set my targets reasonable.
Sean Walker: No, he totally counts as the, as the coolest thing in arm's reach, bro. He's way cooler than the mug.
Andy Leviss: yeah, so, and, and, hopefully we're not gonna hear too much of him in this episode, but we'll see. But, uh, why don't we dive in and, and introduce our guest, Brian, and, uh, what's the coolest thing in arms reach for you?
Brian Grahn: Uh, well, I'm here at the, uh, home office, home studio, and right next on, right next to me on my tech bench here is my, uh, Phase 45 guitar pedal that I've been building and haven't put it in a case any time recently. Another, uh, kind of fun hobby project,
Andy Leviss: Yeah, at least also for those who can't see his video, which is all of you, he's also got a Soundcraft Series 400 sitting over his shoulder and a bunch of guitars on the other wall, so,
Brian Grahn: DIY
Andy Leviss: it was a lowball I threw him on this one.
Brian Grahn: Yeah,
Andy Leviss: Uh, cool. Well, for starters, why don't you, can you say your last name, because I realize that's the thing I forgot to ask before we start, and I know I'm going to butcher it if I say it myself. So, why don't you introduce yourself and tell us who you are?
Brian Grahn: yeah, all good. So my name is Brian Gran. I am a regional sales manager for Clear-Com, uh, kind of started like most people in the audio industry as a musician turned sound guy. As I realized I had more talent on the tech side than I did on stage. Um, started, uh, working in bars and clubs for a long time in, uh, Miami, ran a little sound company down there doing everything from corporate AV, weddings, A2 work, some wireless coordination and whatnot, eventually got a desk job up at, uh, TC Furlong in Chicago.
Shout out to TC Furlong and that crew. Uh, was sales manager and, uh, managed the marketing side of things over there. But. Uh, like many small companies, we also were driving trucks and, and working gigs off hours when not sitting in the chair. So, got a good amount of experience with those guys and a great crew there in Chicago, uh, was doing some tech director work and again, comms tech, A2, a little bit of everything.
Uh, and been with Clear-Com for about two and a half years now.
Sean Walker: Cool, dude. We had TC on a while back. What a cool dude.
Brian Grahn: What a great guy.
Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. One of those guys you're just like, I just like this guy. I just want to barbecue with this dude.
Brian Grahn: Yeah.
Sean Walker: dude. awesome.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, that was, that was one friend of the podcast, Pete Wojcicki, hooked us up with TC, and that was a blast. Like, we keep saying we've got to have him on again at some point.
Brian Grahn: Oh yeah. Great guy. Uh, and I know you guys had, uh, Joe Palermo on not too long ago as well. Polar Express crew. That was, uh, one of my favorite customers to work with out there.
Sean Walker: Yeah, dude. How cool. What an interesting gig, dude. You know what I mean? It's cool to like, we like those at our shop too, man. It's like the interesting ones. That are, are a little bit of a challenge where you're like, Oh man, I'm gonna have to brain through this for a minute. You know what I mean? But also it's not the same, like hang left, right, make loud, go boom, boom, put in truck.
You know what I mean? Which is pretty sweet, dude. That's cool that you got a bunch of like real world experience and then went to a manufacturer to, to help the rest of us. You know, it's, it's nice to like, Be able to chat with somebody that's been in the trenches and been where we are. And you're like, dude, I'm having this problem and here's how I'm using it.
You're like, I get it, dude. I've been there. Here's, here's how to solve that problem. Rather than like, well, the manufacturer says you should use it like this. And you're like, yeah, man, that's not how the real world uses it. You know what I mean? Have you found that to be super helpful and be able to like relate with clients and customers better?
Brian Grahn: definitely. And you know, that's everything from understanding the, uh, the show must go on mentality of like, listen, here's, here's a suggested manufacturer setup configuration. Uh, but also when you don't have time to do that, here's the next best thing and you just got to kind of make it work. Um, so it's, it's, it's nice to be able to kind of talk that talk and, and understand when you see some things on show site that might not be.
Exactly, Despec. Um, but at the same time, also understanding, you know, some of the more, uh, fringe use cases that might come up from whether it's client requests or, uh, cabling limitations or things like that, um, could definitely help.
Sean Walker: Totally, dude. We were like, okay, here's the 15 steps that the manufacturer says you need to make this work flawlessly. You're like, shows at eight. You're like, oh man, here's the four steps to make it work. Good luck.
Brian Grahn: exactly.
Sean Walker: That's awesome. Oh man. What, what, uh, what brought you to the manufacturer side from, from the sound company stuff?
Just, just, uh, tired of doing 12 jobs at the same time or what?
Brian Grahn: Yeah, you know, while I was at TC, um, the sales department's one of our main jobs as we were primarily a Uh, production rental house. And then, you know, the, the box sales was a component of that. We were the, uh, the department that was in charge of manufacturer relationships. So a lot of times, uh, Jay Wallace, shout out, Jay Wallace, my, uh, clear calm colleague, uh, would come through and say, Hey, you know, we're here to show.
Uh, the new FreeSpeak 2 system, here's how it works, here's kind of the components you would need if you were to design a sales system, and then he'd leave a demo, and then I'd turn around to the internal team and say, hey, this is why I think we might want to add it into rental inventory, you know, you need to become kind of a a local expert on whatever the that equipment is of the day.
Um, so I was already doing a lot of that manufacturer relations, doing some marketing events with them as well. Um, and so, uh, when I had the opportunity, uh, you know, Clear-Com's a great company to, to, to partner with. Jump up to the manufacturer side. It was a, it was an easy choice. Also, when I was, uh, you know, trying to keep track of 100 manufacturers and, you know, 70 different types of technologies from sound systems to wireless mics to comm and everything.
It's a little easier now to keep it all straight just with, uh, kind of one set of SKUs.
Sean Walker: Yeah, right. Totally. What, uh, I mean, I think at least Andy and I are super familiar. I think most of our listeners are super familiar with FreeSpeak too and, and probably HelixNet as well. What are some of the things that, you know, you're excited about right now? Is there, I don't want to blow your NAMM reveals or whatever you got going on, but like, other than the two obvious ones that, that we use every single day in corporate, what are some of the things that, you know, you're excited about or that you wish people would know more about?
Brian Grahn: Yeah, I think the easiest one is Arcadia, as it is the first box that can do FreeSpeak and HelixNet under one roof. But also, what I'm really excited about is all the Dante integrations that we're doing nowadays. And so, uh, You know, at the most basic level of that, that's bringing program audio into, you know, straight off the Dante network, if you're using Dante enabled consoles somehow.
Um,
Sean Walker: What do you mean somehow? Like that's how corporate rolls, dude.
Brian Grahn: yeah, you know, even if you're using MADI and you've got a Dante card on your desk, whatever it would be, but, um, you know, what you can start doing with integrations is actually having a, uh, direct out to the console that's for the music director. And that's going to get routed to their in ears or to be able to even pull a Dante feed right off of a Shure wireless receiver as a cue when, you know, an A2 is actually miking someone up.
You can have that cue system right on your comms belt pack instead of having two cue systems in your ear. Um, there's just like a lot of integrations, especially then when you get into the Dante enabled, uh, Uh, site wide Dante enabled distribution of audio as well, so you can do green room announce somewhere.
Um, you know, with that chipset, it's like, whatever is Dante on the other end, you can program it. And so it's really kind of down to the individual tech's creativity.
Sean Walker: That's pretty sweet, dude. And what, what is the like, you know, from a regular FreeSpeak base station to Arcadia, like what kind of jump is that cost wise, like a, you know, in a percentage or a, you know, I'm not trying to give away dealer cost numbers, but like, is that like 20 percent more expensive or triple as expensive?
Or like, how big of a jump is that to somebody looking to get into that kind of a thing?
Brian Grahn: It gets complex because the FreeSpeak 2 base was available in that 5 belt pack option or the full 25. And Arcadia is available in 16 license port sizes all the way from a 16 to I think a 180. ports as the max. So depending on kind of the right size of what you'd buy in on, it could be anywhere from around the same cost as a FreeSpeak 2 base 2, but you know, not as much functionality, only 16 ports, uh, all the way up to much more expensive.
Sean Walker: If somebody were looking at replacing their FreeSpeak 2 base that was already the 25 license and they're like, Hey man, this is working for me, but I wouldn't mind having a couple of tips and tricks and whatever with the Dante integration in my back pocket. Is that a pretty straight across trade or is that like 50 percent or 100 percent more or, you know, what kind of
Brian Grahn: percent more I think when you're looking at like a 25 belt pack capable system, so that'd be at least a 32 port.
Sean Walker: Okay.
Brian Grahn: Um, but, uh, you know, every, every Dante port that you want to use is going to take up one of those licensed ports as well, so
Sean Walker: So probably more like a 48 or six or
Brian Grahn: 64. If you, depending on how deep you want to go with that functionality, HelixNet integration will take up a port for each channel as well.
Um, but what's nice is those port counts are all field upgradable, permanent to the unit, one time upgrade costs. So it's really easy to buy into a system that may be the right size for today. And then Uh, continue to upgrade as you have a bigger show that requires something that, with more I. O. or more wireless belt packs, things like that.
Sean Walker: That's pretty sweet, man. So you can, you can basically start with your, your 32 port with the Dante and it's like bait, reasonably the same cost as a, a normal free speak base station with a 25 license with similar functionality. And then if you're like, Oh man, I got this huge GS or this huge thing, you could just buy the upgrade to whatever you need and be like, be out a couple thousand bucks rather than another, what, 15, 20, whatever those
Brian Grahn: Yeah, and hopefully, you know, you can charge that back to the show for the right scenario. Um,
Sean Walker: Wouldn't that be nice.
Brian Grahn: yeah, hopefully. That was a little asterisk
Sean Walker: You must be doing New York and LA shows, bro. The rest of the world doesn't, isn't quite that lucky.
Brian Grahn: But what's really cool is that for really large shows, Arcadia, we can do up to 64 wireless bell packs on that, and like 128 HelixNet endpoints. Every Arcadia ships with a 64x64 Dante chipset in it.
So it's just a matter of how you're allocating resources on that system that is going to eat up those individual license
Sean Walker: So the hardware is the same on all of it.
Brian Grahn: We, we built a rocket ship is what I say, and you're just paying for what you're, you're gonna be using on it.
Sean Walker: I got it. So Arcadia is, that's the jam. That's a skew. And then you're like, how many ports do you want in this thing? And there's the software to buy, to operate, to unlock the, the different tiers of it, basically. Yeah, that's pretty sweet, dude. And then you can, that way you're not like, oh, here's this 50, 000 thing you got to buy to get into it.
You can get into it for whatever they are. You know what I mean? 10, 15, whatever.
Brian Grahn: And especially on the install side, instead of needing a FreeSpeak 2 base that might run, uh, a main House of Worship sanctuary and then a secondary FreeSpeak system for the youth sanctuary or something like that, you can actually run an Arcadia on a, on a larger network. With AES67 transceivers and, uh, consolidate a lot of the, uh, the DSP into one unit.
And we give you up to a hundred party line channels within Arcadia. a reasonable number, as I say, um, so that you can kind of allocate those across individual kind of microsystems.
Sean Walker: Dude, that's pretty sweet. Can you, can you, uh, dive into the IP transceivers versus the regular transceivers and, and why that would be beneficial or challenging or, you know, what are some of the, like, where might you deploy those instead of the regular transceivers? Cause the regular ones are pretty fricking easy, man.
Plug in, go, let it rip. You know what I mean? And the IPs have a little more to get them going, right?
Brian Grahn: A lot more. Yeah. And, and so, uh, I'll, I'll first start with some, some jargon. We refer to our original Freespeak 2 transceivers as the E1 style, so that's the kind of protocol that those were using, and then the IP transceivers as IPTs or IP transceivers. Uh, the E1s are great because if they have power and you've cabled them correctly, they're working.
No configuration needed, but you do need to run a home run from a splitter or to the base station to all those. There's a lot of extra cabling required, so depending on the show setup or kind of existing infrastructure that you might be able to rely on, um, that might be harder in some cases. There is also a hard limitation of you can only put 10 E1 transceivers on a FreeSpeak 2 base or on an Arcadia.
That's just, it is what it is. And with the E1 style transceivers, we can get five belt packs per transceiver. If you want to have 7 users in each zone, you're going to have to run a whole bunch of these transceivers around. The IP transceivers can do 10 belt packs per transceiver, so that's great, a little extra capacity.
But you need an AES67 compliant network to run that, and not all network switches are created equal. I
Sean Walker: You don't say.
Brian Grahn: you know, we all come from the, like, production technology world and now we're all semi IT professionals. Um,
Sean Walker: Speak for yourself, but I'm still trying to figure it out.
Brian Grahn: luckily, you know, manufacturers like, uh, Luminex and Netgear have come out with switches that have profiles available in them, and so the days of needing to go in, you know, line level code and try to manipulate diff serve QoS settings to push PTP clock ahead, you can just worry, you don't really have to worry about that anymore.
We can just do, uh, an AS67 profile on. Uh, a VLAN on a Netgear switch nowadays.
Sean Walker: That makes it pretty slick, dude. I've seen, I've, I got a bunch of homies that are going to that. That kind of a thing. They've, they, uh, you know, do a lot of corporate, have had a lot of success with your standard switches that we've all used for Dante for a lot of years. And they've, they're making the change to those neck ears for exactly
Brian Grahn: yeah. And
Sean Walker: here's my, you know, here's the eight ports of Dante and these other two ports, we're going to color those and label them different.
So that's going to be our other stuff or kind of a thing, you know what I mean?
Brian Grahn: yeah. And you know, the, the Ciscos, the, the SG 300s and 350s were great while they were around, again, you have to kind of get down to that advanced user settings to make changes. Um, the Netgears are nice, especially, you know, built in power supplies with a. IEC cable, and none
Sean Walker: And it all comes out the back. It all comes out the back.
Brian Grahn: Ears, all that good stuff.
Sean Walker: They're twice the price of the like CBS line of Cisco switches. And I swear to you, I will pay it every time. So the fucking cables come out the back.
Brian Grahn: it's the little things, you know?
Sean Walker: the only thing I'm like, this does everything I need to do. But that one has the cables at the back.
I'll sure. I'll give you double my money. No problem.
Brian Grahn: Yeah, and so then, you know, in a perfect world, you know, as a Clear-Com guy, of course, you're going to use a dedicated switch for just my equipment, but that's not happening. You know, we're, we're using control data, whether it's, you know, audio or lighting or other teams. Um, you know, Dante, Primary and Secondary, there's a whole lot of stuff running around.
To have dedicated switches to all of those protocols is
Sean Walker: Oh, bless your heart.
Brian Grahn: Exactly.
Sean Walker: bless your heart. I think there's dedicated switches for everything.
Brian Grahn: And so, you know, VLANs and, you know, trunking or, or certain things, you know, there, there are some, uh, uh, best practices that we have available on our Solution Finder page. It's a great, uh, page. Maybe we can provide a link for everybody.
Um, we've kind of dedicated an internal Clear-Com Wikipedia. Of all the solutions that, uh, we could document where, you know, someone had a question about a switch or a certain kind of use case, and we've provided an answer. We put it up on our solution finder page.
Sean Walker: Dude, that's sweet.
Brian Grahn: there's a whole bunch of information there about switches that are known to work with our equipment, um, kind of best practices for, Uh, PTP Clock, you know, how many switch hops a transceiver can be away from, uh, the clock leader, things like that.
Uh, so, uh, we, we try to document as much of that as possible, uh, but we also have tech support and, you know, the individual sales managers that can help answer any questions.
Sean Walker: Dude, that's awesome. So let me, uh, thank you for the ton of information. And yes, let's totally link that in the show notes so that people can do it. Cause you know, I would say most of us are rocking corporate, which means we're doing free speak or, or Bolero. And I won't talk about that awful, awful other option here on, but, uh, back to the IP transceivers.
Why, what makes them more config, uh, harder to configure? Where might I use those when I didn't use like, I, okay, we get double and I can just drop them anywhere or. How do they make it easier, more convenient, and then, you know, for the rest of us sound company owners, because I'm not the only one that owns a sound company listening.
What's the cost difference? And I'm, I'm cool. I'm asking in like percentages over the E1s, right? Not like, what's the actual number, right? But like, is that another 10%? And we're like, man, that's a no brainer. Or is it like, hey, they're triple and it's hours to set up and you need to use it in this one specialized thing?
Or is it something that could replace all our E1s
Brian Grahn: And so, uh, you know, when you would use them first, uh, so on an Arcadia, you can now run up to 32 of the IP transceivers. So especially, you know, even one belt pack that needs to cover a gigantic area, you can set that up. Each, each free, each, uh, IP transceiver can connect up to 10 belt packs, so you're already getting higher density.
For each, um, transceiver access point. Uh, but it just allows for, uh, switch hops to be run as well. So you can have. You know, a few transceivers run off of a switch at front of house, a few on stage, a few backstage, you know, use existing fiber lines that can tie then two switches together and then run another set of transceivers for loading dock, catering, like all the other areas that you might not have been able to cover with the home run lines that you would have needed with E1.
Sean Walker: so that I don't need the, the splitters as much? And I can, I'm basically using a pair of switches or our switch as the
Brian Grahn: Exactly. And they're run PoE still, so you can provide power over that, um, Ethernet or Cat5, Cat6 line, but, um, the cost per transceiver is less than twice the cost of each E1 transceiver, so you're already getting double the capacity for less than twice the cost, uh, but there is a third party element of you will need to have, uh, some kind of network switch running.
So that's a non Clear-Com item that would need to be added in as well.
Sean Walker: which I think most of us already have on site and, and, or, you know, those switches are a few hundred bucks. We're not talking about like, oh, now you need a, you know, a hundred grand with a shit to put and make it work. You know, you need a couple hundred bucks and this thing all works together, right? So that's cool.
You get double the capacity and a whole lot more flexibility. What is involved in programming that compared to the E1s? Because I've used both, right? So with the E1s, For those out there that haven't used it, you just plug it in and the thing works. You know what I mean? You just go to the FreeSpeak base station, plug it in, or plug it into your splitter if you've got a bunch, and it just, it just goes.
Brian Grahn: Yep. As long as they're powered correctly, they're working.
Sean Walker: yeah, it's as simple as possible, even the in house AV techs that are learning to AV tech can figure this out, right? How does the IP differ, and what's involved in programming that to make it work? And can we set it up once in the shop, and then just keep sending it out like E1s? Or is it something that needs to be programmed at every show, or?
You know, how does that work for people that haven't used it before?
Brian Grahn: Yeah. So, uh, there's an, the level of complexity of the IP starts with the, again, the AES67 network. So the, the number one thing is PTP clock timing. If the transceiver falls off of that PTP clock, it's going to go down and it's going to drop all the bell packs that are on it. So your, your network level is kind of the first step.
And so whether that's a DHCP server, that's also going to provide. IP addresses for the transceivers or, uh, static IPs that are going to get set. That's kind of your first level. If you have static IPs, you know, you can set that once, no huge updates you'll need to do after that. Um, you register the transceivers to the Arcadia now.
So while it's on the network, it does need to say, hey, I see these two devices, should those be part of my system? So once they're registered to the Arcadia. It functions as if it were an E1 transceiver, like, the, the belt packs see the transceiver as part of the Arcadia system, um, and once the belt packs are then registered to the system as well, they'll just come online.
Um, so there is like a networking element that is the, the harder, um, uh, to, to manage side of it. But once it's actually brought in and everything's registered and. Connected correctly on the network side, uh, should be very similar in functionality.
Sean Walker: So that that's something that we in the shop can absolutely pre program, pre IP, pre address, make a rig that works and functions. And then the techs on site can just go, yep, those transceivers actually are here. And yes, I do want them to work with this and boom, shakalaka. So it's one little step for the techs on site, but it's not like hours and hours of programming on site and slowing down your, your whole situation to make it, to get a whole lot more benefit, right.
To get twice the capacity and a lot more flexibility.
Brian Grahn: once those transceivers are registered in the shop and they show up on site and come on the network, they'll immediately connect to the Arcadia. No
Sean Walker: So if we've already. If we've already done that in the shop and said, okay, cool. I got show a, this is the, I don't know, general session. Let's just say it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Right. And then you make that show in the shop. Once you plug it back in on site, it just goes, Oh, that's dope.
Brian Grahn: you can do, uh, fun things that will make your life easier on show site as well, like Labeling that transceiver as upstage left or, you know, green room, uh, ahead of time, pre, you know, p touching or gaffing, labeling, whatever, so that when they come online, you can get that information then in the status page and you can watch as belt packs are roaming across different transceiver zones as well.
Give you as a, as the administrator of the system, a little bit more information than of, you know,
Sean Walker: Get out of catering. Damn it. You already had lunch, man.
Brian Grahn: or, you know, we're, we're having drops in this zone to this zone, or we're having a handoff issue here. Maybe we need to add another transceiver, move this one around the corner. We'll then help, you know, uh, there's a lot of the white paper, you know, RF space, how things are going to work hypothetically.
Uh, but it really gets to bringing things on site and seeing what the actual construction materials are and. Um, the architecture of a space that you can then kind of make some decisions doing a walk test to figure out if I move this transceiver here to there, I'll add more capacity to this control room as well as covering the walkway zone between green room to catering or whatever else it would be.
Heh heh
Sean Walker: Dude. Totally. I, I, you sold me on the factor that I can creep on people and be like, yo man, while you're at the coffee station, why don't you, why don't you bring me one? That's, that's where I'm at, dude. It's like, yeah, yeah, it all works. That's fine. No problem. Everything's, everything's going fine. But hey, while you're at catering, uh, bring me a snack, dog.
You know what I mean?
Brian Grahn: And then the other thing we can do, um, with, uh, The IP transceivers, we're using a slightly different codec, um, for audio on the E1, and so we actually can have a higher density of users in a given RF space as well, so that number jumps up to 50 wireless belt packs in one RF space, and then you get into the hypothetical of what is an RF space of, you know, is the RF space.
The main stage and everyone, you know, if everyone stands on stage at the same time, yes, we're all in the same RF space. If I walk to front of house, have I moved out of that, you know, and, and that's where, uh, generally you're not going to want more than 64 belt packs. in one frequency band anyways in a single system.
Sean Walker: Gotcha. Copy that. Can I, uh, keep picking into deeper? So we, we ended up with using IP transceivers on our show, uh, that was super challenging with the E1 because of the environment it was in. It was in a ginormous Faraday cage. It was in a big old airplane hangar and the IP transceivers worked a whole lot better than the E1.
Can you chat about why that might have been?
Brian Grahn: Yeah, likely would have been, uh, so there is a little bit better RF performance in the, uh, RF audio filtering even in, in the IP transceiver. Um, it's minimal though, so you're not going to get a ton of extra range necessarily over an E1 with the IP transceivers. Um, but 1. 9 gigahertz. is known to have multipath reflection issues in certain domed architecture, certain types of venues, you know, domed arenas, airplane hangers, I'm sure, similar.
So, uh, the IP transceivers will have better RF performance in that range. Um, that said, it's all, uh, there are a lot of optimizations there as well, of getting transceivers a little higher off the floor, Rather than closer to the floor where, you know, the longer path would be, uh, to the ceiling, you know, and so if you could fly transceivers in a grid, that'll get you a little better performance than if they're just six feet off the ground on a speaker stand or clamped onto the side of a stage.
Uh, again, Solution Finder has a lot of those kind of tips and tricks for optimization in the field.
Sean Walker: Dude, that's awesome. That's super cool. I was, I was, on that particular show, I was, Freelancing for a friend of mine's sound company who does an awesome job. And I didn't do the programming, but we did a couple of shows in that kind of an environment and found challenges with the E1 and their solution was the IP transceivers and they worked flawlessly.
Brian Grahn: That's great
Sean Walker: And, and they're the, they're the kind of nerds that would sort it out behind the scenes. And so it was great to just show up and everything was flawless. You know what I mean? That's, that's pretty cool that it's got like a little more RF filtering and then also just a little bit different. So it works in different environments, you know.
Brian Grahn: and, uh, you know, this brings up an important thing that I like to joke about now that I'm, uh, working for Clear-Com is, you know, I, I like to joke with techs on show site of like, obviously Intercom is the most important technology here. We're all going to dedicate all of our time just to worrying about the Intercom system and nothing else.
You know, the joke there is like, Intercom is the thing that helps you do your primary job. You're an audio mixer. You're, you know, you're a cam op. You're doing whatever. In a perfect world, just like, you know, if you're mixing front of house. Uh, you know, to the, to the end user, they're not thinking about what snare EQ you're using or whatnot.
They're just, it's a, it's an invisible technology to them. The PA is an invisible technology and they're just enjoying the show. And intercom should really be almost an invisible technology to the technician of, wow, this is so easy to use and now I don't have to worry about intercom and I can just clearly talk to everyone else while I'm, you know, Running graphics or doing whatever the other thing is and so, you know, designing systems that are going to be as easy to deploy, as easy to troubleshoot and allow you to do whatever it is is your other primary role on site is like our goal.
Andy Leviss: That said, if you want to hire me to come in to just deal with comm, I'm happy to come in and just deal with comm. Don't take away my work.
Brian Grahn: And you know, for many years, 2Wire Intercom was like a dark art. That only, you know, it, it, there was a lot of job security there if you knew how to, uh,
Andy Leviss: the null
Brian Grahn: troubleshoot and null and, you know, do all the dryouts and transformer isolations across different systems, things like that. Um, as we're going more into the IP world, you know, the troubleshooting is more.
Opening a computer and checking, you know, packet loss of PTP clock rather than, uh, you know, a frequency coordination or like RF specific issues. Uh, so, uh, the, we're, we're, we're hoping to make it as user friendly as possible. Out in the real world.
Sean Walker: Totally dude. And you know what? A lot of those two wire systems still have a lot of value and a lot of use in a lot of situations blended in with, you know, the free speak or whatever. Right. Cause you know, on, on a lot of shows that aren't huge, if you've got a bunch of people just sitting in front of the house that don't need to walk around, like you can save the client a whole bunch of money and a bunch of headache to just blam some fricking two wire down and be done with it.
You know?
Brian Grahn: And that's a big thing is that Arcadia, just like a FreeSpeak 2 base, still has four two wire ports on it where we can even provide power to two wire bell packs.
Sean Walker: Well, Brian, I'm going to take a bunch of Arcadia after this. So just send me the, send me the order form.
Brian Grahn: Yeah, yeah,
Andy Leviss: who's your northeast, uh, northeast
Sean Walker: Yeah, Jay, Jay Wallace is the guy I've been giving a hard time to when I can, you know,
Brian Grahn: yeah. And you know, it, that technology is the birth of Clear-Com came from that two wire technology and you know, that great story of, you know, Uh, working in a venue in the Bay Area and, you know, the shows are getting so big they can't, you know, Grateful Dead and all the other shows that are coming through the ballroom, they can't run back and forth from front of house to stage.
So, Charlie Button with the stuff that he had available of telephone handsets
Andy Leviss: I haven't heard in a long time.
Brian Grahn: and, and, you know, XLR3 pin came up with this design and that's the same, you know, that same belt pack from the late 60s you could plug into Arcadia. And with 30 volts power, a ground, and an audio, you can have working intercom.
Sean Walker: I want one. I won't find me one. Can you find me one? I want one.
Andy Leviss: Like one of the silver ones.
Sean Walker: Yeah, dog.
Brian Grahn: well, they're still kicking around a lot of theaters in
Andy Leviss: Just, just don't rest them on the side of a follow spot.
Sean Walker: yeah, yeah, totally.
Andy Leviss: Um, I actually, a couple of questions popped up, like, as we're talking about, like, to wire and analog. I mean, first of all, like, on the analog side, I feel like, since there is still a lot of it out, is there, like, something, like, If there are one or two tricks that you feel like a lot of people just because everybody thinks it's like, oh, it's too wired, just throw it together that people mix that, like, while we're talking, if we take it away from the digital for a second, go to the analog, like, what if you could share a couple things to like, make everybody's life easier, maybe?
Brian Grahn: Yeah. So, you know, the same, the two wire technology, again, is all the same underlying technology. And as we've continued to develop, The Encore series now into the 700 series. It's just more power efficient and, uh, more options that are available as dip switches or, you know, kind of configuration things. Um, but in the, in the end, you know, all you need for a two wire system is a power supply and user stations.
Whether that's bell packs, wall stations, anything like that. Um, but what happens a lot nowadays is that there's an installed two wire system and a free speak system that gets brought on, or Arcadia, or HelixNet, or even third party manufacturers that are getting, uh, interfaced together. And the number one thing I have seen is that while you can provide power from multiple sources, You know, we could have a power supply in two wire domain, an old PL Pro, um, or, and then a, uh, a FreeSpeak 2 base station that can provide power.
You can only terminate in one place, and if anyone has accidentally double terminated, you will hear, uh, Horrible screeching
Andy Leviss: that again for the folks in the back,
Brian Grahn: For the people in the back, one termination. So, you know, if you're, you know, if you have a FreeSpeak 2 base station and an LQ and an Arcadia, we can tie all these things together, four wire, two wire ports, but power can come from anywhere.
Termination can only come from one place. So that's an easy one. And then the auto nulling feature, now that we have all these digital functions, it's great. You know, the days of the tweaker knobs at individual user stations are gone. You know, just,
Andy Leviss: was gonna say the big thing I'll call out, cause this just came up with a friend a week or two ago, is the, the misconception that, well, it's, it's nulled all the way down, okay, slow down, is it nulled all the way down, or is the null knob turned all the way down, cause those are not the same thing.
Brian Grahn: Not, not the same thing. Yeah. And, if you're only in the analog domain with, uh, Encore MS 702, 704, or, um, just the Encore Bell Packs, things like that, uh, you know, there's, there's gonna be a different method of What do I null first and then do I go to the secondary, you know, uh, DX system or something that has a two wire interface on it and it's going to get nulled as well, uh, and then remembering that a null in a two wire system is related to the capacitance of the cable in the system.
So if you drop a hundred feet of cable, a thousand feet of cable for another spot op, we're going to need to null again. And anytime we add a user station, add cable in the system, it's worth null again.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, and like what are, just for folks that don't know, like what are like the obvious signs that something's off with nulling in an analog system?
Brian Grahn: Yeah. So the, the obvious issue is either a, a very pronounced, uh. echo within the system or the opposite of zero side tone and, uh, like no audio in the system. And that could be the inverse of like a perfect null where you're actually not getting anything back at your user station. Um, and so I, I had actually troubleshot an issue that they were, I guess, dealing with the Echo as just kind of a part of the system and they, you know, weren't really, you know, troubleshooting that.
But their problem was, if someone did a remote mic kill, the null was such that there was like, A 95 dB spike in everyone's headset because the killing of the mic caused a perfect, uh, uh, anti null, whatever it is, you know, like a resonance at that tone, and it would snap everyone's headsets. And we were trying to figure out, was it a bad ground somewhere?
Was it bad somewhere? It ended up just being the null. And once the null was set correctly, the remote mic kill created no sound to everyone's user station. So, nulling, termination, those are going to be the two big ones.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, and then I guess just to complete that set of questions, and like if you're either unterminated or overterminated, what does that tend to cause?
Brian Grahn: Yeah, usually under termination will be very obvious, uh, just squealing feedback, um, over termination,
Andy Leviss: one line to a two channel belt pack and it's not been the right line first, you know what that sounds like.
Brian Grahn: um, yeah, and the over termination will sometimes, it present itself in different ways, um, but the troubleshooting method I always like to try to go back to like one power supply on, one termination and, and kind of add things in from there as needed. Um, you know, the other big one is, uh, interfacing, Clear-Com, RTS, even Telex AudioCom systems across each other, and FreeSpeak 2Bass, uh, Arcadia as well.
We do have an RTS mode where we can do that. Um, two channels over a single XLR 3 pin.
Sean Walker: It's fricking sweet, dude. Thank you for including that
Brian Grahn: it's great. Yeah. Not needing a bunch of adapters, saps, whatever it would be to do all the combinations there. Um, but remembering that in an RTS mode Uh, your channel, your, your first channel will always be paired on the power line.
So the line that's providing 30 volt DC power. And so, what I've seen, a lot of times, uh, I would do, uh, corporate AV work where, uh, everyone would get, uh, You know, A over B, A over C, A over D, and A was the one, you know, the production PL that everyone was getting. And when you put that on all the power lines on everyone's belt packs, it's the most audio degraded signal.
In the system as well. So doing things like D over A, C over A, and putting that production line as the B button is the second button on a belt pack, uh, can sometimes clean that up a little bit as well, but that's where you can really get into the tips and tricks of when do you want to create kind of two isolated two wire systems and maybe connect them, you know, with an LQ or some other kind of four wire interconnectivity.
So that you're not just putting hundreds of belt packs loading down a two wire power supply.
Sean Walker: That's the shit Andy's here for. He likes that nerd shit. That's his, that's his brand of nerd.
Brian Grahn: Yeah, well then, you know, HelixNet is a great alternative to that and, you know, was designed in that world of I don't need to have a source assigned panel of, well wait, your belt pack needed this and this, so I'm gonna make a patch. You know, that over this to you and great. They're all available at the belt pack.
Which two channels do you want to listen to?
Andy Leviss: And I mean, I come, I come from the Broadway world where like at some point somebody figured out the, you know, if we use the matrix station sort of backwards, it becomes a 12 channel. Station instead of a four channel station.
Brian Grahn: Yeah. Yeah.
Andy Leviss: Um, I guess that was like the one other analog question I had was there's one of the common like myths, concerns, whatever I've run into with folks is the, oh God, no, you can never have two main stations powered on or, oh yeah, you should always for about, and did maybe if we want to like shed a little light on that.
Brian Grahn: Yeah. And so what it really comes down to is with, you know, the 30 volt, the way the systems are powered is it's constant. DC Voltage with your, your, your power supplies are just adding available current. And so you can have multiple power supplies as long as they have the ability to turn off termination at, at the other ones.
So again, you know, it's better to have one large power supply in a system and you're kind of. Dedicating all of that in one place. Uh, but you can have multiple power supplies turned on again, as long as you have termination. So something like a PK7, uh, I'm not sure if we have a termination, uh, turn off on that smaller boxes, especially older power supplies, they might only have termination turned, you know, always turned on within the box.
So just something to be aware of while you're interconnecting different systems. And especially, and one more thought there, you know, the, the classic in house. two wire system that's been here forever that we're just going to try to tie in our individual, um, uh, or our, our free speak system to it or whatever that might be.
Uh, that's where you really want to double check, you know, what's going on in that in house system before we're going to tie in the, the free speak. The Arcadia could just be a unpowered, uh, user station on that two wire network and kind of rely on that power in house already.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, I've always found that with touring, it was always easiest to like, I'm gonna make mine be not terminated, because I know I can always add a terminator if I need it. I never know what is on the house, other than I can safely assume it's probably terminated, or they're gonna tell me Arc Theracom's terrible and it never works, in which case I'm like, cool, let's take two minutes and try and fix your
Brian Grahn: Sure. Yeah. Yeah.
Andy Leviss: Um, I, I'm trying to think, there's like one other nerdy question I have before, before we go, uh, go off in other directions. Um, I feel like I remember from taking an, an Arcadia training that, is, is Arcadia and HelixNet powerline voltage different? Or, because powerline's still a thing on Arcadia, right?
Brian Grahn: Uh, so PowerLine is not inherently built into the Arcadia like it was on an HMS system, but we do have a new device, um, called the HXII DPL, which is functionally a media converter that takes, uh, IP in and spits out the PowerLine protocol Over 3 pin XLR, which for people that might not know, HelixNet Powerline is a way to, uh, send digital audio and power down a 3 pin XLR to HelixNet devices.
And so, our DPL can now run up to, I believe, 7 belt packs per DPL, uh, but you can add those on to the system as needed. Uh, so you could run either, you know, IP all the way. to the tech table and then a DPL locally there that then hits some kind of XLR, uh, Y cable breakout or patch panel that could then go to all of the HelixNet bell packs there.
Or, you know, you could have a DPL at the Arcadia and send that signal over XLR to wherever you're going.
Sean Walker: That's pretty sweet, dude.
Brian Grahn: Now, your mileage may vary with power line. That's kind of always been the thing. Again, uh, Solution Finder has some good examples of suggested cabling. Again, not every mic line is created equal, especially in a venue that might've had that installed for Forty years and goes through three patch panels before it hits that spot up or wherever it's going So you're gonna have to test that out.
Andy Leviss: somewhere down in the
Brian Grahn: Exactly. Something's been gnawing on underneath the stage as well, you know
Andy Leviss: his name's Lenny, he's a props guy, we're not allowed to fire him at this point.
Brian Grahn: a great
Uh, protocol and it, you know, we're functionally just modulating, um, RF over XLR to, to make that happen. So, uh, you'll still need a network switch between the Arcadia and the DPLs, um, and it will pass along DHCP and whatever else to the individual belt packs or, uh, Uh, remote stations, HKB wall stations on the other side of it.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, like, the one reason I've always liked that, like, particularly in the theater world, is like, it's great for like, spot ops, because you can run one line up to the spot ops and then just daisy chain along for four or six, however many.
Brian Grahn: And you know, uh, we, on the HelixNet belt packs, we have, uh, EtherCon connectors. So that's great, you know, to ruggedize the connection for someone that might actually have a spot op, again, someone that needs a belt pack, whether on a table or on their hip. Uh, but there's always a lot of 3 pin XLR laying around, you know?
So if you need to have that extra 25 foot extension or whatever it would be, It's really easy to go that route if you have that, uh, power line converter.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, and like, in that theater world, that like, last minute, like, oh hey, we've got somebody following, shadowing the light board op or the spot op today, can you give an extra pack? And it becomes the, oh yeah, just chain it off the pass through port on the power line pack as opposed to having to run a line back to the switch, which is
Brian Grahn: Yep. And that goes back to it. You can cable it just like a two wire system where I could hit a whirlwind split six and go off a few different directions or a Y cable to a Y cable or even daisy chain all the way back around, uh, uh, sorry, in, in like a redundant ring so that if I were to unplug any belt pack in the middle, it's still getting.
Connection on either end of them as well. Uh, so that connectivity is really forgiving as long as the cabling. It works for it,
Andy Leviss: Yeah, I think the only footnote I've run into that I'll throw out for folks is like, particularly in the Broadway world, we're big on like the like, one by five or like six way split like rack mount panels. And the old analog ones were always made just open back, no shielding on them. And with Powerline, you, you want to get a shielding case around that, like all the Broadway rental shops have redone all their packs with like a metal enclosure around the back, and that'll, that'll save you a lot of headache if you're doing Powerline splits that way.
Brian Grahn: Yeah, that's a great note.
Andy Leviss: Um, I don't know, Sean, do you, I feel like I've taken over with like the deep, nerdy, and more analog questions for a change. Is there something else to, uh
Brian Grahn: I'm here for it.
Andy Leviss: You had in mind? I didn't,
Sean Walker: No, man, I, I, I got my questions answered. Um, yeah, I got all my questions answered. Is there anything coming up that you want to talk about or can talk about? Or are we waiting until NAMM to hear any of the new stuff?
Brian Grahn: Yeah, no, I think another really interesting thing that we've came out with earlier this year is our GenIC virtual intercom systems as
Sean Walker: Bro, where do you guys get the naming nomenclature? What the
Brian Grahn: GenIC, so it's to generate intercom. So for a while now, we've had our virtual clients is what I'm going to refer to them. So a cell phone app. Um, uh, even a Mac OS and, uh, Windows PC app. So a way to have like a soft client. You don't need to have a physical Clear-Comm belt pack in front of you. Uh, but previously the only ways to connect virtual clients together was still with some kind of Clear-Comm hardware.
Our LQ box would, was able to host up to eight Agent IC licenses. Our, um, larger matrix frames could host any of these kinds of licenses there. Uh, but, the problem was,
Andy Leviss: interrupt for a sec. Is that one license equals one user? 80,
Brian Grahn: yeah, uh, one active user. Yeah, so, um, so with an LQBox, with the AgentIC app, you could tag that along to a FreeSpeak system, for instance, and tie some analog lines across the two, and now you have the ability for a few users to be on LAN, WAN, or Internet. So you're using their cell phones to connect back to the system.
And so what was cool with that as the kind of initial, um, design of that was in the broadcast world for remote talent, remote reporters, remote ENG, uh, the ability to just use existing devices in your pocket, not having a dedicated device for that. Um, and then you can use, you know, uh, AirPods, whatever kind of Bluetooth connectivity for that.
Uh, but you always needed to have some kind of Clear-Com hardware running that. And there was a lot of network security issues there where you had to be able to see that device on the internet. So whether it was port forwarding through a, a, uh, firewall or you're in a, uh, touring situation where every day as you plug your device into the internet, you have a different external IP address that you're then trying to find or point to.
So, GenIC now is, a, um, cloud hosted version of our LQ functionality. Uh, so, instead of needing to have any physical Clear-Com hardware, you can always use this app to point to the cloud service that's running in the background. So, couple interesting use cases there.
Sean Walker: Dude, that's sweet.
Brian Grahn: before, you know, even to have a small party line system, for let's say, small house of worship, small tech team, you would still need to have power supply.
In the smallest deployment, we could all just be sitting at a table with our cell phones and airpods and have up to 12 channels of party lines that we could all be talking on, whether that's all in the same room or anywhere around the world. So, no Clear-Com hardware needed to do that. On the next level up is, you have an Arcadia or a FreeSpeak system and you wanted to add that.
virtual client functionality onto that, we can, instead of needing an LQ that could only host up to eight licenses, the cloud can host up to 64 licenses at any given time. So now we're expanding the number of users. So, you know, whether that's, we have more wireless cam ops and we need the ability to have, you know, we're going to rely on their individual devices then to interconnect back to the main production system or another layer of users that might be Um, parking attendants, ushers, someone else like that, that we want to be able to have connected to the tech director, to the show caller, whoever it would be.
Uh, but again, we don't have a dedicated, yeah, we don't have a dedicated 2, 000 belt pack that we can provide for that wireless user.
Sean Walker: So there's no hardware needed in this is what you're saying.
Brian Grahn: so the LQ would be the way to tie physical hardware onsite up to the cloud,
Sean Walker: So I still, if we got Arcadia in the venue, I still needed LQ to get to the cloud.
Brian Grahn: get to the cloud. And then the other cool thing is if we want to do multi site linking. So let's say,
Sean Walker: You have multiple church campuses that want to talk to each
Brian Grahn: church campuses, things like that. Again, if you're stationary, static IPs, you know, you're always going to have the same external IP. We can do that now with Arcadia doing Arcadia to Arcadia linking, Arcadia to LQ.
But if you're touring and you want to do multi site linking, you can use the cloud as the bridge between different on premise systems.
Sean Walker: fricking sweet.
Brian Grahn: cloud will always have the same address that we're pointing to, and without even any virtual client users, you could just use the cloud to bridge LQs to LQs that are moving around the world.
Sean Walker: That's frickin awesome, dude. What a great solution.
Brian Grahn: another interesting way of, you know, interconnecting people. And again, intercom is just audio. It's just kind of weird audio, you know, that's kind of dedicated for real time two way communications. And so this is just another tool in the tool set that allows for, um, people from around the world, whether that's, you know, I can't be on site, the Remy workflows nowadays for some broadcast productions, uh, someone that wants to be sitting in and hearing what's happening on production comms on site somewhere.
But maybe is working, you know, across the world somewhere else and wants to be listening in.
Sean Walker: Can we set it Quick question, that just made me think. Can you set it to listen only for them? Like you can a lot of things so that if, if a show wanted to say like, hey, here's some VIP stuff where you can listen on your own device behind the scenes of what's happening, blah blah blah blah. You could have like, here's 64 people that paid extra 2.
7 trillion dollars or whatever to listen to Show, Call, Calm, even though nobody really wants to hear that behind the scenes,
Brian Grahn: Yep. where, uh, you know, similar to the role functionality of a FreeSpeak 2 belt pack, there is a role that you can set for that virtual client user of, you can listen only to party line one and two, or you get all the party lines, or you just get, you know, whether it's used for translation or other kinds of services as well.
We're just moving audio around. Uh, but you could set that to kind of that user level, whether it's single channel, multi channels, listen only, listen and talk, things like that.
Andy Leviss: handy way to do like a remote IFB if you're in that broadcast world, like in doing like a vMix call or like a Zoom call or in.
Brian Grahn: A hundred percent, yeah, and that's where, um, the remote, again, coming from that broadcast workflow, it was meant as an IFB, and then they could also have directs or party lines to all the channels while they're off camera, sorting through tech issues, kind of talking through the production, and then once you're on air, you just link.
You just latch on that one listen, the phone in your pocket and, uh, you're, you're just listening on an AirPod or whatever that device might be.
Sean Walker: That's dope. That's super cool, dude. Cause I, I futz through with a multi campus. House of Worship install the Arcadia to multiple, you know, LQs to the HNIC to the, you know, and it, and it worked, but it was not super elegant compared to what you just described, which is a super elegant solution to that.
Totally.
Brian Grahn: Yeah, it's great. I mean, you're still, you know, when we go back to that troubleshooting concept though, it's now we're troubleshooting consumer electronic devices and Bluetooth headsets and, you know, someone's older version of iOS that might be running on a phone. Different level of, uh, sophistication there needed maybe for those users.
Uh, but again, we're all carrying around a thousand dollar communication device in our pocket. Sometimes it's nice to be able to leverage that to kind of extend the number of users that might be on a system.
Sean Walker: Bro, how crazy is it that cell phones are 1, 000 each right now? Like shoot me in the face. Are you kidding me?
Brian Grahn: We're all carrying around supercomputers
Sean Walker: Oh my God. Yeah, I know. The thing's got more power than the fricking first space shuttle. It's freaking craziness. Dude, that is an awesome nugget drop. That is, that's killer dude. That's. Actually super helpful for me personally, and I'm sure helpful for a lot of people.
And how cool that it works by itself that you can just say like, Oh man, here's the thing to just do up 12 people all by our onesie. We don't need to buy a giant base station if you don't want to, or it will tie into a super complex system if you need it to. What a great idea, dude. What a great solution.
I'm
Brian Grahn: Yeah, especially, and again, going back to, like, the remote workflow, um, the Station IC app is just something that could be running on the computer while, again, you're doing your primary thing of graphics op or, or some kind of prompter or whatever else you might be doing on the computer. Um, so you can then just use your wired headset on the computer and, uh, be communicating as if you're in the same room.
This is everyone else in the production.
Andy Leviss: to throw back to an episode a couple of months ago, you can take that right into the computer and, and wire it over to Prodcom to get your text transcription to your account channels. Nice and easy.
Brian Grahn: yeah, that, that is a really cool technology. And, uh, we're, I'm looking into some of the integrations again with Arcadia having 64 Dante IO kind of built into it, the ability to send some of those channels out and, you know, I understand intercom is kind of its own world and, you know, audio shout systems and talk back mics are all kind of siloed separately, but I think Prodcom is kind of bringing a lot of that together.
And Arcadia with all its Dante I. O. is another way to kind of bring some of that all under one roof as well.
Sean Walker: Does this mean I'm finally going to have to watch my P's and Q's on com and just know that. AI is in the background transcripting this for me and I'm, I'm fucked if I keep talking trash to my other audio guys.
Andy Leviss: on your permanent record.
Sean Walker: Damn it! Call HR!
Brian Grahn: multi tracking of comms these days, I'm sure, uh, has gotten some people in trouble. But,
Sean Walker: You know what? I'm gonna stay in the office. I'm gonna stay in the
Andy Leviss: ago too.
Brian Grahn: yeah.
Sean Walker: I'm gonna stay in the office. I'm just gonna let the guys do shows.
Andy Leviss: Um, Brian, so I know before we leave, like, you've been doing a bunch of, like, kinda tips and tricks videos on Instagram too, right? Do you wanna tell us a little bit about that and tell folks, like, what and where they can find? I've
Brian Grahn: Yeah, you know, uh, I think what's really interesting is the the As the technology just continues to advance, you know, the level of production that we have nowadays is amazing and, you know, the, the tools that are available to everyone are, are leaps and bounds of what we had 20 years ago. Uh, I'm seeing there's a lot of technicians that are new in the field and they're consuming a lot of information over YouTube.
And, uh, social media platforms and especially outside of the U. S. internationally, people that are like really interested in learning more about technologies, but don't necessarily have the in person training, the, um, the, uh, webinars or anything like that, that might be available to them. So, uh, I took to creating kind of little, did you know videos on Instagram?
Um, had a couple that have done pretty well. And, uh, I am, I'm hoping to record some more of them over the next year or so. Uh, uh, you can find my Instagram is at brypassfilter. Thought I was pretty clever with that one. Um, but, uh, the, you know, it's the little things that can maybe spark some imagination for a technician that's going to be in the field, not necessarily life changing information.
Uh, but you know, the one is there is an aux input on every free speak belt pack. I don't know if everyone knows that there's an eighth inch aux input on the bottom of every FreeSpeak 2 belt pack. And I saw a technician running a PSM 900 out cable right into the aux input of the FreeSpeak belt pack has its own volume control right there.
And now on the comm headset. They had full bandwidth audio coming from their cue system while they were patching things in, as well as mixed into their comm system. And I thought
Andy Leviss: an A2 a bunch of times, it's awesome.
Brian Grahn: it's great. And, you know, unless you had seen someone doing that on a show site before, you probably wouldn't have, uh, you know, known even that there was that input there.
Uh, so just hoping to get the word out on those little things and make people excited about. the technology as well, um, so that when they see something on a show site in the future, maybe they'll say, hey, can you try, can I get a, you know, a, a different button activation for this channel? Because I know that there's something beyond just forced listen and talk, but you know, dual talk and listen, so I can
Sean Walker: whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, easy killer, easy.
Brian Grahn: You know, uh, the other one, I'm working on this button activation video right now, but the ability to turn a button as Force Talk, Force Listen for someone who might be rigging or has their hands full and you can remotely trigger their mic on to have a real time conversation with them. Something good to know,
Sean Walker: That's dope,
Brian Grahn: you're not going to use it every day, but when you need to do it, it's good to know what it is and where to find it.
Sean Walker: Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, that seems like a great place to wrap it up since we're at the hour mark. Brian, thank you so very much for coming and spending some time with us and hanging out and nerding about comm, which that's right up Andy's alley. He's that kind of nerd, you know what I mean? And I learned a bunch and now you, now I'm going to owe you a whole bunch of money.
Thanks for that. Uh, I want to thank Allen and Heath and RCF for letting us keep yapping about audio and interviewing cool people. And that's the pod y'all. See you next week.
Brian Grahn: Thanks for having me guys.
Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green
