The email blast from the head of my son and daughter's theater group relayed a frantic plea: "We need to raise $16,000 before the upcoming spring performances," Anya Wallach, the executive director of Random Farms Kids' Theater, in Westchester, New York, wrote in late May. If the money didn't materialize in time, she warned, there could be a serious problem with the shows: nobody would hear the actors.
Random Farms, and tens of thousands of other theater companies, schools, churches, broadcasters, and myriad other interests across the country, need to buy new wireless microphones. The majority of professional wireless audio gear in America is about to become obsolete, and illegal to operate. The story of how we got to this strange point involves politics, business, science, and, of course, money.
Story: https://www.wired.com/story/wireless-mics-radio-frequencies-fcc-saga/
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @12:54PM
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(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @01:12PM (29 children)
Was there ever a time when theater groups didn't use these wireless microphones? Actors have traditionally trained to project their voices. How large are these venues, anyway? This is a very minor crutch in modern life, definitely a FirstWorld problem. Get a grip!
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @01:24PM (18 children)
What's stopping elite disruptive genius teenage makers from making new wireless microphones that leverage unlicensed radio frequencies in the blockchain to AI their startup to a trillion dollar IPO ICO BBQ?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Monday August 13 2018, @01:41PM (16 children)
Copper plate the theater walls to make a faraday cage, then do whatever you want with the old mics AND not have to deal with shitty phone addicts in the audience ruining the experience.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday August 13 2018, @02:13PM (13 children)
I agree with you and my blood is boiling. As both an EE and occasional audio engineer, I'm steamed with this whole issue. You don't even need a Faraday cage! Wireless mics only work maybe 200ish feet anyway. Those frequencies are pretty much line-of-sight and get damped out by pretty much anything solid.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday August 13 2018, @06:12PM (12 children)
And what about the bleed-through from the repeater tower into the mic system? I'd be more worried about interference from the new system into the wireless mics than the other way around.
But yes, the government can no longer just let a frequency allocation stay assigned. They make too much money from auctioning off spectrum. (Why it should be allowed to be auctioned for money, thereby making spectrum the property of the richest...... now THERE's a First Amendment disparity favoring business that will never see the light of a courtroom.)
This sig for rent.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Monday August 13 2018, @06:42PM (9 children)
No disrespect intended, but your "I'd be..." is very typical of online speculation. That is to say, reality is often very different from philosophy / theory.
I have never personally had any kind of repeater cause a problem. These systems are extremely frequency selective. RF interference certainly can be a problem. Most better wireless systems allow you to select the frequency within a band range, and sometimes 2 or more bands. With the better systems you start by asking the system to scan for existing RF sources. They can come from almost anywhere and anything- light dimmers, your IoT botnet, etc. It's not like companies actually adhere to FCC RFI rules. Anyway, as you add mics (transmitters), you create your own very complex RF interference field. In the old days you had to use a calculation system to determine the next usable frequency. Again, now the better mic systems will do that for you and assign the next available RF carrier. I've seen up to 32 wireless mics successfully used. I think the most I had going at once was 16, and that was partly just dumb luck. I started with the ones that can't be assigned, then added the auto-scanned ones. Then even added 2 more and it all worked somehow. The worst is when the room fills with 2,000 people and you're expecting all those cell phones and whatever else to cause problems but it all works.
In most "big" shows the receivers will be onstage with highly directional antennas. The disadvantage is that I can't monitor the receiver status displays. Sometimes I use 2 directional antennas on poles up over the crowd. Some really fancy systems will let you remote program the mic pack's frequency. Say you've started a live show and you see interference on a channel- you tell it to search for an open frequency and it tells the transmitter to change and the receiver of course does too and nobody knows. Theoretically you could have this happen automagically, and maybe the newest systems do, but you would risk a dropout while someone's speaking or singing, so it's best done under an attentive engineer's control.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday August 13 2018, @09:59PM (7 children)
I think my point was a lot simpler than that. RF Interference from the new system into the receiver of the microphone directly on the mic's freuqenc(ies), thus rendering the microphone useless. I rather doubt you've had transmitters of whatever the new frequency licensee is, operating at the microphone frequencies, as the interference source.
Thus you might (and yes, that is "might") need either a Faraday cage or to change your equipment. The point of the Wired article, no?
(Although sure, you can disagree with that point and you might well have the experience to be right.)
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday August 13 2018, @11:47PM (6 children)
I'm sorry, I admit I'm not following you, but I'd like to and share my experience and knowledge. I've used all types of wireless audio mic systems- VHF and UHF from the old now illegal 700s, to 600s, to 500s now. I'm a long-time electronics (and mechanics) hobbyist, dabbled in ARRL (HAM), electronics tech, and BSEE (and some MS courses in signal analysis and processing- sampling, DSP, etc.).
When you say "RF Interference from the new system" - do you mean the new wireless mic system? Or some other system?
I'm just a little confused. Since this is not very interactive, I'll write a guess and please ignore / excuse me if it's tangential. By definition, RF receivers ignore everything except the frequency they're tuned to listen to- old, new, AM, FM, VHF, UHF, GHz, millimeter, etc. If you get a powerful transmitter close enough to the receiver's antenna, you could overload the RF input stage, cause it to distort, and make frequency "splatter" which would cause interference. But otherwise the receiver's job is to ignore everything except that one desired tuned-to frequency. We call that: "receiver selectivity".
You may not be aware, but many RF systems, such as cell phones, WiFi, Bluetooth, etc., use overlapping frequencies and still function using spread-spectrum, frequency-hopping, etc. Of course they're digital systems and buffering and retransmitting after errors is part of the whole system. You can and we do use those digital systems for audio. The only problem: buffering, by definition, causes a delay and at some point of too much buffering the delays become noticeable, objectionable, and unusable.
Sorry if I've overexplained it again. Blame it on my learning to touch-type too fast...
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Tuesday August 14 2018, @06:35AM (4 children)
I believe the OP is concerned with interference from the new radio-based internet & cellular networks using the reauctioned bandwidth. TFA raises some concerns along this line.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday August 14 2018, @02:59PM (3 children)
Yes, thank you, I finally understood his point and commented further down in this discussion.
I missed that point initially because, again as I commented further down, due to RF power, distances and inverse square law, etc., I can't imagine it to be a problem. Additionally, most if not all newer (even 20 years old) UHF systems allow you to program the RF frequency within a band, so you could avoid a local transmitter if receiver interference was an issue.
But also, and I know this directly, FCC isn't worried about my receiver getting interference, they're worried that my mic will interfere with "emergency services" or whatever the bandwidth has been sold to. FCC puts people in prison.
What's bugging me: as a kid I messed with "walkie-talkies". Maybe the rules have changed, or maybe I misunderstood at the time, but I remember believing that FCC allowed low-power unlicensed RF transmission provided it only carries for very short distances, like 1/4 mile or something. Of course you'd have to define the actual power level at the 1/4 mile point, etc. My point is: if my wireless mic is low power enough that you need specialized highly sensitive equipment to receive it more than say 100m away, then it should be a non-issue. People should be allowed to continue using their $5,000 systems, unless someone can prove said system is causing measurable provable interference.
That FCC sold the frequencies and told everyone "too bad for you" is outrageous. The companies who bought the frequency rights should have to replace all now unusable wireless systems.
Footnote: this whole thing happened 8 or so years ago.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday August 14 2018, @05:04PM (2 children)
I believe that the rule was actually if it was low power to a certain milliwatt ERP specification (which commonly came out to less than 1/4 mile), you accept any interference to your end, and does not cause interference to any other user you can utilize any frequency you wish... and I think separately the broadcasting rules had provisions that still limit a transmitter from making a broadcast to the public without at least a community broadcaster license (very generally - there were exceptions). And I really could be wrong but I thought those rules were still in effect. It's not "no harm, no foul" but it is close. But any interference caused if you're unlicensed/out of licensed band is still automatically your fault, and interfering with public safety comms is a criminal offense even if you were acting in good faith under that rule.
The current low power rules are here [fcc.gov], which actually specify 200 feet.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday August 14 2018, @05:35PM (1 child)
Yes, I remember 100mW being the spec, but memory can be flawed. I intentionally omitted it because 100mW at 100KHz will carry much farther than 100mW at 32GHz, with similar antenna gain of course.
But even with a 200 foot rule, there's still some power at 200 feet, so how do you decide that it's low enough so as not to interfere with an average receiver?
My point is that in practice, the 700 MHz band wireless stuff should not be a problem and people should be allowed to continue using it until someone can measure a problem, which is pretty easy to do with a simple field strength meter. FCC worry that it will interfere with emergency services, but I'm skeptical.
Typical UHF wireless microphone systems are 50 mW https://en-us.sennheiser.com/wireless-microphone-live-monitoring-system-ew-300-iem-g3 [sennheiser.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday August 14 2018, @10:40PM
Very true, all.
I did just a little more digging on that page and it said that the 1991 technical notice is still actually in effect and had a link to it. The notice (which is probably what we remember) also specifies: AM 100mW to final RF and .05W ERP and FM .01uW ERP with actual spec of 250uV/M measured at 3 meters, in addition to the 200 foot maximum coverage radius and that reads more like it's cannot be picked up by any receiver at 200 feet away, period. (Also says TV is not allowed at any time).
And aside from that, it is Part 15.5 that additionally imposes the requirement that the device cause no harmful interference and that the device is disabled upon receiving a complaint from the FCC that it is causing interference, and that's aside from all the other rules.
So I guess all the old rules still apply as well.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday August 14 2018, @04:55PM
No problem, and I'm the same way.
It's not like it hasn't happened before (as you point out) and won't again.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday August 14 2018, @12:16PM
My guess is even if there's a cell transmitter down the street, if you can get the stage hands to put your antenna in the set itself (taped underneath a table, perhaps) then you'd still win.
Of course the wireless mics on stage might interfere with the cell phone service in the first couple rows of the theater which is the legal problem.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday August 13 2018, @06:45PM
I forgot to mention, no, FCC wants to jail you for using 7xx MHz bands because 'it may interfere with emergency personnel and activities' (my wording, not FCC's).
(Score: 2) by driverless on Tuesday August 14 2018, @10:51AM
Another thing that's weird about this is that it's a problem that could only occur in the US. The entire rest of the world (to a rough approximation) does just fine on something like B1, B3, B5, B7, and B38-41 or so (done from memory, excuse omissions). Only the US needs a pile of bizarro frequencies that no-one else does because... I dunno. Why?
(Score: 2) by Rivenaleem on Tuesday August 14 2018, @08:13AM (1 child)
Yes, because copper plating an entire theater is cheaper than the replacement microphone equipment. So cheap in fact that you wonder why it's not done everywhere.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 14 2018, @02:42PM
Not to mention the problems you'll probably get if an emergency call by phone fails due to the Faraday cage. Or a doctor who attains the show doesn't get the message of being urgently needed.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday August 13 2018, @02:17PM
Nothing, they can and do, it just costs lots of money. That's what the article is about.
If you're talking about re-tuning the RF circuits to work at currently open frequencies: you can't tune the circuits that far. It's like a 100,000 line code project being full of hard-coded numbers you need to change- it's too difficult. You start over from scratch. (please don't ask me how I know...)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @01:25PM (1 child)
And I suppose you've got an enormous Hamlet yourself? What about the Scottish play?
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday August 13 2018, @02:10PM
I see you British traditional theatre and raise you a mime show. See? No microphones needed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @01:27PM (3 children)
And, somewhat after the age of actors that could project their voices to a large theater, there was *wired* sound reinforcement that used a few microphones arranged in front of the stage. Not as clear as individual wireless mics, but with feedback notching for the room, a reasonable job was possible. I did it in high school in the early 1970s, should be much easier now with low cost filtering and processing.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday August 13 2018, @02:36PM (2 children)
Yes, in fact you can buy, and I have a Feedback Eliminator that does DSP and notches out frequencies that it determines are feedbacks. It's cool to watch it work and grab stuff before I can hear it. Sometimes they're false positives, but the notches are pretty narrow, so not much damage to sound quality, but you might waste a notch filter.
Most rooms I've worked in, esp. school auditoriums, have absolutely horrific sound systems- terrible speakers placed badly, so it's an uphill fight from the start. Lots of system tuning / manual EQ notching (which I hate doing but I'm a tuning freak).
Pressure-zone / boundary microphones are pretty cool: PZM, PCC, etc. You place some on the front of the stage, use them carefully, but they can be amazing. You pick up some foot sounds, but it's not as bad as you'd expect. They're amazing for outdoor work where if you can place the speakers yourself (hang or on stands) you can get stunning results. I use them indoors too. Chop off most of the lower frequencies- you only need the clarity, and you'll get very little feedback above 2K or so with the PCCs, for example, unless the main speakers are stupidly behind the front edge of the stage, or are wide-dispersion (not line-array) and are aimed down too much and "hit" the stage.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @10:10PM (1 child)
Interesting, I imagined there might be something like the Feedback Eliminator you mention, but never looked. Back in the 70s, we felt we were special with a borrowed third-octave graphic equalizer, and a parametric equalizer that we could use to make a couple of notches (all analog). Luckily, our speakers in the high school auditorium were off to the side of the stage and slightly closer to the audience than the actors & mics, so we did OK.
I've often wondered how much delay is added by all this digital filtering (all the notch filters for example). The delay doesn't have to be very long before something starts to sound "off" -- maybe 0.1 second or even less? (just guessing).
(Score: 3, Informative) by RS3 on Tuesday August 14 2018, @12:07AM
I have one of these: https://www.ebay.com/itm/SABINE-ADAPTIVE-AUDIO-FBX-SOLO-SM820-FEEDBACK-ELIMINATOR-XLR-PHANTOM-MIC-FILTER/273384191478 [ebay.com] Haven't used it in a few years (that's a good thing). They and others make bigger better ones.
Yes, I have, and have recently used 1/3 octave (31-band) and parametric EQ.
Most digital mixers have very fast internal digital sample / processing rate. You can sample at 48KHz, then "upsample" to whatever your DSP / processing can handle, then downsample and D/A, so latency is truly minimal- microseconds. I frequently use a SoundCraft Vi3000 and I think the overall latency is specified at 2mS or so. I forget where you start to hear, and it depends on what you're doing, maybe 15 mS? It has 4 fully parametric EQs per channel and 4 on each output / bus, plus full graphic on outputs and mix busses, but I forget- I think it's more than 31 bands, and you can set the "Q" on those.
Interestingly there's a philosophy I only recently (a few years ago) learned that it's desirable to use some overall delay in an audio system- that it reduces feedback. I've messed with it and it certainly greatly lowers the frequency of feedback. Like 12 mS will pretty much stop anything above 2K or so, depending on all factors such as room, speaker placement, type, mics, etc.
And we use delay to get the "kick" drum's acoustic wave to line up with the subwoofers. Roughly 1 mS per foot of distance. So much fun to be had...
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Monday August 13 2018, @01:31PM (2 children)
It is only _recently_ that I've managed to clue in to how to project when I sing on the street:
Open your mouth all the way. Now pretend a doctor is pressing an tongue depressor on the inner end of your tongue. That will open up a much-larger resonant cavity in your throat. That will make you much louder.
I don't clearly understand but possibly the reason it works so well for me could be that I'm impedance matching my vocal chords with the air around me. That's the same reason trumpets have exponential curve profiles.
You can download my original piano compositions [soggywizards.com] from my street performer website. I don't have any vocal recordings but this fall I'll release an album that I'll call:
Michael David Crawford
LIVE!
On Broadway[*]
[*] And Morrison, Portland, Oregon
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by pipedwho on Monday August 13 2018, @11:07PM
Assuming a vocalist has some skill already, they mostly do what is necessary to get the tone/volume for their style of singing, and will already be 'projecting' to some degree. If I sing pop/blues/ballad type music, I can't project in the same way as if I'm singing a classical operatic/broadway style. Opening up the vocals that much and lifting the soft palate to tighten up the nasally 'edge' gets a big operatic and loud resonant vocal that cuts through the mix of instruments and projects well. But, you can't really do that when singing an intimate ballad, or trying to remain true to the genre. This also applies to spoken roles, where the old Shakespearian style of vocal projection sounds very different to the modern more personal/natural styles of acting. Hard rock vocals can be projected very loudly within genre too, but the ambient noise of the other instruments will far out-power the vocalist for most normal performance situations.
The other problem is that the venue dictates what sort of sound reinforcement is/isn't necessary. In an old school resonant church or auditorium that is designed for good live un-amplified acoustics, it isn't too much of a stretch to 'project' like it would have been done before the days of speaker systems. Whereas modern venues are designed to absorb the sound which makes them much more effective when used with installed sound systems. In fact it is difficult to install good sound reinforcement in older buildings because the reflections and reverb tails make a mess of the sound as it bounces around the room from the multiple speaker sources (causing feedback problems - and even if it's not feeding back, the open mic(s) amplify the reverb, further reducing intelligibility). In contrast, modern venues are designed to avoid this problem and make live sound reinforcement much less problematic, but also much more necessary, especially when the crowd size grows.
So, for years, it has been ubiquitous to use sound reinforcement, which has shaped both the style of performance, and the actors' skill sets. For better or/and worse.
BTW, I'm a big fan of the old school classical theatrical and musical singing styles.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 14 2018, @07:54AM
Careful here... don't spill the beans!
There may be politicians, salesmen, and preachermen lurking nearby. This is the last thing we need to teach them!
(Score: 3, Informative) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday August 13 2018, @01:59PM
A couple things: the greatest number of amateur theater productions is probably done by high schools. High school kids are not professional actors. They can be trained to project a bit, but it takes practice and their bodies are still growing and maturing (along with their voices), so it's a moving target for adolescent kids to understand how to make best use of their voices.
Second, my (limited) experience is that a lot of spaces for these productions (like high school auditoriums) have been built in recent decades and often designed not to be as "live" as such spaces were in the past, with the knowledge that amplification would be available for those who need it. (Spend a few minutes in an hard-surface echo-chamber high school gym during a pep rally and you'll understand why it might be desirable for school spaces to have somewhat more "dead" acoustical spaces for gatherings of teenagers if they're supposed to be listening to something. It also allows such rooms to be used for multiple divergent purposes: a band concert doesn't overwhelm with too much sound while an individual speaker can have a microphone.) And since places like high schools often don't have big budgets for acoustical design, they likely have some dead spots and other problems and microphones are used as a crutch to overcome.
So yeah, simply "projecting" is a good skill, but it's not always feasible. And audience expectations for these things have changed over the years too. 50 years ago you probably went to a high school play not always expecting to hear everything. Now the audience expects to be able to hear everyone all the time. For non-profit theaters, community theaters, etc., which are often struggling to attract audience members today anyway, an issue like this may turn off even more people from buying tickets.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Monday August 13 2018, @01:39PM (3 children)
Not really a problem.
Production is weird; you'd assume based on "crying for money" that PBS stations would have junk gear and the big network local stations would have everything gold plated, but its the opposite.
I don't think high schools that buy and maintain kilobuck class wireless mics for the student productions are not going to struggle much to ... continue to buy and maintain kilobuck class wireless mics. The kind of district that drops $40K on wireless mics likely has a $1M football field and has at least one $100K/yr administrator employees for every $30K/yr front line teacher (I live in such a district).
I think you can realistically expect as legacy broadcast TV dies for the whole concept of "sharing wireless mics and broadcast TV spectra" to die with it, such that buyers of gear should consider alternatives to merely hopping to a band which will merely get wiped out in 2020s or whatever once again.
Some FCC links:
https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/operation-wireless-microphones [fcc.gov]
https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-division/wireless-microphones [fcc.gov]
The problem with the "obvious" solution of essentially a ESP9266 or Raspberry Pi connecting a mic input to wifi is accidental or willful interference, "OMG someone will sniff and steal my Imaginary Property" and the low latency isn't a problem with an all wireless digital system but inevitably you'll have SOME hardwired and the output of the mixer of zero latency analog and some ms latency digital will sound mighty weird if theres any inter-mic audio leakage.
In the short run we still have government backed student loans for mortgage sized private colleges churning out way more theater grads than the market can support. Once that problem fixes itself one way or another, there won't be problems with zillions of high schools having expensive drama programs. Likewise churches full of gray/white haired boomers will kind of disappear on their own. Its not that much of a crisis. Thinking of Catholic mass, I'm not sure how it benefits theologically from wireless mics; just saying hard wire the pulpit and hard wire the choir and we're all good, right? Catholic mass isn't like rock-band theater megachurch, and rock band theater mega church is exactly the kind of place that can afford kilobuck mics.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday August 13 2018, @02:12PM (1 child)
You're assuming the "district dropped $40K" on those mics. A lot of high school theater productions do not get anywhere near the kind of support from "the district" compared to sports.
In the high school I went to, for example, the drama club basically had to fund itself through ticket sales. There was some tiny annual budget from the school that basically was enough to pay a few extra bucks to the teacher who directed and a part-time assistant. Production money from the district was non-existent. Equipment money had to be begged for and usually didn't come.
Meanwhile, expensive improvements to sports facilities happened regularly.
Maybe a district did drop $40K for these mics. Or maybe (as in my school) they only had wireless mics at all because a few big donors chipped in one year and a parent happened to know a guy who worked at an audio equipment store so could get a deal that the drama club could afford. Whether someone would be able to get a deal and convince donors again is an open question.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday August 14 2018, @12:12PM
I would tentatively agree with most of that although don't forget upkeep. Your average high school kid is only slightly less destructive than an Army GI, so they either drop a could K every year on replacement gear or the $40K system will be useless in maybe a decade due to normal breakage or they have an expensive service contract. You can buy fresh paint for a classroom and not mess with it for a decade, maybe, but not delicate electronics.
Its sort of like "giving" someone a BMW, if they can't afford the upfront cost of the car the maint cost is out of this world so one way or another in a couple years they aren't going to have a BMW.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Uncle_Al on Monday August 13 2018, @03:44PM
The problem is latency, esp if you have any voice processing in a mouse fart processor like that.
Add that to room echo, and you'll end up with really confused people on stage hearing their voice with second+ delays.
Radio just has the problem of room acoustics.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Alfred on Monday August 13 2018, @01:46PM (7 children)
Sound guys are notorious for thinking they need the latest and greatest or it just won't sound good. They are like the PC Master race of noisy things. And the directors thing everyone with a line needs a mic. This isn't Broadway and it won't be Broadway so don't treat it like broadway. I bet the same director that *needs* those mics is also using low res JPEGs of crappy clip art lifted from a google search on the cover of the program and good mics won't help you overcome that move that firmly places them in amateur territory.
" If the money didn't materialize in time...nobody would hear the actors." They could just rent this year for much less while they develop a more forward thinking plan. But oh, right, they wouldn't have their new shiny toys and that is apocalyptic.
Source: Been there, seen that.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday August 13 2018, @03:44PM (1 child)
As a "sound guy" I'll agree in part, and not feel insulted by the parts I know you meant well but are incorrect. But I am critical of most "sound guys", so I probably agree with you, but I hate being stereotyped.
In fact, "latest" is often most definitely NOT the greatest. Try buying some 1960s and 1970s European (German, Austrian, Swiss, Swedish, etc.) condenser or ribbon mics- AKG, Shoepps, Telefunken, on and on, and you'll find out how much more valuable that old stuff is. I have some Japan-made AT mics that compare well to Neuman which have a 10x price. The mics are no longer made in Japan- the Chinese ATs are HORRIBLE. Scraping a blackboard with a rusty nail is more pleasant.
Generally product quality peaked many years ago. Now profit is more important. Oh, you can still buy good mics, for sure, but you have to know that the newest AT or AKG is not necessarily the best.
Show continuity gets lost when some actors have mics and some don't. I've done shows where we have a limited number of wireless mics and set up a matrix / schedule where actors pass mics around (behind the scenes) for different lines. It worked well as long as you have someone keeping track of who's on what mic when.
Rentals are quite expensive- price it out. As hard as they try to keep the gear in good condition, it's often beat up, flaky connectors, intermittent wires, etc., but you don't find that out until the live show (Murphy's Law at work). Also, some shows run for many weeks, but only on the weekends. You either pay huge $ for all the weekdays you have the stuff sitting, or if you try to rent each weekend you risk the likelihood of not getting the same mics, or mics at all. And there's the running around... Amortized over the 10-20 years the gear should last, you do better to buy. I have some 1980s VHF stuff that still works very well, btw. IE: no reason to assume things are only good for 5-10 years. Well, I can't speak to the newer stuff. I've repaired more newer mic packs than older ones, but I blame most of that on lead-free solder...
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Monday August 13 2018, @11:16PM
When I bash on sound guys it's not all their fault. For every sound guy that insists on the lastest rev of ProTools there is often an artist or producer demand behind them pushing them for it, because the artist is a prima donna who thinks anything less wouldn't be worthy of their talent. Of course I generalize and I would like to the experiences of another guy. The other position that annoys me is when someone says "if only I had that new widget then i could do X." Sure kid, all the tech to compensate for all your shortcomings ... not gonna work. Then there are audiophiles, a special mixed breed, who most of just like to brag about how much they spent on it and they can't tell the difference. There are a few golden ears that can tell but if I say there are none in the audiophile community then I'm not that far off but it isn't fair to them so I usually don't. There are many cases where an increase in spending results in an increase of quality but that is not always the best path nor does it always fix the weakest link.
Rentals can get expensive for a real show but for a kids show like this it will be 2 maybe 3 nights and they may or may not know how to take advantage of the edge it gives them. My kids were in a program where they had rental sennheisser g3 wireless but not enough mixer channels so they daisy chained a mackie to a samson that was a mixer that poped out of some too small portable speakers or something. Seemed like some skewed priorities. These are the times where I sit back and don't admit I know anything.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday August 13 2018, @06:14PM (4 children)
Will they? You've researched that, then, and this new system won't bleed through harmonics into existing wireless mic systems?
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Monday August 13 2018, @06:52PM (3 children)
Hi again, I'm not sure of your experience with RF, HAM, etc., but these transmitters, by FCC rules, have quite clean RF output. I don't know the specs on RF sideband / harmonics, but it's very very low. I've had transmitters sitting next to each other on top of the receivers with the antennas 2" away and there is no kind of crosstalk or any perceptible interference, bleed, etc.- once the proper RF frequencies have been pre-selected so as to minimize the heterodyning. Again, additionally the receivers are extremely frequency-selective.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Monday August 13 2018, @10:05PM (2 children)
Again, I'm referring to the new spectrum owner's usage of the frequency. If they (the new owner's system) are transmitting right on top of your mic's frequency at a great enough power (with either the same modulation or a modulation that causes interference) your microphones will be useless. Unless you have specific data about who this new provider is, what they'll be transmitting, at what power levels and with what kind of transmission spread.
This sig for rent.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Monday August 13 2018, @11:23PM
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Tuesday August 14 2018, @03:18AM
Oh, now I get what you're saying. You're saying if I continue to use an old wireless mic system which uses a frequency that is now allocated to someone else, that their transmitter will clobber my mic's transmitter's signal. Okay, I have no data, but my gut feel is: my mics, being within 0-100 feet (roughly 0 to 33 meters) of their receivers, will swamp whatever other transmitter there is due to the inverse-square law of received power versus distance. So yeah, if my mic pack uses 725 MHz, and an ambulance drives by using 725 (I have no idea who will be using it) my signal might get clobbered for a few seconds. Hopefully it was a singer hitting a bad note.
Again, if it's a fixed transmitter somewhere nearby that is swamping my signal, I can reprogram my frequency and likely avoid the interference.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by RS3 on Monday August 13 2018, @03:04PM (1 child)
As so often, I see a lot of speculation and postulation here. I'm sure people mean well, but as a part-time audio engineer I'll share some of the inside view. Admittedly I'm "overly audio oriented" but I can't help it. I wish everyone wanted sound to be as good as I want it to be, which is what motivated me to get involved in audio engineering / production.
Schools, theaters, churches, etc., have spent thousands of dollars- huge 10-year budget chunks- for top of the line gear that was supposed to be good forever. FCC decided to pull the rug out with no compensation. I know and have worked with said groups who had just bought top of the line systems- Shure, Sennheiser, etc., that are now JUNK. This smells of government oppression. The only just thing to do would have been to require the buyers of the spectra to buy and replace, with exact same or better quality, all of the now unusable wireless systems.
Cheap wireless systems are WORSE than no system. They sound HORRIBLE, can't be compensated, the RF drops out (single versus dual diversity, for example), and the end result is a show / event that's interrupted, distracting, continuity lost, and no fun for anyone.
Speaking to amplification overall, I think there are many factors. I theorize that people's hearing was much better before industrialization. Roman and other amphitheaters are stone which reflects and "carries" the sound. Read up on "whispering walls".
Over the years most theaters were smaller and since there was no such thing as electronic amplification, people "projected" (shouted). They had to. Now, I get some who do, and others who won't no matter how much I tell them I can't turn it up any more or it will feed back.
Now that we have electronic, and often very very good systems and production, people have gotten used to it and pretty much expect it. The proverbial bar has been set. I personally have done some bar-setting. Of course, now I'm expected to always be that good, but that's another story.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @08:04PM
or crony capitalism: gov't gave in to those with the deepest bribery pockets, big co's, and campaign donations are a legal form of bribery, unfortunately.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ledow on Monday August 13 2018, @03:59PM (3 children)
Question - how much money could you make right now by selling a Bluetooth adaptor for the old mics?
Unlicenced frequency so, sure, maybe not suitable for huge professional places, but pretty much you could encrypt the data stream, send any data you like, still use the same mics, and they wouldn't be able to touch you would they?
The guys making the bluetooth side wouldn't be making mics, and the guys using the mics wouldn't be using them illegally or have to pay for new mics.
For sure, if I was operating such a business, I'd do everything I could to legally screw up such ventures.
"What's that? I'm using wireless mics so they must be illlegal? Well, yes. I am. But on 2.4GHz. Would you like to explain what the problem is with that? Take your extortion racket elsewhere".
I suspect, of course, that someone would blather on about how Bluetooth and digital coding would somehow "ruin" the audio signal, but I could happily operate several dozen high-quality audio streams over Bluetooth quite easily. A suitably-aimed antenna (right above the stage?) and even the range issue would be moot.
For sure I'd pay twice as much to a guy selling me a convertor for my old mic than the guy saying I "must" buy new mics.
(Score: 3, Informative) by pipedwho on Monday August 13 2018, @11:35PM
Bluetooth has too high a latency for live micing. Either way, you'd be replacing the transmitter packs and receivers anyway. The only thing you save is not having to replace the lav mic / headset - which is normal anyway if you upgrade your gear to something with compatible connectors.
There are many new relatively 'low cost' digital solutions today that are designed for low latency and operate in the ISM bands (allocated specifically for general use and therefore contain Bluetooth and Wifi), but they are inherently limited in the number of channels as these bands are quite narrow and operate at frequencies that are much more directional and problematic for body worn low power transmission. The really expensive systems are both digital and tunable across large diverse frequency bands - this lets them get lots of channels, and avoid the interference issues that arise when someone has a Wifi router/laptop anywhere near the receivers. There are exceptions in the lower frequency bands for short range / low power mic use, and these systems take advantage of that.
Unfortunately, some of the cheaper (and even some expensive systems), were unlucky and sold gear in bands that have been 'sold off' to mobile communications providers. What used to be relatively safe because of broadcast TV is now a money grab for governments to 'sell' to the highest bidder.
So basically, Bluetooth and other ISM bands aren't always the best choice for wireless audio systems.
(Score: 2) by Alfred on Monday August 13 2018, @11:36PM
To do the conversion you speak of on an already wireless mic you are talking about a solder job that no one wants to do. These mics are tightly integrated packages.
There are already mics in the 2.4GHz range.
As far as ruining the sound, digital is digital but moving the data is another story. Bluetooth would be horrible for live sound, latency and dropouts and distortion oh my. This is based on my experience with BT audio which has been horrible. I would not trust it for something important or that I wanted to sound nice. I have bluetooth in my car and it is hilarious when a packet drops, it time stretches the audio to cover for the time needed to re-transmit and it is noticeable. you could calculate the theoretical max data transmission when using the entire bluetooth space but remember when you perform there will be several orders of magnitude more Bluetooth transmitters in the room. This can be partly solved by the onstage antenna/reciever, which is also already available, but not entirely.
It can all be improved on in time but i am firmly in the not-holding-my-breath camp.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday August 14 2018, @06:40PM
1) You're still buying new wireless hardware. You think soldering some homebrew Bluetooth transmitters and receivers into the audio path of the existing mics is going to be cheaper than just buying new mics? I highly doubt it.
2) Bluetooth audio SUCKS. Sure, maybe you can get twenty audio streams over it, mine certainly streams one just fine...as long as I don't move, never rotate my body, and stand no more than five feet away from the receiver...otherwise it starts dropping out. Although for this use case, even those probably won't be much of a problem compared to the latency issues...either way, wifi would certainly be a better choice than Bluetooth, but neither one is going to give the low and consistent latency of dedicated hardware. Better to just buy dedicated mics that already use those frequencies, those have been available for decades already anyway...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by sjames on Monday August 13 2018, @05:55PM (5 children)
A fundamental problem is that the FCC has forgotten that the RF spectrum doesn't belong to them, they are just it's stewards. They are supposed to represent all public interests, not just those of the for-profit telecoms industry. That at least suggests that if (for example) T-Mobile wants to take over 600MHz, they should foot the bill for everyone who might need to move away.
It's interesting to see where the innovation is. The unlicensed 2.4 GHz allocation exists primarily because no commercial licensee wanted it Because of it we have Bluetooth, WiFi, and various other wireless goodness. Perhaps it's time to declare MORE rather than less spectrum to be unlicensed.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 13 2018, @07:38PM (1 child)
Junk spectrum--
Yes, we have had innovation in that band, but the tradeoff is that the band is full of noise. So, the devices using that band have to be able to handle the interference. Some applications are OK with data loss and retransmission and the unpredictable delays that that causes, and some aren't. I'd hate to have all applications be forced to live in such an environment.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday August 14 2018, @09:14AM
I'm not suggesting we declare anarchy in the RF spectrum, just that we take a more balanced approach by allocating more to unlicensed use, and not just the junk nobody else wants.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday August 14 2018, @10:33AM (2 children)
There is a flip side of that coin. The FCC makes few secrets about it's ability to give and take spectrum. If you've ever looked into HAM or CB radio, you should be aware that the radio spectrum "belongs to" the government. You are welcome to use that spectrum, if you obey certain rules. Unlicensed radio traffic takes a back seat to any licensed traffic, always. That heirarchy puts these wireless microphones all the way at the bottom of the pyramid, even lower than CB radio, which is lower than HAM. Pretty much everything that requires a license is HAM level or higher.
Military and intell communications are at the top of the pyramid, and commercial enterprise occupies at least the rest of the top 2/3 of the pyramid.
We could argue about how "transparent" the FCC is, I suppose. I think they should get a B- or C+ because they do communicate their intentions. Few people understand anything about their intentions though, because they aren't interested until something like this happens.
Any person who has a desire, or interest, in influencing the FCC should probably get a tech license, and then read up on proposals. Pretty much all proposals are open for comment.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Tuesday August 14 2018, @06:53PM
I'd disagree with one point in your assessment -- in some respects, Ham operators actually do get priority. For example, in any state except New York, (which decided to craft a *very* precise and much less broad law instead) holding a ham license will get you exempted from laws banning operation of a police scanner while in a vehicle. The laws are intended to make it harder for a criminal's getaway driver to be sitting outside listening for the police response...but those laws tend to be broad enough that they get invalidated by the international treaties that allow ham operation on designated frequency bands. Nobody -- not your local government, not your state, not the FCC themselves -- can unilaterally prohibit ham operation the way they could with virtually any other transmitter, because they are bound by those treaties above their own authority.
I realize that Ham radio isn't the only band backed by treaties...but in the US, international treaties have precedence above even federal law. It is not at all a simple process to overrule or revoke those bands. It's certainly got a better level of protection than any designation made solely by the FCC.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday August 14 2018, @11:01PM
It is certainly regulated by the government, but in the U.S. that government is obligated to be of, by, and for the people (how well it lives up to that is hotly debated, of course). I don't question that the FCC is the relevant regulatory authority nor that regulation is necessary. I simply believe it shouldn't simply pull the rug out from under a bunch of small users to favor a larger user without some sort of compensation. Consider, when property is taken by eminent domain, there is a requirement to pay fair market value for it. Surely paying moving expenses for moving a bunch of people off of a band of spectrum is reasonable.
Of course, after the scandal of the net neutrality comment period that was NOT hacked, you'll have to forgive me for being a bit of a skeptic regarding comments to the FCC.