Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1500728
by James Delhauer Equipment in the film and television industries is highly specialized. The tools that we use are custom designed to their purpose, making it difficult to "shop off the rack," as it were. This can make gear an expensive investment and, what's more, many of the products we buy as part of our kits or equipment rental packages are not designed by the people who are going to use them. To be sure, they are developed with end users in mind and the most successful vendors have found success because of their ability to internalize feedback and incorporate it into their products. But a disconnect between developer and customer is not uncommon. That cannot be said for the products of Halter Technical, which have been developed for production sound workers by production sound workers. Following this year's NAB Trade Show in Las Vegas, I had the opportunity to sit down An Interview with Halter Technical— Featuring Doc Justice with Halter Technical CEO and Founder (and Local 695 member) Doc Justice—who shared some insight into new production sound products like the Microsone Discreet Audio Monitoring System. Q: Alright, tell me about you. What's your story? Growing up in Philly, my start in sound came as a DJ as a teenager in the mid-'90s. At first it was mobile parties, Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, weddings, and country club events. That led to nightclubs and even a stint in commercial radio. After college, MTV's The Real World came to town and I got my first taste of production as a PA. From there, I moved out to LA to put my full efforts into mixing sound for unscripted TV. I worked mostly in large-scale house reality, competition shows, dating, and cooking shows. My specialty was working with large track counts with a lot of RF channels. Q: This was before Halter Technical, right? Halter Technical was born on set. In reality TV, handing out an IFB meant giving Producers and Directors a coiled headset that so many of them just hated. These headsets weren't made for IFB's; they were designed as "listen-only" walkie-talkie headsets. They sound terrible, they're not comfortable, and they're just not made for producing TV. When I couldn't find