Used primarily to mix and route audio at the 80,000-seat home of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, the new star of the AT&T Stadium’s main audio control room is a new a Solid State Logic System T S500m console.
Supplied by Clair Global Integration’s Pro Media Audio Video division, the console is busy year round, and the control room is the hub through which all audio signals pass for almost every event. ‘This room routes audio for the whole venue, to the bowl PA system, the X clubs, back-of-house, concessions and bathrooms, as well as broadcast feeds – you name it, we route it through here,’ says Head of Audio, Gary French.
The SSL S500m console is custom-configured with 48 faders, for which French has set up metering displays for inputs, outputs and a third, utility screen for mix-minus feeds and various other signals. It replaces a previous console installed in 2009 when the stadium opened.
‘Gary had an SSL background from his previous TV post days,’ says Clair Global Integration Regional Vice President, Mike Mason. ‘He made the decision regarding what brand and model of console he wanted and then turned it over to us. We figured out what parts and pieces were needed, supplied everything, then integrated it into the stadium’s systems.
‘We converted the whole control room to Dante from CobraNet, then added some AES3 connectivity to integrate with existing equipment. Gary went from nine to 48 feeds to and from video. We added a Dante link to the truck dock –Solid State Logic provided an HC Bridge SRC for Dante conversion.
‘Now, Gary’s got a full 256 channels of Dante that he can send to and receive from the broadcast dock. He has control of all of his Dante channels but nobody else can see those signals. More importantly, they can’t mess each other up.’
In a separate project, Mason says that Pro Media updated the DSP managing the stadium PA ‘So they are now native Dante from the SSL console straight into the DSP.’
‘We’ve got a lot of elements feeding into this room that are part of our show,’ French continues. ‘We’ve got eight playback machines that we use during football games. Plus, I’ve got a couple of DJs in different parts of the stadium that feed me, and we’ve got mics down on the field for the national anthem and various presentations on the field.’
Pre-game, French receives submixes of the hosts on the Cowboy’s game day set as well as from two shows on the stadium plazas and from pianos and singers on platforms in the end zones. His primary mix is typically for the seating bowl and the in-house TVs in the stadium’s clubs, with a copy feeding the recorders. He also provides separate mixes for sponsors who want an ISO split of their products being shown.
He also trades signals back and forth with the broadcast trucks: ‘I send them my PA mix, other announcer mics and whatever else they need, and they send me their field effects and send me a programme mix,’ he says.
Alomgside games, French reckons to average four corporate events a day. ‘If we’ve got a bowl event, which could be a party, a conference or a trade show on the field, I will handle that. Sometimes we have a third party come in and I will send them feeds from the video playback and route it into our sound system or just feed into theirs.
‘For concerts, they always bring in their own system. But this is the biggest room in the world and that fourth level seating is way up there, so they usually tie into our upper delay speakers, and we manage the delay and EQ during their show. That is routed directly into our speaker system and also feeds our suites.’
Monster truck events and Supercross motorcycle races, meanwhile, may feature live streaming or delayed broadcasts: ‘I will provide the mix for those, which will be my bowl mix plus a stereo mix with the net sounds and crowd that I don’t put into my PA mix. I’ll add truck sound effects; we’ve got mics around the stadium to pick that up. I switch my monitoring back and forth and make sure everybody’s got the same basic mix, plus or minus effects.’
The stadium’s packed events schedule required Pro Media to make the transition from the old system to the SSL quick and painless. ‘We set the console up next door to the control room for about three weeks, and had it all completely connected, sitting on tables, so Gary could do all of the pre-programming,’ Mason says. ‘SSL came in and did the training and we got everything configured. The actual transition from the old console to the System T only took two days. There was no learning curve once we installed the SSL because it had already been set up for weeks before.’
French has come to appreciate the processing of System T, especially its channel delay, which enables him to set compensation times between the mics on the stadium’s 16 in-house cameras – his previous console having had just six delays. ‘Having a delay on every channel has been a great thing,’ he says. ‘They’re easy to take in and out, but they’re always there.
‘I use the duckers a lot just because there are so many elements. The referee always takes priority over the announcer and the announcer takes priority over music or commercials, so I have multiple duckers, chained one to the other. I also use a lot of noise gates. And the EQs with the analysis are nice to have.’
There is one feature that French almost never uses, however: ‘This is the biggest domed room in the world, and it’s made from concrete, glass and steel. It has a 12.5s decay time at 60Hz, so I don’t use a lot of reverb...’
More: www.solidstatelogic.com
