Clearcom - Audio Only

[lighttechie5948]

Hi everyone.

I'm a lighting guy, so I'm not sure how audio really works in-depth, so sorry if this seems like a simple question.

I'm short two clearcom beltpacks for a musical I'm designing for the two follow spot ops and there isn't budget to buy or rent two more. They just need to hear the LX cues being called, but don't need to talk back. Is it possible to give them headphones instead of clearcoms? How can I get the audio from the clear coms to them? Is it as simple as giving them the same com XLR and adapting it to 1/4" for the headphones, or more complicated?

We have a really simple clear com PSU. It's just a box with 3 XLR ports on the back and 1 XLR port on the front. The beltpacks are RS-601s.

Thanks,
Joe

 

[gcpsoundlight]

Hi Joe.

Unfortunately, it is not that simple. The 3 lines in the mic cable are used as power, Audio and ground (shield).

In theory, you could design a filter for the audio line, and then use it, but unless you have the components sitting around, it would probably cost more than renting some belt packs.

Hope this is of some help.

Gerard.

 

[Chris15]

Firstly, we need to confirm if we are talking about Clearcom as a generic term for any headset based communications system or a Clearcom or compatible system.
If the latter, then from memory the pinout it pin 1 Ground, Pin 2 +30 VDC, Pin 3 Audio.
The audio is just line level unbalanced audio and can be used directly to input into a suitable line input.
It cannot be used to directly drive headphones - there is not enough power on the line to drive them.
If you have a headphoen amp at your disposal, you can make it work.

If you have a Telex system, rent extra beltpacks, devise smoke signals or semaphores, find some cue lights or just generally come up with some other solution...

 

[HSSBO94]

If you don't have those components around, another very temporary solution is to use the small other audio out on clearcoms

I think it's a 3/32' female port on many of their boxes.... It's the size of many one ear black berry headsets.

Anyways, once I plugged in to that port then split it, and got what you were referring to. Note the quality was pretty bad, and I think my using that out port disalbed the regular headset abilities of the box. Also I couldn't talk, so this would only be worth it if you could split the signal

here's a picture

clearcom.com is calling it a 2.5mm aux headset port, so your standard 1/8' / 3mm iPod headphones don't fit in... you need to somehow get it to something more workable like 1/4', then split it using a Y adapter and possibly female female gender benders...\

EDIT: I should've made it clear what Iw as referring to exactly in the picture, it's the circular small second to last port in the picture. Looks like a regular headphone jack, but it's smaller.

I understand that this is a totally non-ideal solution, but it could probably be done cheaply, especially if you have a collection of audio adapters

 

[Amiers]

Being that renting is out of the picture you might have to go with a cue light set up near the FS op. It could be as complicated at 3 lights L C R or 1 light if there is only 1 actor or preformer that needs to be lit. You could also have them at rehersal and have them remember who they are suppose to spot and what color. You could even go as far as to rig up speakers and an extra mic for the ops that the person calling the cues can talk into. But without knowing how complicated the show is or where the FS ops are these are just suggestions.

 

[themuzicman]

here's a picture

clearcom.com is calling it a 2.5mm aux headset port, so your standard 1/8' / 3mm iPod headphones don't fit in... you need to somehow get it to something more workable like 1/4', then split it using a Y adapter and possibly female female gender benders...\

That's not an aux output port, it's a port to reprogram certain actions of that style of beltpack. The RS series are digital, you use that port in conjunction with some software from ClearCom and can make those packs do some pretty advanced things you wouldn't normally think about.

 

[museav]

That's not an aux output port, it's a port to reprogram certain actions of that style of beltpack. The RS series are digital, you use that port in conjunction with some software from ClearCom and can make those packs do some pretty advanced things you wouldn't normally think about.

That all depends on what beltpacks you have and what connector you are referencing. Many (most?) beltpacks have a loop-through XLR connector for the communications signal so that you can daisy-chain multiple beltpacks, however it passes through the standard audio, signal ground and DC power.

On the RS-601 in the picture the 2.5mm jack that you can see on the bottom of the beltpack is an auxiliary headset connection intended for use with the CC-25 headset. The Setup button and 3.5mm programming jack are on the right side in that picture and can't be seen. You could probably use other headsets with that aux headset connection but the impedances and levels involved may result in a less than desired audio quality.

 

[ryanswiftjoyner]

I have had decent luck with creating battery powered cue lights with a project enclosure from radio shack, 12v illuminated rocker switch, 12v panel mount indicator lamp, 9v battery, 9v battery terminal connector, zip cord (lamp cord), and another small project enclosure. Battery, rocker switch, and one end of the zip cord in the project box at one end, then indicator lamp, other end of zip cord, mounted in second smaller project box at the other end. Keeps you from having to find power for your cue lights, but I do have to change out the battery after tech week so the new one can make it through performances. I don't have any fancy audio tricks for your situation unfortunately :-(

 

[AlecIrwin]

Hey Joe!
We actually did something similar recently for a production where we wanted to record all of the "headset chatter" for archival purposes during the show. The way "we" wired it (we have a 4-pin XLR all wired Clear-Com brand system) is by taking apart the female XLR connector coming from the headset we soldered 2 wires (1 to the hot and 1 to the ground) of the speaker connection only. On the other end of those wires was a 3.5 MM connector. In your case, if you could find someone with basic soldering experience to do something similar, perhaps find a way to take advantage and merge some crappy 2-way radios into headset-chatter-receivers? I've had success with using 2-way radios for those purposes as well. It might be much more complicated to do it that way, setting up cue lights is not a bad idea at all.

If you do want to attempt making any of these solutions yourself, be very sure to read up and use a volt-meter on whatever you are about to solder in case you are accidentally trying to solder into anything that sends power instead of an audio signal. (Most Clear-Coms do have a connector or two that does it, I think for our system its around 70 volts) If you cross that with the wrong thing you could break whatever you are plugging it into.