Shure
Massively Automatic Mixing System at Cal Poly
Prepared
for the Office of the President
revised: July 2002 |
| In
March 2002, the Cal
Poly Office of the President successfully
hosted the Baker
Forum.
Cal
Poly Media Distribution
Services has been commissioned to provide
the Office of the President with a sound reinforcement
system which would support 56 conference microphones
simultaneously and with a minumum of operator
assistance. We were able to assemble a system
which requires a minimum amount of floor space. |
| Note:
The click-through images below are 350k-400k each. |
| |
| |
The
system:
|
| |
The system lays out
easily. This image shows the original six-mixer
layout, since upgraded to seven. The Crestron controller
is now in the adjacent cart. All of the Shure mixers
have a common mix bus, so there is only one "Master"
output to the EQ. The system worked perfectly. |
| |
The rear rack rails
are loaded up with the Shure #RKC800 breakout boxes.
In practice, the pile of excess snake cables took
up more floor space than the rack itself... |
| |
I think this worked
out pretty slick: I used captive mounting bolts
to secure the bottom rear rack rails, but the top
screws are removable so that the whole wretched
mess hinges out for access. There are chains on
each side to limit travel, or else the cables would
pop the euroblocks from the back of the mixers...
those boxes are heavy. |
| |
The President's Office
loves the tiny MX-391/C mics. They are very unobtrusive
and sound great, considering that the talker-to-mic
distance may be as much as four feet away. We're
using the cardioid capsules. |
| |
This year, I used a
loop of gaffer's tape to stick one of the MX-391
mics onto the top edge of the podium. There were
a number of benefits: no stinkin' gooseneck; mitigated
resonance problems from the plywood top; virtually
invisible from the room proper. Again, it sounded
great. |
| |
The Crestron system
was invaluable for selective muting of microphone
zones (table-by-table). Though the Shure mixers
do a superb job of gating individual mics, there
are still times when it is necessary to mute the
pickup of private conversations, coughing fits,
and paperwork layed on top of the microphones. In
addition, during setup and EQ it is necessary to
override all mic gates, and the Crestron simplified
that task, rather than having to flip a tiny recessed
dipswitch on the rear of each mixer! Argh. The small
handheld, 10-button controller allowed a single
operator to merely mute distracting noises, while
the Shure mixers handled their tasks perfectly. |
| for
more information: |
Contact Pete:
|
| ©2002
Cal Poly MDS |
pwoodwor[at]calpoly[dot]edu |
