Studio gear used for X-FM's 2015 Halloween show

[redhat]

I won't publicly post pictures of transmitter gear, but studio stuff is usually innocent enough.  So with that a snap of the gear used last Halloween while the show was in progress.

+-RH

[Terry]

Very impressive. I don't know about or have much experience with studio / audio equipment. If you get a minute would you give a rundown of the equipment pictured. (All my experience is with RF and avionics equipment.)

[redhat]

A lot of the gear is of commercial origin, stuff stations threw out, and I refurbished and repaired myself.

The left rack is the input rack, it contains the gear primarily concerned with feeding the console.  There are two valley 400 mic processors, their corresponding behringer effects units set up for light plate reverb, a mixer to combine the two dry feeds from the mic processors and feed the phone hybrid, a telos delta phone hybrid (nice because it has compression built in so I could eliminate the outboard compressor), and two phone preamps.

The console is an Audio Arts Air 2+ which kinda sucks because all the inputs are unbalanced, not a good thing in a high RF environment.  A nice console otherwise.

The right rack is the output rack, it contains gear primarily concerned with program conditioning tasks.  The top shelf contains a net top type computer running Linux and Zara with two audio outputs, one for beds/sound effects, and the other for log playback.  Below that is an Aphex compeller, which levels and peak limits the output of the console to protect the flash recorder and the STL (studio to transmitter link).  Below that is a broadcast tools switcher to control what gets fed to the flash recorder, and what feed is being monitored at the consoles external input.  In theory this would allow monitoring of up to 3 transmitters.  A flash recorder is fed by the switcher and used for airchecks.  There is then a Behringer format converter to convert the analog audio to AES which is then sent over coax to the transmitter.  The off air feed is brought back over coax and converted to analog to feed the switcher.  There is then a EQ to tailor the room characteristics to my club-foot nature, and a monitor amp to drive the speakers.

The monitors are a pair of Alesis MKII passive 6.5" monitors, mics are Shure SM-7B's

Everything is in road cases with connector plates and a detachable wiring harness to keep setup time to a minimum.

That's about it I think.

+-RH

[Terry]

Many thanks for taking the time to write that up for me. I plan to read up on all the different components described. I have been thinking I should improve my audio setup with two goals: better quality and fewer microphones. I have four ham transmitters and each has its own mic. Gets confusing.

[redhat]

If your looking for ham stuff, really the only thing you'll need is a good voice processor.  People seem to go way overboard with this ESSB thing, stacks of EQ's and compressors, et al.  They probably say the same of what we do over here (hi, hi).  Anyway, if you can, find an older Symetrix 528 (The E versions are largely surface mount and are harder to service) and a decent mic and go to town.  There will be a temptation to get a DBX 286 because they are about $200 new, but you get what you pay for, and they have issues with RFI ingress (There is NO protection or filtering on the front end).  Then all you need to do is figure out how to get the audio into the radio.  I always used the aux input on the back of my 857, but that only works for sideband, not AM

Good luck!

+-RH

[Terry]

Thanks for the tip. Part of the reason for the question was ham related, part just academic interest.
Aircraft audio was pretty simple except for the entertainment system. Most of them were multiplex. Not great quality but not simple.

[John Poet]

This has been my "studio" for the past two years...



I like the fact that it fits in an Altoids tin.

[redhat]

:thumbsup:

+-RH

[thereconprepper]

nice setup I've always wanted a telos phone setup but never had the money for a new one.
Maybe i should shop around for used.
You're setup looks similar to mine. I have a heil mic pr40 and bbl powered monitors though I always liked those aleisis speakers you have.
I used to use berhinger stuff but most have moved over to dbx now in my rack. And currently moving all my equipment over to my new studio as it gets built so will take pics of it then.
Thanks for sharing always love to see what others are doing. You have a nice setup there.