Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1546075
8 PRODUCTION SOUND & VIDEO – Fall 2026 by Ric Teller Ric Rambles Joe Kendall's first axiom states: Once you know where the electrons go, you can't work on the floor no more. In many ways, Joe was right, as usual. We all know a few audio folk who are a foot smarter than average, and there are some jobs that require a deeper understanding of "where the electrons go." It seems logical that those with specialized knowledge and abilities should gravitate to positions that match their skill set. I will readily admit that rocket surgery is not in my A2 oeuvre. That we depend on them is common knowledge. The best of them not only know, they teach. And teach. And teach. I know that many times it is easier for them to just do the task. Maybe they are hopeful that we will remember the lessons and sometimes we do. But when repetition is infrequent and technology and gear changes, for me, and possibly others, retaining the lessons is sometimes difficult. I am, and have always been, grateful to those engineers who point us in the right direction and help us understand the troubleshooting process, especially with new technology. The first in my television experience was Craig Debban at KTLA. He was knowledgeable and patient. Craig taught me how to patch an audio control room and why the Ward Beck consoles did not supply phantom power. Still a bit of a mystery. He also talked about troubleshooting. Power supply first. I am grateful for his guidance. Recently, while I served a 16-day sentence working on two music award shows back-to-back at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, I asked somewhere around one hundred sixteen and a half questions of two indispensable resources. Truck audio engineer Hugh Healy, Audio Engineer in Charge for Denali/NEP, and FOH Mixer/System Tech Jeff Peterson, Project Manager/ Designer, ATK Audiotek, something about Clair. They are the answer men, the brain trust, the Dynamic Dante Duo, the Sultans of Circuits, the Potentates of AoIP. I asked each of them to make a list of work items that the A2's should know more about, learn, and remember. I appreciate their participation, and I hope they will forgive my egregious editing for the West Coast feed. We are all experiencing changes, and the resulting complications, in the systems that have become more common in our setups. As they often require extra knowledge and effort, productions have been responsive by cutting prep time, sometimes by a day, and shortening ESU. Recently, on a rehearsal day, we were given a 10-minute ESU to start work with a host on stage. We depend a lot on the plug-and-play aspect of the new devices, but when we have questions, it almost always ends up at the Hugh and Jeff level. Oh, by the way, we want to change blah, blah, blah. That won't take long, will it? If, as A2's, we can help, just by learning to troubleshoot some things from the stage, it might save them a bit of time that they really need to use elsewhere. Let's look at this as a practical situation, not theoretical. We've arrived at the Unlimited Funds Corporation Arena to work on the Pat Ourselves on the Back Awards. Margo greets us and gives us our credentials complete with an advertising logo lanyard. Although there are often differences, we look for similarities in our show setups. Split World is the hub of stage audio. Analog signals from RF's, bands, audience mics, and other sources are patched into and dispersed from the splitters to the production truck, the music truck(s), and the FOH and monitor positions. Whether a large setup like The Grammys or a smaller show like the Pat Ourselves on the Back Awards, the splitter outputs feed devices that turn the signals into a digital language sent via fiber to each destination's console. At this moment, DiGiCo is the console of choice for FOH and monitors. Each DiGiCo console and SD rack is connected to a bidirectional fiber loop. A large show might have five or six desks, and eight or more SD stage racks. Every console and rack must be part of that fiber loop, and each is assigned an ID number by the system tech. A2's connect inputs usually with a W-4 from the splitter and occasionally access outputs for emergency backups from the FOH console to the production truck. We commonly use MADI outputs from an SD rack to feed RF mic audio to Pro Tools operators for tuning purposes. The SD rack LCD menu needs to be set up to feed the MADI BNC ports with the proper signal. To use the MADI ports as general MADI splits of the rack, change the MADI mode on the output from SDrk (SD Rack) to either 56ch or 64ch. The MADI ports are referred to as main, aux, split main, and split aux. In the menu, you can configure the split main (SM) or split aux (SX) to be Standard MADI splits of the rack. If the rack is running at 96k because the fiber loop is at 96k, you can set the SM or SX ports to run at 1/2 sample rate, giving you all fifty-six channels on one MADI split port. If the cable run is more than 50' between the rack and the Pro Tools system, put a media converter on the SD rack end and run fiber to the Pro Tools location, then put another media converter on to finish the run. — Electrical MADI is very sensitive to ground potential differences. — Coax MADI has a low output level. — The receiver circuit does not deal well with noise, ground potential issues, and long cable runs. continued on page 10