Broadcasts are mixed on an Allen & Heath Qu-16 digital mixer which travels with the team to away games. Technical Producer Harrill Hamrick sets up the system and mixes the broadcasts. His goal is to create an engaging live program by seamlessly combining local sources like the play-by-play announcer, locker-room interviews and crowd microphones with remote announcements and advertisements fed over a tie-line from the Panthers' broadcast station.
Hamrick had used a 16-channel analog mixer for several years. "The analog mixer was old enough that I knew I needed to replace it," he said. "I was concerned about reliability and the sound quality had suffered from things like capacitors drying out." Hamrick looked at several new mixers and says he was attracted to the advantages of digital mixing but he was concerned about setup complexity and a lengthy learning curve.
During broadcasts, a Qu-16 mix feeds the studio and another goes to the Spanish-language broadcaster. Additional Qu-16 outputs feed local monitor mixes. An Allen & Heath ME-1 Personal Mixer with Lectrosonics wireless transmitter and receiver enables a custom monitor mix for the producer as he wanders around the booth and into the stadium. Hamrick carries the Qu-16 in a portable case and sets up the overall system quickly using Cat 5 cables for both digital and analogue connections. The ISDN allows modern digital connections even over traditional twisted-pair telephone lines.
The Qu-16's Qu-Drive feature provides a multi-track recording of Panthers' games and its two-track output feeds a pair of Sony PCM recorders. Hamrick uses the Qu-16's compression and EQ on selected microphones and saves the entire Qu-16 configuration to a USB thumb drive as a backup.
(Jim Evans)
