Optocore's president, Marc Brunke, and North American director, Bill Coons, originally demonstrated the Optocore system to Cirque du Soleil sound designer Jonathan Deans and Matthew Ezold, Auerbach Pollock Friedlander's audio video systems consultant for Viva ELVIS. Based on feedback given during the demonstration, Optocore accelerated development of a server-based topology allowing simultaneous control from multiple client operators. As a result, "Optocore's flexibility and control options allowed us to consolidate multiple primary and backup switching matrices into a single routing engine," said Ezold
"We're the first to use client-servers," says the show's assistant head of audio Aaron Beck. "Up until now, Optocore was run from a single computer. We wanted multiple clients to be able to control any part of the network - we have two clients in the monitor room, one at the front of house, one in the equipment room, and another in the RF area."
With 21 network devices on the ring out of a possible 24, the system has ample room for expansion. The 21 devices handle 504 audio inputs and 776 outputs, converted to 48 kHz AES digital audio.
A guitar sub-system incorporates three on-stage guitarists, a vault of vintage guitars, a basement full of amplifiers, and a forest of foot pedals that must be switched on the fly while the guitarists are busy with their choreography or riding up the 50' set. MIDI triggers and a chain of 18 different Optocore network devices, Optocore A/D converters, mics and direct inputs (DIs) all interconnected with no buzz or hum, get the job done.
Integration of Optocore fibre optic networks into live performance systems is assured by a very low overall latency of 41.6?s between any points in the synchronous network, regardless of complexity, allowing for use in stage and in-ear monitor applications.
Optocore's ability to create 24 keystroke macros per client is heavily used in Viva ELVIS. One macro was written to switch playback outputs from one Optocore DD2FE MADI I/O module to a second DD2FE, effectively becoming the redundant-switcher. The macro can also be triggered via MIDI, if desired.
"We're using macros a lot in our backup scenarios. We route stem mixes from the FOH console to a Yamaha 02R next to our LCS monitor console. If the LCS were to crash, we can reroute the in-ear monitor signals to come from the 02R with a press of a macro. All band members would continue to get in-ear monitoring while we re-booted the monitor console," Beck says. The YS2 and YG2 expansion cards, made by Optocore for Yamaha digital consoles, allow for simple fibre connection of 32 I/O into a Yamaha 02R.
The crew has found the macros to be so useful that they have programmed more than 100 of them for use at various points during and between shows. Beck says he can easily reroute thousands of patch points in software into or out of any of the show's five main and backup consoles without moving a single wire.
"I wouldn't want to do a show without Optocore now. Regarding cost, I'd say we've saved maybe 50 per cent, based mostly on the cost of labour in terminations per copper connection. In the RF room, for example, we handle the inputs from the mics and the outputs to the in-ear monitors - 40 Sennheiser 3732 receivers feed the wireless mic signals via AES digital audio directly into a single rack space Optocore DD32E.
"So what would have totalled in excess of 100 copper lines is reduced to four pieces of fibre. The job of terminating more than 100 copper lines would have taken a couple of guys several days to complete, but with four fibre terminations, one technician can do it in less than an hour," he said.
"On top of that, Optocore is flawless in performance. During the entire product
