Hey Folks!
I'm jazzed, really jazzed. As many of you may know we are opening House and Garden this weekend. If you aren't familiar with the shows.... it's two seperate shows. They take place in two seperate theatres.... with the same cast. Yes the cast runs back and forth between the two theatres as they leave one set, they run upstairs just in time to make their entrance in the other show. We, luckily have two theatres of comparable size, both in the same building which takes up one entire city block of Portland.
Ok as to why I'm jazzed. Part of the difficulty with doing this show is coordination, down to the second, literally, between the two theatres. Which means it's vital that the SMs be able to communicate with each other. Well today I finally solved the problem. Downstairs we have a very nice Clear-com system, upstair a very nice Production Intercom system. I bought the PI system becuase I had heard about it being compatible with clear-com, and it is ! I ran 300 feet of 8 wire twisted pair 22awg wire from the upstairs booth through the belly of the beast down to the mainstage booth. I made sure everyone downstairs was patched into the "A" channel of the clear com, and did the same upstairs on the PI system. I soldered on an XLR on each end of the wires, plugged it into the "B" channel, turned off the linking, and Viola!. the stage managers can "turn off" the B channel but still recieve a page from it. Turning off the linking means that the SMs can talk to each other without the other members of their respective crews hearing what their saying. I think it would have been much better if I had run a high quality Mic cable with a shield but there is only a very small hum, which went away with sidetone adjustments. Besides all I had was the 4 pair wire, so I made do.
Anyway, I just wanted y'al to know it can be done, and well. And i wanted to crow a bit.
I'm jazzed, really jazzed. As many of you may know we are opening House and Garden this weekend. If you aren't familiar with the shows.... it's two seperate shows. They take place in two seperate theatres.... with the same cast. Yes the cast runs back and forth between the two theatres as they leave one set, they run upstairs just in time to make their entrance in the other show. We, luckily have two theatres of comparable size, both in the same building which takes up one entire city block of Portland.
Ok as to why I'm jazzed. Part of the difficulty with doing this show is coordination, down to the second, literally, between the two theatres. Which means it's vital that the SMs be able to communicate with each other. Well today I finally solved the problem. Downstairs we have a very nice Clear-com system, upstair a very nice Production Intercom system. I bought the PI system becuase I had heard about it being compatible with clear-com, and it is ! I ran 300 feet of 8 wire twisted pair 22awg wire from the upstairs booth through the belly of the beast down to the mainstage booth. I made sure everyone downstairs was patched into the "A" channel of the clear com, and did the same upstairs on the PI system. I soldered on an XLR on each end of the wires, plugged it into the "B" channel, turned off the linking, and Viola!. the stage managers can "turn off" the B channel but still recieve a page from it. Turning off the linking means that the SMs can talk to each other without the other members of their respective crews hearing what their saying. I think it would have been much better if I had run a high quality Mic cable with a shield but there is only a very small hum, which went away with sidetone adjustments. Besides all I had was the 4 pair wire, so I made do.
Anyway, I just wanted y'al to know it can be done, and well. And i wanted to crow a bit.