looking for simple intercom solution for video

Hi everyone,

I have a bit of a unique situation (I think) and hoping someone can provide the right solution.

I do event video production where I'm mixing my sound feed while taping, and also have need to communicate with my other videographer. I wear a Sennheiser HMD-280XQ headset w/ a boom mic, and just run an XLR cable from the mic output to the other op's camera. He monitors my mic that way.

This works fine, except he can't talk back to me. And the problems with just adding another HMD-280XQ are:

- I need to hear the audio out of my sound board except for those times where they need to talk to me
- Sometimes what I'm monitoring is very loud, so I probably need their audio to interrupt the sound board audio
- Obviously I don't want this communication recorded to tape, so this stuff needs to happen independent of my camera and sound board
- I'm looking for a solution that adds as few extra boxes (especially ones that require power) as possible.

I think what I need is some kind of on/off switch on the second camera op's side so he isn't always transmitting audio (simple), some sort of audio interrupt to combine the camera audio and my second op's audio (this is what I'm unsure about), and I imagine a mic pre-amp so I can actually hear what he's saying. Or maybe there's another solution to this problem.

Anyone have any suggestions??


Thanks!

Zach
 
Why not run his mic through the board, but only to your headset. That way he can toggle the mic on and off and when he talks it will come through your mix. You can adjust the gain and levels on his mic. Turn it up after he talks so his initial response to you is loud enough to hear it and then you can turn everything down while he talks. That or give him a button to push that triggers a light on your end. When you see the light you could switch to his headset or a walker talkie or something along those lines.
 
I don't plug my headset into the sound board, I plug it into the camera. For various reasons I feel much more comfortable monitoring the audio that's being recorded by the camera, not simply the audio coming out of the sound board. So I need a way to do this that's independent of the sound board.

(And for some shows I'm not even using a sound board--it's a feed directly from the house sound system into my camera, or from nothing more than a mic I place in the room.)
 
This might be extreme overkill and a budget breaker, but a lot of clearcomm systems allow one to inject a line level audio source into the intercom line, so you could have a 2 headset clearcom setup, with the audio out of the camera plugged into the program input on the main station.
 
This might be extreme overkill and a budget breaker, but a lot of clearcomm systems allow one to inject a line level audio source into the intercom line, so you could have a 2 headset clearcom setup, with the audio out of the camera plugged into the program input on the main station.

It is for a few reasons

-I don't want the expense of a ClearCom
-These are events where I try to get in and out as quickly as possible, so setting up a base station is something I want to avoid
-I need the quality of these Sennheiser headsets, and already spent a chunk of money on them, so I want to continue using them. That's XLR for the mic and quarter-inch for the headphones themselves.
-Because my mic can run directly into the XLR input of the secondary camera, where I don't care what audio gets recorded, I've solved half of my problem already--I don't need a solution to amplify and monitor that half of the audio.
 
Unless I'm missing something on here, this appears to be just another complete intercom system. Remember that I'm trying to use the existing infrastructure that I have, and I need to be able to use my own headset. Thank you though.
 
- I need to hear the audio out of my sound board except for those times where they need to talk to me

I guess that part threw me off...


You could buy a signal combiner and run Camera 2's mic into it and the feed from Camera 1 into, all into your headset? Amazon.com: xlr signal combiner
Yes, they make the same thing for 1/4" connections. Other than that, ClearCom system is the way to go.
 
Yes it does. You will still be able to hear him. Use a headphone amp maybe? You can have the audio from the camera enter channel 1 and Camera 2's mic into channel 2. Monitor the mix and control the levels from both to mix into your headphones. Quick set up and tear down.
 
I'm specifically trying to figure out a way for his mic, when he switches it on, to interrupt the audio I was listening to. If I just wanted to hear both sources there are plenty of solutions, but that's not what I'm trying to do. Many of the environments I work in are very loud, and it becomes an interpretation problem if I'm listening to him while the program audio is also in my headphones. And often both of my hands are busy--I need a solution so I don't have to turn down one mix (and then turn it back up later) when we need to talk.

When I say interrupt I mean I want the main audio to completely cut out--the only thing I hear is his microphone for as long as he has it turned on.
 
I'm out of ideas... sorry. There may not be an exact solution because I have never heard of anyone wanting to monitor a mix and at any given instant lose the ability to monitor the mix. What if he accidentally leaves the switch on and you were in a crucial period of monitoring and editing your mix?
 
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Adding an auto-ducking box between his input and the other input will duck out the other input while his comes through loud and clear. Though at this point you are getting pretty convoluted, it may be better to find someone to build a setup for you. Or to just bite the bullet and get a clear-com system.
 
Adding an auto-ducking box between his input and the other input will duck out the other input while his comes through loud and clear. Though at this point you are getting pretty convoluted, it may be better to find someone to build a setup for you. Or to just bite the bullet and get a clear-com system.

!!!

Actually I think this may be exactly what I need! Never heard of such a thing, and from what I'm reading it looks like this will accomplish the goal. I'll give it a shot--thank you so much!
 
Maybe I'm missing something (just scanned the posts), but it seems like you just need a single channel Clearcom system with a beacon at each end. You'll need to switch headsets in order to communicate, but that's just the nature of the beast. If you're not willing to spend a little bit of money on Clearcom then you'll definitely not be able to afford a custom device. Hit up eBay. I bought my base station for around $200, a belt pack for $100, headsets were around $100, and beacons were $100 each. So you're looking at around $600-700 for the entire system. That or use cell phones and bluetooth headsets.
 
If you're not willing to spend a little bit of money on Clearcom

I'm not. :)

Carting around a base station, etc. doesn't fit in with my workflow, and I need the audio quality of the Sennheiser's. I guess I don't know, but I suspect that the headsets on Clearcom equipment isn't at the same level of Sennheiser, since their main purpose is to hear intercom audio. For my purposes, monitoring my audio is more important than hearing the other camera op.

I'm looking at the Rolls DU30b. Rolls Corporation - Real Sound - Products DU30b Mic-Preamp/Audio Ducker I'll also need a headphone amp to make this work, but it's likely to do the job. If there's another product that combines both into one, or there's a way to modify the DU30b to provide a headphone-level output, that would certainly be preferable.
 

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