286. Larger-Scale Intercom Platforms

In Episode 286, Sean and Andy continue their look at stepping up from smaller shows with a dive into larger intercom platforms and a look at life past four-channel analog systems. This episode is sponsored by Allen & Heath and RCF.

Drawing from his work programming intercom systems for large scale corporate and broadcast events, including network upfronts, professional wrestling matches, and the recent SNL50 Homecoming Concert at Radio City Music Hall, Andy shares a brand-agnostic look at some tips and tricks for making the most of the options digital intercom systems offer — how a nearly infinite pool of private channels is helpful (and when it’s not!), making sure that as a comms programmer, the first goal is to make everybody else’s show run smoother, and why the most important tool a programmer can have on a show site is almost certainly not what you’d guess!

Episode Links:
Episode 286 Transcript

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The Signal To Noise Podcast on ProSoundWeb is co-hosted by pro audio veterans Andy Leviss and Sean Walker.

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Transcript

Episode 286 - All About Comms

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, whose new dLive RackUltra FX upgrade levels up your console with 8 next-generation FX racks – putting powerful tools like vocal tuning, harmonizing, and amp simulation right at your fingertips. Learn more at allen-heath.com

RCF and TT+ AUDIO.... Delivering premium audio solutions designed for tour sound and music professionals for over 75 years. Hear TT+ AUDIO's GTX 10 and GTX 12 line passive line array and the GTS 29 dual 19" passive subwoofer.... all powered by RCF's XPS 16k amplifier, live in the arena at Winter NAMM 2025. Many other RCF products will be demo'd in Hall A in room #17108. Visit RCF at RCF-USA.com for the latest news and product information.

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green

Andy Leviss: Hey, welcome to another episode of Signal and Noise. I'm your host, Andy Leavis, and with me, the 1176 to my LA 2A, Mr. Sean Walker. What's up, dude? 

Sean Walker: What's up, dude? Which one am I? Can I be 1176? 

Andy Leviss: Uh, yeah, yeah, that's what we said. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, perfect. Perfect. I'm definitely more aggressive. You're 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, I'm the, I'm the, I'm the nice and level... 

Sean Walker: Yeah, yeah. 100%. 

Andy Leviss: See, I didn't, I didn't plan it that way, but it worked out well. 

Sean Walker: Nice. Nice. 

Andy Leviss: I just got to remember to cross that one out so I don't try using it again. There's a list going at this point. I need to go back, although I have to go back and listen to all of them cause I haven't kept them all written down. 

So I've got to like do a spreadsheet and then we'll share it with folks so they can just like there's, there's the eatery spreadsheet. We can, we can do the Andy's stupid opening joke spreadsheet. 

Sean Walker: Somebody's keeping track, bro. You know somebody in one of the, in one of the communities is like, oh man, he said that one already. That's, that's, that's, 

Andy Leviss: Right. I got to just put it out to the discord. Like, is anybody keeping a list for me or do I have to actually go through the transcripts and do it myself and then try and piece together from the, from the auto generated transcripts? What I actually see. Yeah. And I know we say that in the transcripts, but for the handful of you that are actually reading them, if you catch dumb stuff, like I try to do a skim of them and fix bot didn't understand what we meant. 

But if you catch stuff, let us know because we just, there's, um, we, we had to let the intern who does the transcripts go. So it's a bot that does it. 

Sean Walker: right, giddy 

Andy Leviss: wait, we had an intern. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, right? Like, where was I on that? I would have piled more stuff on him. 

Andy Leviss: Right. I think I'm the intern sadly. 

Sean Walker: Nice. Like it? I like it. 

Andy Leviss: Yep. Um, but how's, how's by you? It is, it is, uh, snowing again here in the greater New York metropolitan area. 

Sean Walker: Man, we had a flurry of snow last week that was, you know, slushy and shut down everything because it looked like snow, but there was actually not much snow on the road. And that's how the Pacific Northwest works. Does look like snow, freak out, cry, stay home. Like, nothing happens, and so You know, everybody in Idaho, Montana, central, uh, you know, then the central part of the country in New York is just looking at us, shaking their heads, going, really? 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. Whereas we're like, there's a foot. Just give us 10 minutes. 

Sean Walker: Yeah. Yeah. You guys are like, give me your driver's license. You're not fit to be on 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, like I literally like I have to argue with I have to argue with my next door neighbor like like bill bill You've got like you've got COPD. You don't need to I'll shovel. It's fine. Like you don't need to shovel the whole block I got you, 

Sean Walker: Right? Totally. 

Andy Leviss: now he's a good dude, and he's he's he's a morning person, which I am NOT You know weird weird being in a yeah weird being in our business, right? 

Sean Walker: Yeah. Right. Totally. So you're, you get your coffee going at the crack of noon then. So you're at 

Andy Leviss: I mean, I mean at this point I've got an infant at home. So I've got my coffee going at three or five or whenever 

Sean Walker: all the above. 

Andy Leviss: Yes, all of them have, have, uh, delved through even more brands of instant coffee for the emergency coffee when I need it. I've, I've further refined my opinions on decent instant coffee lately on, on gigs. 

Sean Walker: All right. All right. Do share. Do share. 

Andy Leviss: I, I don't love all Blue Bottle, but Blue Bottle makes a It, they're bright instant coffee and it's pretty great. It is, I'm actually liking it better than the, the swift cup stuff that I've talked about before. I think, I think swift might actually do the processing on it, but it's blue bottles hit or miss these days. 

But. That one is pretty hit, I think. Which, of course, this is one I'll get a bunch of discord yells at me like, you're an idiot, it's terrible. But yeah, no, it was bright, it had flavor, it got me through five, six days out of seven at Radio City last week. 

Sean Walker: Let's be honest. It's got caffeine and that's the important part. 

Andy Leviss: It's got caffeine, but you can also drink it without needing to add sugar and milk, which is my bar. I 

Sean Walker: All right. All right. 

Andy Leviss: a certain point, it's like, fuck it, give me the cream and the sugar, give me a regular, as we in New York call it. 

Sean Walker: Irregular. Is that what it 

Andy Leviss: A regular is a two cream, two sugar. 

Sean Walker: Okay. All right. 

Andy Leviss: You go up to any coffee, any coffee shop or any of the coffee carts in the city and you're like, yo, give me a regular. 

And you'll get, you'll get a coffee with two cream, two sugar. 

Sean Walker: All right. Now I know. See? Now I'm a regular New Yorker. I know these things. Yeah. Word. 

Andy Leviss: Literally, a regular New Yorker. Um, yeah, so what have you been up to? 

Sean Walker: Uh, we're loading into a big corporate show at the convention center right now for, uh, the next week and a half or two weeks or whatever. So, you know, Cing we're getting our corporate on 

Andy Leviss: It's that season. 

Sean Walker: it's show is dude 

Andy Leviss: It's the most lucrative time of the day. 

Sean Walker: right? Yeah. We're, we're in the throes of corporate season and then we're, you know, just looking down the pipe for the summer when the concerts happen here. Corporate in the winter, concerts in the summer. Kind of, you know, as you do. 

So everybody kind of gets their fill of like Corporate concert, corporate concert, rinse, repeat, kind of a thing. You guys too? Is that nationwide? 

Andy Leviss: here. I mean, I had the exception because I ended up, uh, on a fairly high profile concert last week, 

Sean Walker: Oh yeah? Tell me about 

Andy Leviss: which, um, well, there's, there's this little known late night show called Saturday Night Live. I don't know if you've heard of it. 

Sean Walker: Never heard of it. 

Andy Leviss: And apparently it's been going on for 50 years. And so they had a big homecoming concert live at Radio City, 

Sean Walker: Sweet. 

Andy Leviss: on Peacock. 

I think you should still be able to stream it on Peacock if you didn't. And, uh, along with a bunch of other friends, I was working on that all last week at Radio City. 

Sean Walker: Right, dude! How 

Andy Leviss: I mean, yeah, so I was working on calm for that. 

Sean Walker: And the boss went with you, right? 

Andy Leviss: yep. Yep. The missus was working as one of the two is a bunch of other friends were on it. 

We're gonna, we're not going to dive too deep into it now. Cause like I said, I was Off in our corner doing calm and my own thing and I'm talking to a few folks who are involved in different capacities about coming on and talking, whether specifically about that or more generically about that type of event. 

So got some stuff up my sleeve. I'm trying to coordinate with a few folks. 

Sean Walker: Nice. Can you chat about the com rig? 

Andy Leviss: uh, yeah, it was, it was actually, it was Colossal. So, um, it was, it was all reedle. Um, there was, um, I don't actually, so there were four of us on the team, uh, two folks programming basically, and two of us backing them up. And, um, so I was on the wireless side of it, so I don't know the final count on the wired side, but. Metric tons of desk panels and, and rack key panels and all that all over the place. Um, like broadcast truck comes in and they've got their own that gets tied into over Dante. But, um, past that, like a lot of, like the, all the playback trailers, the audio trailers didn't travel their own. So we dropped real desk panels in there. 

Um, all the screens and graphics folks, we dropped a bunch of panels out in their trailer. So, you know, it would be like fiber out to the street, switches and run all their panels. And then, well, Radio City does have a large retail infrastructure of their own for the sake of keeping everything a little easier to use. 

And like, I've done other shows there where we tie into the house infrastructure. Tradeoffs in doing that and not because stuff that's programmed and there's always landmines and somebody else's programming and blah, blah, blah. Um, so, but for this one, we dropped panels everywhere. And then on the wireless side, it was bananas because there is you, there is a high density mode of of bolero that you have to actually like get the antennas like with the licenses from reedle like specifically for the gig because they have to get. 

They have to license frequencies for it, but it will do up to 95 belt packs. 

Sean Walker: Whoa, 

Andy Leviss: yeah, I think our final live count was somewhere in the 80s, but we did have 95 actually commissioned in online and it's, it's pretty, it's pretty wild. 

Sean Walker: that's a lot of belt 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. So, so hence why we had two of us handling wireless. Solo and then two other folks handling the wired side of it and working and because they all program together There's coordination that happens and you know, if folks on the wireless side need to make changes to belt pack profiles You know, you kind of shout it over calm to the other guys. 

Hey pull from the system So you're not, you know overriding my changes next time you make a change and that sort of thing As long as communication is good. It works out well, and hopefully the comms department communicates. Well, it's kind of right in the name 

Sean Walker: Right? Totally. 

Andy Leviss: Um, yeah, but the show went off, it was, you know, it was an adventure. 

It was, you know, there were A and B stages on, on Radio City as a built in turntable to the stage. And, you know, plus there were side stages going, it was, there was some like, just go watch the show, man. It was, if you haven't, it's, I mean, yeah, like David Byrne and Robin teamed up to do, uh, Dancing on My Own. 

Um. You know, Andy Samberg and Lady Gaga did Dick in a Box together with Lady Gaga singing the Justin Timberlake part. 

Sean Walker: Nice! 

Andy Leviss: Um, yeah, like Cher performed and still looks as fucking Cher as ever. 

Sean Walker: That's awesome. Dude, I don't, like, Gaga seems like she's probably a pretty funny cat. Was she pretty funny, 

Andy Leviss: I think so, like, I didn't interact with her too directly, but like, she clearly had a great sense of humor. He's like, did you watch it? 

Sean Walker: I haven't seen it yet. 

Andy Leviss: So there's like, like, they come out and, you know, she's sitting at the piano playing, um, uh, shallow from a star. What is it from a star is born? And Andy Samberg sitting there looking almost Amish with this weird wig and hat, but it was a bizarre Andy Samberg thing. 

And he comes out and starts, he starts singing it, but very straining at the end of his vocal range and just horrendous. And finally Gaga's just like, Andy, Andy, I'm sorry, I'm going to, I'm going to stop you right there. He's like, it wasn't very good, was it? And she's like, no, maybe we should do something in your range. 

He's like, oh, I mean, there's this one thing, but I don't know how we do it. Justin isn't here to sing his part and she just like looks in dead ass in the face across the piano. Andy, don't be a bitch. I'll do it. So I, so I think I, I think I found my new ringtone 

Sean Walker: Just, Eddie, don't be a bitch, I'll do it. 

Andy Leviss: yeah, 

Sean Walker: ha ha ha ha ha. 

Andy Leviss: but, um, yeah, so that was the high and then the, the highlight, which was the big secret we all had to like bite our tongues on all week was what was introduced, um, at the end of the show as post Nirvana. 

Which was the three surviving members of Nirvana, with Post Malone singing lead and playing guitar, and it was fucking awesome. 

Sean Walker: Dude, how cool. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, like, because like during the pandemic he did a whole bunch of Nirvana covers that were like really well, and he's actually, they just announced like, I guess he's doing an album of those with Travis Barker and all that, that's gonna be coming out for Record Store Day. 

But like him with Dave, Crist, and why am I blanking on the third one's name? 

Sean Walker: Pat. 

Andy Leviss: Pat, yeah, Pat, and the three of them and Post Malone, and it was just, it was, he did Kurt really proud, like. 

Sean Walker: I bet that was slammin dude. I bet that was 

Andy Leviss: everything I saw online, like hundreds of comments was like, if they go on tour, I will buy tickets now. So yeah. Yeah. And like, they were like on the rundown under a code name. 

Like, you know, it was the, like, even up until they rehearsed the day before the show, like we're all sitting there like, who's that? Like, we've never heard of this band. What the fuck? And then they got there and really. Oh, understood. 

Sean Walker: Dude. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. 

Sean Walker: If that doesn't fill arenas or stadiums, I don't know what will. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. And like, I don't know that they're going to tour, but like they fucking should. Cause it was pretty baller. Um, 

Sean Walker: be pretty freaking sweet, dude. 

Andy Leviss: yeah. And like, there were like all like, I, like, I like, I know we've heard about jelly roll and like when we had Ben Ivy on talking about opening for him, we were talking about him, but like I'd never actually seen him and like, he's, he was fucking great. 

He did like a Johnny cash cover and like it was. It was pretty solid because like for a lot of the artists that like have been on SNL over the years but aren't with us anymore, they would bring on somebody else of equal stature to like do a tribute to them. Um, or like Miley Cyrus came out and did she and um, Brittany Howard from Alabama Shakes teamed up and did, I'm trying to remember what, because they did Flowers which was her song but they did a cover and I'm totally blanking on what it was now because I'm blurring between the. 

SNL special on Sunday and that concert, but it was awesome. Um, but yeah, no, it's, it's cool to stream. It was really cool to be on. And like I said, I've got, we've got somebody we've been talking to about coming on as a guest for a while, who both has a lot of experience in the Broadway world, but also has been doing like music mixing for stuff like this in front of house for the Tonys. 

So of course I've just, yeah, anybody who knows this, this friend of mine knows exactly who I'm talking about now, but talking to him about coming on. Um, and we'll definitely. Pick his brain about what it's like because I mean, it's, there's like, so like large shows like that. It's like there's an A and B console. 

Like there's a music mixer at front of house and a monitor mixer for each of the two stages on the turntable. And then a production mixer that's basically getting mixes from both of them. Plus all the like emcees and hosts and all that stuff and all the playback. So there's like three, there were actually four consoles in front of house because there was also a backup for the two music consoles. 

Yeah. 

Sean Walker: kind of consoles? 

Andy Leviss: Uh, there were, the music consoles were all Digico Quantums, I wanna say 338s, but don't quote me on that. And then it was a PM, it was a Ravage, I forget which model, was the production console at front of house. 

Sean Walker: Sick. 

Andy Leviss: then, yeah, and then in monitors was also a pair of Digicos, and there was a DM7 doing Like what I want to say the monitor mixes I think we're like dedicated to the stage but then like side fills were not so I think that was doing some of that stuff and then there's a third mixer slash monitor tech with an iPad on stage with the artist helping liaise with them. 

So yeah, we'll try and get a couple of those folks on and, and dig into how an event of that scale works. Cause it's, there's a lot of moving parts, 

Sean Walker: Yeah, dude, that'd be sweet. 

Andy Leviss: but yeah, like this week though, I kind of figured like having been deep in that calm world for a little while, you know, we've been doing a bunch of different like basics to like intermediate. 

stuff for folks, you know, the last couple of months. And I was like, you know, what if we dig into calm a little bit? Cause like, yeah, cause everybody's done like, you know, your four channel main station for corporate events. But like, once you get past that to like any of the digital systems, shit gets crazy fast. 

And I figured we could Talk a little bit about that and some like good ideas, bad ideas, best practices. And again, throwing out that as, as somebody way smarter than I said, in audio, there's a hundred ways to do anything and only about three of them are wrong. So I will, I will apply it on my ways and you weigh in with whatever you've got. 

But thrown out there to folks like it is not the gospel. There are all different ways to do this stuff. Um, and, and yeah, and I think we'll try and keep it fairly brand generic, you know, like none of, you know, like I'm not going too deep into like tips and tricks of like, you know, retail specific or clear com or RTS or anything, I think just broader stuff. 

So I don't like, what kind of. I guess like on your, on your side, like on the gigs you're doing, like what type of stuff are you putting out? Are you still like mostly analog? Are you doing like clear com digital or like what type of stuff are you seeing day to day? 

Sean Walker: we see FreeSpeak and HelixNet and then RTS Analog with the, you know, BP325s and a SAT panel. That's, that's what we're seeing mostly. And, uh, for all of you out there laughing about our old Analog RTS rig, that thing has been printing money for a long time and still works GREAT! 

Andy Leviss: I mean look, there's like as much as like more and more of like Broadway is going to like, you know, Helix net or, or, you know, read all, there's still lots of, um, God, it's one of those nights where like model numbers and specifics are not coming to me, but the same, the, the clearcom matrix, the slidey switch panel that I'm, you know, like the, the, yeah, it's, it's their version of that. 

And I'm, I'm blanking on what it's called right now. And people are screaming at their, at their car stereos right now, or their, or their iPhones, like you idiot. It's the, um, 

Sean Walker: It's the blah, blah, blah, model blah, blah, blah. How did you not know that? Blah, blah, blah. Oh, 

Andy Leviss: throw out to make up for forgetting what it's called. I will throw out. It's like an SB something I want to say. 

Yeah, it'll, it'll come to me as soon as we stop recording, but I'll throw out a cool trick to that, which I think I might've mentioned before. But a thing that a lot of Broadway folks are doing, because we tend to, as, as we're going to talk about digital, you tend to start getting rapidly past, like, you've got your basic, like, you know, you might have like a deck or an SM channel, an audio channel, a lighting channel, whatever they're for channel. 

Then you start needing like private lines so folks can talk without like the other departments involved or like, you know, the A2s can coordinate or whatever you need. So a cool trick with those matrix panels, and I think it'll work on the RTS ones, although not 100%, but it for sure works on all the ClearCom ones through all the generations, is when, because those matrix selectors have an off A, B, C, D, where you assign each of the 12 outputs to which channel you want it to be on. 

If you leave it off, that line is still terminated and still powered, which means that station can actually be a 12 channel base station. 

Sean Walker: snap. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. So, and then basically what you end up doing is each of those 12s becomes that, and then you're, you ignore the ABCD channels or you can use them as local listen. So basically any of those 12 channels you want to listen to, you dump that onto ABC or D and then you can listen to it on the local station. 

But now you've got 12 channels instead of. Instead of just four so a handy way to milk a little bit extra out of out of that old school analog 

Sean Walker: Yeah, that's 

Andy Leviss: which I'll yeah, and I don't know who came up with that I know I learned it from from a friend Ken Goodwin On a show years ago And I don't know if he's owner came up with it or where it's but it's been bouncing around and like the Broadway world for For years as we are apt to try and get every last penny out of a piece of gear that we can 

Sean Walker: I mean, I think all of us are on that same page, right? 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. I mean, if, if, if anybody's not on their hiring, like, let me know. 

Sean Walker: Yeah. Anybody wants to burn some money? Like, yeah, I'll send you a postcard. Like, let's go. You know what I mean? 

Andy Leviss: Um, but yeah, so like, once you get back to that, like, how, like, how are you, like, when you're running like a helix nexus, like how many are you doing lots of like, like private channels or like, what type of stuff are you doing with it? Typically. 

Sean Walker: Most of our stuff is, I'm gonna say, reasonably basic after listening to your Radio City situation, 

Andy Leviss: I mean, that's an extreme, but 

Sean Walker: yeah, but we're, we're mostly like, you know, 10 to 15 belt packs of free speak and then 8 to, I don't know, 8 to 12 drops of something wired, whether that is HelixNet or RTS, it is rarely both, 

Andy Leviss: Yep. 

Sean Walker: and that, that pretty much covers most of the small to medium sized corporate stuff that we're doing. 

Andy Leviss: Cool. And are you, are you digging into like things like point to points on helix net at all? Or, or is that, 

Sean Walker: I don't do that work anymore. I have guys that do that work. They would know more than I would. 

Andy Leviss: Cool. So, so yeah, I mean, I, I feel like that seems like a good part to start digging into like, once comm gets past that is one of the first things that gets added when you get to a digital system that's got more capability is. Yeah. is point to points, which is more and more. I find more, we'll call them clients, but like more and more of the users on shows are learning the terminology of not fully understanding what it means. 

So let's start, I guess, start explaining what that is. It's, it's literally what it sounds like. It is the. I'm the A1, you know, I've got an A2, I'm on a button on my belt pack that is just a private channel between the two of us. I can talk to him, he can talk to me, she can talk to me, they can talk to me, 

Sean Walker: Oh, then yes, we do that a lot. 

Andy Leviss: Okay. 

Sean Walker: Absolutely. Yeah. We just call them private channels. I didn't know they were called point to 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. Well, that's where the distinction is. Cause like we had somebody walk up to us during the show and is like, Hey, the three of us need a point to point. And it was like, that's not a point to point. That's a private channel or an ISO because it's more than one person. A point to point is literally my belt pack talks to your belt pack. 

And then you have a button back that talks to mine. So it is literally a, in theory, nobody else can listen in. It is, I am just talking straight to one single other person. That button only goes to them. 

Sean Walker: copy that. 

Andy Leviss: as opposed to a private. And that's, I've been seeing a shift in terminology for private channels, which are group channels that are a similar concept. 

And that more and more I'm seeing shows call them ISOs as opposed to private lines, I think simply because abbreviating it to PL. Could be a party line or could be a private line, so it's a little confusing, so calling it an ISO makes it a little clearer that this is an isolated channel just for these folks. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, sure, man. That makes sense to me. 

Andy Leviss: So yeah, and that's where like, com systems start scaling and like on like smaller free speak rigs or like Bolero standalone you can rapidly start to run out of channels because you only get so many party lines on those systems. Um, and, and it's, it's really easy and it can cause real problems on shows to have those start spiraling out of control and, oh, well, we need a private channel and then we want to talk about this thing without bothering them. 

So we need an ISO channel for this and we need an ISO for that. And very rapidly communications can get too splintered. So that's like one of the, one of the big things I wanted to talk about in this episode is as you start progressing to larger systems, being conscious of. When does it help and when does it hurt? 

Which is the thing we, we do all the time with, like mixing stuff too, you know, or, or with any tools or with plugins. And, and it's important to think about that with comm two is just because you can add a separate channel for something. Is that the best use of it? 

Sean Walker: Sure. Totally. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. And like there's, and I, and I mean, I get, you can get down a road of like, why, why to add a cha uh, an ISO channel or not. Typically, it's, I feel like the folks who ask for too many are doing it just because like they want to like keep, keep a very specific topic. And when I'm talking about this specific thing, I want to hit that button and talk to those specific people. 

Whereas the, I think the, the less confusing way to think about it is the, when am I talking about something that is going to distract somebody else from what they need to be doing? You know, like, so, like, where, like, when you've got an A and a B music stage, it can get very confusing. Like, do we have one music A2 channel, you know, that they're both coordinating? 

Or do we have a music A and a music B so that the folks setting up the stage that's not live on stage right now can communicate while the folks who are dealing with the A stage can deal with problems? And then, but then at that point, do you also need a Overall music channel where they both can talk or do you not? 

And which one do folks talk on? And it's, it's a thing to like think through and, and both the, the purpose and it's, it's helpful to ask, what are you trying to accomplish with this channel before you just throw extra channels on somebody's pack? 

Sean Walker: Yeah, totally, because you only got four or five buttons, right? So, 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. Like on a, on a wireless pack or yeah, six on a bolero or eight, if you got the fancy new. Yeah. Free speak that we that we got the sneak preview of eight buttons. They're like, fuck you read. Oh, we win now. 

Sean Walker: Dude, I, I'm totally getting at least one of those, because Brian had a great idea. He's like, Yo man, give that one to the client, because, you know, then they fancy. 

Andy Leviss: Yep. 

Sean Walker: I was like, I like fancy. 

Andy Leviss: Yep. Yep. Makes them feel over. And also that is all like the producers often the one who like wants like 80, 000 different things. And I mean, that's another thing that Like there were ways to do it in analog com, but it becomes a lot easier in digital is adding a program feed into belt packs, which is another thing. 

Like once you make that step up, that's a real helpful thing for folks to have. And like, usually you'll put that on a key somewhere and, and the keel rather than talking to it, the key on the pack becomes an on off for program. So they can mute it or turn it on when you need it. And like, I mean, I, if it's an option on a show, I rarely ever don't want that, whether it's to just be able to spot check that program feed or If I'm in a, like, if I'm a ComTech and I'm running around through, you know, the entirety of Radio City, it's helpful to, like, be able to key in to hear what's going on with the show and where we are, and also to hear the fuckin rockin music, cause duh. 

Sean Walker: Right, totally. 

Andy Leviss: Um, yeah, like, that's another, another thing that, like, Folks don't actually think of right away. That is, is an important tool to have in your box. Once you're going past like a four channel com system. Um, the other, the other big thing I'll throw out there, which is depending on how you implement can or may or may not be a point to point is. 

A com help channel. So if you've got a dedicated person who's a com programmer, which at a certain point of scale, you're going to have one of the first things like folks who've been doing it for a while will do is every pack on some, some key somewhere on it gets a button labeled com help. And if it's if it allows eight character names, it will usually be C. 

O. M. H. E. L. P. Exclamation point. And that is It is a point to point or something similar from every belt pack back to the com programmer. So if they have any issues, they can just get you real quick without having to figure out what channel you're listening to. Like usually you can set priority on that channel for the com programmers station to come in louder than every other channel. 

And that is one of those things that like the first time somebody shows it to you, you're like, that's fucking, but like nobody necessarily teaches you like until you see it happen on a gig. Um, 

Sean Walker: pretty sweet, dude. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. And if you've got like a team of multiple com folks, or if like sometimes when I'm programming com, if I can, I'll take both a wireless pack and a wired pack. 

So I think pretty much all the platforms have like something along the lines of a group, which is where it's basically a one way announcement. It's, it's sort of a cousin of a point to point where it's anybody. in the group hears it, but you can't respond back to it. It's sort of like a, a one way filter on a party line. 

So like if there's 20 people in the group and I've got a talkie to that group, I can talk to that group, but anybody I talk to is only going to respond back to me. They're not going to respond back to all 20 people. So there, Yeah, so like typically, like one of the ways like that also gets used on larger shows is like you'll sometimes give the tech manager or the production manager and all call, which so they've got a button on their packets is all call. 

And that's a group that goes to every other person on the show. And the cool thing about that is both point to points and groups. for the receiving person, don't eat up a key. So they will like, they bypass all volume control. They are just subject to the like headset volume on it. So if your pack is in a group or your pack is, I have a point to point to you when I talk to you, it's always going to come through. 

You don't need to have a dedicated listen channel for that. 

Sean Walker: Oh, that's sweet. 

Andy Leviss: And then although like that, that's where that reply button, they're like, everybody's like, what the fuck is that button for on the, like the big red button on the Belair or the little reply button in the center on the free speak. That's where that comes in handy because that will reply to the last person who talked to your pack. 

So, say I've got a point to point to you because I'm going to yell at you a lot, but you're normally not going to talk to me. You may not want to eat up a key on your pack with a point to point back to me. So I can talk on, on your point to point when I talk to you, you can just hit reply and that'll reply back to me because I'm the last person who talked to you. 

Likewise, that's how that calm help channel works for folks. Like we can just hit the reply key and that'll talk to whoever called us last. It can get a little wacky and a little particular to each system when like three people in a row talk to you and how you navigate. To which one you want to respond to. 

I'm gonna, I'm gonna do the, the obnoxious thing and say that's a little bit of an exercise for the reader. We're not going to dig into in this episode because it does vary a bit depending on like RTS, clear, calm, read all, all have a way to handle that, but it's a little different on each. Um, I know on reedle and bolero, it's, it's yeah. 

Somewhat called a scroll list on. Actually, no, I'm on. Yeah, I'm reading. It's a scroll list on RTS. It's a call waiting. They call it, although it's not exactly call waiting like back in the phone days. Um, back in the know, we still have call waiting on cell phones, don't we? I'm old. 

Sean Walker: ha! Ha 

Andy Leviss: phones were wired. 

I'm like, nope, call waiting. We still have it. It's busy signals. We don't have anymore. Um, 

Sean Walker: ha ha! 

Andy Leviss: but yeah, so, so in all call is one way you would use that. And then if, if the person needs to talk back to you or like, um, So, but another way to use, to use that group is to basically put only the com programmer or the com programmers into a group and give everybody else a talkie to that group. 

And then it works backwards and it's silly because it's a group that may only have one person in it, but that way if like as the programmer, I have two belt packs, that com help button will talk to both of my belt packs. So it's sort of a multi point to point and then I'll use the reply key to talk back to somebody else. Um, 

Sean Walker: that's handy. That's a nice trick. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, so there's like useful stuff buried in there that once the show starts getting larger can, you can find ways to manage it and make it a little more manageable without giving everybody too many options. And that's, that's one of the big, one of the big things, like I said, you can run quickly into. 

Um, like segmenting calm channels too much to the point that it, it no longer helps people and it makes communication harder. And I've seen this happen on shows. I'm not going to name shows I've seen it happen on because you know, not going to talk outside of school too much, but I've definitely been on shows where like things would have gone a lot easier if there were five fewer calm channels in a certain department and just folks got complicated. 

And some of that is to figuring out who, who decides what channels you need and who decides who's going to be in it. Like. You know, there's some departments. It's it's handy. Like stage managers will often come over and be like, Hey, the three of us, you know, are handling this part of it. Can you make a separate channel for us for that? 

And typically, you know, like that's a reasonable request or not. But like on a large show like that radio city show, like if there is like There's a dozen he choose and if they're all coming over asking for different channels at a certain point, it's like you just want to kind of go to the head person of that department and be like, Hey, everybody's asking for different channels. 

What do you actually need and what's going to make it work for you? And what should I tell folks? No. Or should I just tell them to ask you and you communicate the requests to me? Cause it's, it's the whole thing about doing calm is helping everybody else be able to communicate clearly. Like you make or break a show despite being like that low glamour, you know, tucked in the back corner position. 

And it's, it's, you gotta be careful to make sure it's. It's like we've talked about with monitors. People ask for what they think they need, and you kind of have to play the game of figuring out, is that actually what you need? Or is there something else that will solve this problem for you? And, and comm can sometimes be like that too. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, dude, it's the least sexy mission critical showstopper that there is, bro! 

Andy Leviss: Yep. Yep. We've, we've definitely talked about that before. 

Sean Walker: Totally, dude! Totally. Alright, what are some, uh, what are some good, since we're keeping, you know, let's stay in line with our 101, maybe 102, but what are some good like best practices when somebody is walking up to their first, you know, bolero, free speak, gringo, whatever their first wireless com rig, or digital com rig that they're like. 

Okay, man, I got thrown this, you know, I'll say a free speech because that's what I know the best, but it could be Bolero or whatever. I got this gig, it's got, you know, something easy, like, maybe five or ten belt packs on it. What are some, like, best practices to get going that, that some 101 people could take away from this? 

Andy Leviss: Um, I'm trying to think, cause like the first thing when you mentioned free speak that comes to mind, I, I know I, I said we were going to try and keep this generic, but the thing that always bites folks on free speak is profiles. So I, I like want to make sure we flag that because, and, and part of that is because HelixNet and FreeSpeak work differently in that aspect. 

That HelixNet, which just for, for us is ClearComm's, one of ClearComm's wired digital systems, and that like Eclipse and Arcadia and all that, it's, it's branched out a bit, but we'll go with HelixNet because it's the most basic one and they all work similarly. A profile is like a preset of certain channels, certain settings for a belt pack. 

And in HelixNet, you can use that profile on as many packs as you want. You can build like a generic client profile that goes to all the producers that has, you know, the show call, the couple other things they need programming, keeps them out of the channels that you don't want 80, 000, you know, assistant producers talking on and duplicate that down. 

So when they come back at you and you're like, Hey, we have two more PAs and another, you know, talent producer over there. Can we get a pack? You can quickly drop that on. That is not how it works on the Freespeak side. At all. And that confuses people if they've programmed HelixNet and are new to Freespeak. 

Because in Freespeak, a profile is unique to a pack. It is, it, it may or may not be tied to a specific pack, but on a system a profile can only exist on one pack at any time. So you can clone a profile and keep making copies of it to generate new ones, but there's no base profile that's doing it. So Typically what makes everybody's life easier is you build a profile in free speak. 

And you assign it to a pack, like you bring the pack up, you, you link the pack to the system, you get the profile on it, and then you tell that pack, always pull this profile, and you do that for everyone. That way, when they boot up, they just pull that profile down and it's set to go. Because if you don't hard assign a profile to a free speak pack, it's going to give you a menu when it boots up of any profile that hasn't been claimed. 

and ask you to choose it. And then if there's another pack that tries to grab that profile, it's going to not be able to grab it. So ideally one, so you have to have one profile for every pack. And ideally in free speak world, assign them to each pack as you power them up, you know, program one, power it up, assign the profile, lock it to that pack, move on to the next one. 

That will save you so, so many headaches. Um, the other thing that's I guess generic to all systems that I will say because I'm this kind of nerd label the packs because when you turn them on, they show you the name that's on them, but when you turn them off, they don't. And it will save you so much time on any show with more than like five or 10 packs. 

If like. I mean, like a, I mean, if you need to do it with gaff tape, just give it a number and a name. If you want to be, you know, slightly neat about it, you know, an old school P Touch, if you want to be very me about it, I've got a spreadsheet that generates, uh, you know, that ties into a P Touch template and prints out a real pretty label that's got the number and the name and all that. 

Whatever works, but some sort of label and be smart about where you put the label, like put the pack in the charger, put the charger on the table where people are going to pick up from it and put the label where they'll see it when they come to pick up their packs. It will make everybody's life easier. 

It's a dumb. Low tech thing, but even before you get to programming, labeling that and bare minimum, you don't have to necessarily put names on the charters, but put numbers on the charters so people can put their pack in the same charger every night. So you know who's missing or you know which one's in the wrong place at the end of the night. 

Sean Walker: Yeah, I like it. 

Andy Leviss: Labels, labels, labels, labels. I spend more time doing labels on a comm gig than almost anything else, 

Sean Walker: Alright, 

Andy Leviss: makes it again, makes everybody's life easier. 

Sean Walker: Cause then, Suzie's always got Suzie's pack, Bob's always got Bob's pack, and their, their stuff's always straight. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. And they're, they're so packs and returning them and end of day is an, is another thing that this is, there's a part of this gets a little bit into politics and religion. People are very polarized on generally speaking. Anybody doing comm always wants the belt packs back at the end of the day, put them in the charters this way we make sure this way in the middle of day two, you're not coming back to me running like shit, I need a battery fast, you know, and and it makes your stuff gets back where the religion and politics comes into it is whether I want the headsets back or not. 

So, particularly post pandemic, a lot of, a lot of comm folks are saying, Nope, hang on to your headset all week. That is yours till the end of the job. I just want the belt pack back. For two reasons, one being the making sure that the same person stays with the same headset and you're not getting germs, cooties passing around. 

The other being that you can't put the packs in the charger with the headset attached. So if I'm taking all the headsets back, I have to find a place to put them. I have to arrange and depends on the gig. Like if I'm on a firehouse gig, they have these nice headset boxes with cubbies that I can make little cubbies and put everybody's headset in. 

Lots of people send out, you know, a bag of five headsets, another bag, like crammed into a Pelican. And if I have to manage those, it's just, it's again, slowing everybody down. So. It's my opinion, my personal religious belief, that headset is yours from the moment I give it to you until the show comes down. 

Just bring me the belt pack back every night. Inevitably, some producer will always give you their headset back every day, but that's also fine because it usually tends to be somebody important and it's usually only a couple of them. But if I can encourage everybody else to, it, again, it. Makes everybody's life easier. 

Sean Walker: Totally, dude. Totally. If the producer comes and gives you their headset back, you just say, Thank you, see you tomorrow. If camera 7 comes to give you the headset pack, Yo dawg, keep that headset I just need the pack Ha ha 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, 

Sean Walker: ha ha 

Andy Leviss: got a whole tripod there hanging off the damn tripod, man. 

Sean Walker: ha! 

Andy Leviss: come on, you're killing me. Um, yeah, I'm trying to think other like basic. Yeah, and I mean, you can like pre on a system where you can pre program, which isn't all of them. You know, free speak. Obviously, you can't do a ton of pre programming offline because you need to be connected to the base. 

Sean Walker: But you can do that in a shop before you take it to the gig. 

Andy Leviss: You can absolutely and and I strongly encourage like again don't go crazy because stuff will come up at the gig but anything you know like reach out to reach out to like the tech manager the tech soup whatever that position is on the show find out who needs come what channels they're expected to need and give that baseline to folks so you at least have a way to get up and running fast and you will make changes you will never not have to make changes on site but yeah as much as you can do in advance and that is one of the things I like about uh about like, uh, I mean, I don't like much about RTS. 

I'll be honest. I, I lately work on it a lot because I've been doing more stuff in broadcast, but you can do a degree of that offline and, um, read all as long as you're using an artist system, you can pre program a ton of it offline, which is great. That's one of the things that, that I don't love as much about ClearCom, although I'm happy to use ClearCom and it's, and you can't get up and running, but being able to sit there on an airplane or whatever and pre program your rig is. 

Pretty fucking awesome particularly as you get to these more complicated shows with like a hundred packs 

Sean Walker: Dude, that is pretty sweet. Totally. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, 

Sean Walker: You know, one thing that I would say is that like, uh, you know if, if we're talking about the 101 stuff. To the people that are kind of You know, starting out or whatever. Sometimes those, Oh man, how do I, Uh, 

Andy Leviss: is this John trying to put something politically? 

Sean Walker: Uh, yeah dude, sometimes you won't always get the information you want or need ahead of time, right? 

But if you wanted to start with a decent base, if you wanted to be like, This thing isn't fresh out the box and I could like get something going quickly your like basic four channel rig if you had Audio video lighting and production you got a good start to like the the pillars of what's gonna be there And then you can fuss and adjust as needed, you know what I mean? 

And if somebody's like, oh, well, I need you know Like like often we need like an audio private so I can be talking to a twos listen to mics doing blah blah and you know you can add those in or whatever, but if you just had like the the Four corners of the thing as it were then everybody can at least like hop on and get going if you were on a real basic Gig, you know what? 

I mean and basic gig with limited resources both Experience wise and probably gear wise that'll probably serve you. Well, you know, 

Andy Leviss: that'll that'll cover a lot of bases up front. And again, like I said that it that Even on a larger gig, that'll get you going, you know, that'll get you going to figure out what other needs there are, on larger gigs, there is always somebody usually that, like, whether it's a tech supervisor, tech manager, production manager, the, the exact title of every gig, there's usually one person who is God or goddess as far as determining who is allowed to have a pack, who gets a pack for two reasons. 

One being on a lot of larger shows, they're paying per pack and if it's a good supplier, they're sending more packs than have been requested because they know needs are going to come up. So like you're negotiating in advance a maximum, but it may be like we've sent 95 packs. You're only paying for 80, we can give you 15, but production needs to pay for the extra 15 if they're actually breaking them outta the case and using them. 

Um, and some places will charge by the single, some will charge by the 10. So like, there's one company I work with that like, if you open the 81st, what do you wanna do with the other, with the other nine? Because until you, you know, up to up to 90, you're good. It's till you break 91 and open the next pack up that the next charge hits. 

So it'll vary. But there's usually somebody there. And also that person will often have the bigger picture to know, like, No, that person doesn't actually need a pack or yeah, no, politically we have to give that person a pack, but please, for the love of fuck, only give them this particular channel. Do not let them hear any other channel. 

Do not let them talk to any other channel. Or they may be like, we're going to give them a listen only pack. Um, and that's the thing on larger shows too. Like on, on the SNL concert, listen only packs are a huge thing for camera, like camera assists because the camera operator needs to be able to talk two ways. 

The camera assists just need to hear what's being told like they don't need to talk. They just need to know what's going on, know what the camera they're assisting is asked for. So it is very expensive to burn a bunch of bolero packs for that purpose. So what is common to do on these larger shows is that becomes an IM pack. 

You have one IM transmitter that gets a feed off the com system that's that camera channel. Listen only. And then you pair however many receiver packs you need to that, whether IFB or IEM packs. So the camera assist don't get a compact, they just get that listen only pack. And they're used to it. They'll come and ask for a listen only on a larger show. 

Like, it's a standard thing, but it's one of those things that if you've never done it before, you're like, fuck are you talking about? Listen, 

Sean Walker: That's genius 

Andy Leviss: yeah. It's not, not, yeah, IEM packs are cheap, but they're certainly a lot cheaper than a free speaker or a Bolero pack. 

Sean Walker: Oh Absolutely, both in purchase and rental price and they're much smaller so you can send a bunch more, you know Rack or Pelican or however you decide you're gonna package that. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. So like that, that's pretty common for com camera ops and there's, there's often like you can do other listen, like there may be a, like a show call listen only that like you give to all those producers who don't really need to talk, but just want to want to be appraised of what's going on and where we are in the show. 

So they might get that or you might do a dedicated mix for them. That's like a little bit of program and, and the show caller on top of it. 

Sean Walker: Totally, dude. Totally. 

Andy Leviss: and that's in like pretty much all of the systems we're talking about have a way to do a line like a four wire that you just do an output from. So they've all got ways to do that. 

Um, like other advanced stuff that comes in is like if I say essay, do you know what that means, Sean? 

Sean Walker: Stage announced, bro. 

Andy Leviss: Very a stage announcer studio announce and that is that's you know, like back back in the day We just give a switch to a push to talk Mike to the stage manager director to be able to you know Call out to the stage of the studio, but nowadays what we've got calm keys to burn We just pull that off the calm system and then any of the stage matters who need it gets a little essay button on their Panel and they can page everybody back to the stage. 

You're screaming everybody to stop Trying to think of like other clever tricks 

Sean Walker: you know what? Coming back to our 101, do you want to explain the difference between 2 wire and 4 wire for the first timers? 

Andy Leviss: That I can do, that I can do. It's, it's funny. This is actually reminding me of the opening joke I almost made that I'm saving for another episode, but I'll just tease everybody with that. Um, 

Sean Walker: You tease. 

Andy Leviss: so, yeah, um, 2 wire and 4 wire, or you'll often see 2W or 4W labeled on a panel on comm, are the two ways that comm can be transmitted between multiple devices over whether analog or digital wire. 

So, If I'm talking to you and you're talking to me, there's two directions the audio is going. There's audio coming from me to Sean and there's audio from Sean and anybody else on that channel back to me. So the big, like the new thing that ClearCom did is they figured out a way on one cable to have both of those channels tied together, which on the surface you look and you're like, Oh, just. 

Mix it together duh, but the problem is then I'm gonna be hearing too much of myself back And there's potential for feedback because I'm getting myself fed back into my pack along with everybody else on the channel So there's we've like we talked with Brian from clear comm when he was on about nulling Nulling is is cancelling out my microphone from the channel coming back to me to balance it out And that's sort of the magic that made two wire analog comm work. 

So it's basically it's a two wire a plus and a minus That's communicating the whole The whole channel, um, over that, and there's magical circuitry, we'll say, going on to make it work. over, over the, over that single, it's confusing because it's called two wire, but it's like, we'll call it, it's one cable. 

It's the positive and the negative. So four wire is exactly what it sounds like. Then it's, we keep the in and the output separate on two separate lines. So I'm, my audio goes out from my, my pack, or if I'm tying a a wireless and a wired system together. My wireless system signal goes out to the wired system on one wire and the signal from the wired system comes back into me on another. 

And that gives a little more control to balance and you don't need to do that nulling because they're coming in separate and you can have a separate controller. So, And what four wire outputs also do on these systems that have multiples of them is they also give you the ability to only use one side of it or the other or to use the two sides of it for different purposes. 

So whereas if I'm tying like my helix net and my free speak together, I'm going to ideally use a four wire input and use the in and the out to do two way communication between them. If I've got a stage announce and a program feed, I can use the input of a four wire to get my program feed from the sound console into my com system, and then I can send the stage announce out of that to the four wire output in unlike some of the clear com systems, it gets a little wacky because like they have a dedicated essay to and 

Sean Walker: Or if 

Andy Leviss: into the weeds of how that works and how it doesn't. 

Um, 

Sean Walker: if you get an Arcadia system that it just talks to HelixNet natively and you don't have to burn those ports. 

Andy Leviss: for sure. Um, yeah. And, but yeah, and like, but stage announced gets, gets a little tricky in free speak world and, and in HelixNet worlds. Like I think the newer systems are, are more, but it's basically if you want multiple positions and multiple panels to be able to talk to stage announce, it doesn't work that way built in, at least in HelixNet. 

It doesn't, you basically end up having to like burn a comm channel as your essay to. Get more or mix it externally In a lot of other in a lot of other systems You can basically create an essay channel and you're just using a four hour as that But since free spear helix net does that dedicated essay? 

It, it's a little more complicated. Um, and again, that's read, read the manual carefully, like reach out to clear com, uh, I mean, reach out to me on the discord and if, if that's something you need to do, I can, I'm happy to help walk folks through the, the tricks to making that happen one way or another on a. 

On a HelixNet system specifically, because it's a little, it's a little janky. It's in, and not, not through any fault of ClearComms, it was just, it was designed to work a different way. And as is so apt in live audio, we try and use things very differently from the way they were designed sometimes. 

Sean Walker: Nuh uh, 

Andy Leviss: Yeah, 

Sean Walker: you don't say. Hehehehehehehehehehe 

Andy Leviss: Um, hey, let's wire this speaker backwards and put it in front of the kick drum and use it as a microph 

Sean Walker: 100 percent dude. Did that for years in the studio, bro. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. I 

Sean Walker: part is we used an NS 10 that had no low end to begin with. Like, what are we thinking, dude? 

Andy Leviss: that's basically what a sub kick is. It was like, let's take it. Let's take like the equivalent of an NS 10 and put it on a drum shell. And I, I still, I feel like some folks will say like, well, the drum shell was cause it's resonant and it does a thing. And then others are like, nah, it just looked cool and made it easier to mount. 

I suspect the truth is somewhere in the middle. 

Sean Walker: Maybe. Totally. Although, you know, man, I gotta admit, after years of using a subkick, I know this is way off comma, but we just, SQUIRREL! 

Andy Leviss: Oh, it's all good. We're, we're, we're hitting towards the end. So this is the point we usually do this. 

Sean Walker: After years of using a subick, I, I recently have just ditched that mug in favor of it, in and out, and never been happier. 

Andy Leviss: Yep. I still, you know, it's funny. I've been so in common RF word. I'm still, I've got the, I've got the earthworks, which is the DM six that I'm like anxious to try and see if I can 

Sean Walker: Dude, it's banging, 

Andy Leviss: them all. 

Sean Walker: dude. 

Andy Leviss: Are you still, are you still using it with a second mic or are you, are you just like double patching it? 

Sean Walker: Uh, I use it with a second mic. I use the 91 in and a rotating, rotating cast of outs. The, the six being one of 'em, or the D one 12 VR or D 12 vr, whatever the new one is. 

Andy Leviss: I was, is that, that's the one that like, whether you hit it with phantom or not, it has like two different tones. 

Sean Walker: it's got many different tones, but yes. Uh, and then, uh, you know, 52, depending on. Depending on my mood, as it were. But, dude, that Earthworks kick mic is dope. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. That's hey, Mike, we love you. 

Sean Walker: Right? Totally. 

Andy Leviss: Um, 

Sean Walker: Sorry. 

Andy Leviss: yeah, back to the comments. Is there anything else? Yeah, because we're like, we're like, rounding closer to an hour. So is there anything else? We've kind of done like a lot of some of the like, one on one stuff. We've dipped a little into like 201 level. Give folks some teasers. 

Um, 

Sean Walker: Are there any, like, best practices for somebody that is uh, maybe reasonably comfortable as a audio human, but now is going to rock their first few corporate shows as an A2 slash comms slash whatever you know how we do sometimes with wearing many hats. Like, what are some best practices for the comms portion of that? 

That they might want to take note of or be aware of that they might not otherwise think about 

Andy Leviss: On the subject of taking note, get yourself a post it pad or a little dry erase board. The biggest mistake I see folks who are new to comm doing is not writing down requests as they come in. Because particularly that first day that everybody's on a headset, requests are going to come at you fast and furious. 

So whether you scribble them down a pad, put them on a dry erase board or just stick a bunch of post its along your monitor, write it down as it comes in, stick it there and then cross it off or tear the note off. As you, as you fixed it, is like forgetting any like programming stuff, anything else that is like keeping track of requests and making sure they happen quickly and accurately is the, is the make or break for like a good comms human. 

Sean Walker: That is a gold nugget yellow legal pad black or blue pin, right? Everybody's name down and then whatever they need whatever their order is below it, dude It's like it's like 

Andy Leviss: I keep joking. I want to, I, oh, I literally, I keep joking that I want to get a pad printed. That's just a little drawing of a compact and my name, my pack number. This is what I need. And then get one of those diner spikes so that I can just collect all the slips next to me on the spike as the days go on. 

And people can go by and see how many silly requests I've gotten all day long. 

Sean Walker: do it. How do we make that? We're doing it. We're doing it 

Andy Leviss: And I actually, I 

Sean Walker: looks like we just, we'll make them as bolero packs and freespeak packs, and we're just like Dude, 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. And you can buy one or you can buy a set of all, all three. Um, so, and I'll actually shout out. So, um, Aaron crane was one of our, like our F techs on the show who also does, uh, calm a lot for various, you know, like lots of TV stuff and large events. And she and I were talking a bit and she said what she's started doing on larger broadcast shows is literally print out a drawing of the 16 keys or the 30, whatever the key panel is. 

And print out a list of all the available party line and literally like gives everybody here's the pick list. Here's your panel. You have nothing on your panel until you tell me what you want. So write in what you want. Give me that sheet back and I will get it out to you. 

Sean Walker: That's freaking awesome, dude. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. 

Sean Walker: That's like a super pro version of the yellow legal pad and a pen. 

Andy Leviss: Yeah. And, and I think, I think there's, and there's a place where both, but like, I, I, I found that a particularly helpful approach to like, particularly on those shows where you've got people with like 16 or 32 keys going on a single panel to be like, literally like you don't have anything or maybe you have show call and program and that's it. 

And anything else you want, you need to tell me what you need. And I do know folks, I don't know that Aaron does this. I'm not going to throw Aaron under the bus. I do know folks who literally, even when they get the request of what channels people need. Leave that tucked aside to refer to if they need it, but don't pre program it because 90 percent of the time that's going to be wrong, that's some, you know, whether an assistant or like a tech manager's guess at what folks will need, and inevitably, like half the time people come back and, no, I don't need those four channels. 

I just need these three. 

Sean Walker: Right, totally. 

Andy Leviss: So the, which again, it's, it's a balance to be found because there's the, the degree of pre programming you can do. And, and that's, they're two very different approaches of pre programming or not. And I offer them both up for people to choose, try, see what works best for you. 

Sean Walker: For sure, dude. For sure. And, and, you know, like, everything else, if it's your, you know, first or second rodeo, don't overcomplicate it. Yellow pen and a pen will get you a whole lot farther than nothing and you won't look like a ding dong and people will be like, they give a hoot and they're trying their best and they'll you'll buy a whole lot of goodwill and and patience from people because you're like yep, what's your name? 

Great. And what do you need in your pack? Great. And they'll be like, man, this person's on it. They're, they're, they're trying their best. And that'll be so much easier than like, well, I tried to print out all these sheets, but I didn't get the panel layout. Right. And I don't know, like, don't freak yourself out. 

Just, you know, give a hoot and do the best you can and don't overcomplicate it. And then, you know, go back and listen and pick apart some of the cool tricks as you get to. Bigger rigs and more complicated shows 

Andy Leviss: And here I will, my one final tip I'm going to leave folks as, as a best practice, I will say a rule, a motto, latching is a privilege, not a right. 

Sean Walker: a billion percent and with that mic drop Thank you to alana heath for uh, you know Making dope consoles and dsps and rcf for making speakers that everybody can afford to go make some money with that's the pod y'all

Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green