Ep.6 - Inside Experiential Audio: How the Shure DCA901 Is Changing Broadcast & Live Sound

Audio has always been the unsung hero of immersive storytelling — until now.

In Episode 6 of Behind the Rack, we go deep into experiential audio capture with industry veterans Everett Saylier and Bill Oakley, exploring how modern broadcast workflows are evolving — and why audio is finally catching up to video.

We break down Shure’s DCA 901 planar array microphone, how it differs from traditional shotguns and parabolic mics, and why broadcasters, leagues, and live productions are rethinking how sound is captured in high-pressure environments. From live sports and poker tournaments to armored MMA and major broadcast events, this conversation pulls back the curtain on what it really takes to make immersive audio work — especially when everything goes off the rails behind the scenes.

🔊 In this episode, we cover:

• What experiential capture really means — and why it matters more than ever
• How planar array microphones work (without the marketing fluff)
• Why audio is still the most critical element of storytelling
• Real-world broadcast use cases: NBA, NHL, MLB, MMA, poker & more
• How AI DSP and tracking systems elevate subtle, game-critical sounds
• The reality of live production when things break — and how pros recover
• Why modern workflows demand networked audio, flexibility, and fewer hands

Whether you’re in broadcast, Pro AV, live sound, or systems integration, this episode offers a rare behind-the-scenes look at how next-generation audio tools are redefining what audiences hear — and feel.

🎧 Listen now and discover why the least interesting thing about this mic… might be how good it sounds.

Transcript

Cold Open: Chaos And Craft

SPEAKER_02 0:00

And I for sure wouldn't try to hang it on a magnet on a door and just let it drop. I wouldn't do that.

SPEAKER_06 0:06

Yeah. I understood they were using it as a shield in the upper MMA.

SPEAKER_02 0:12

I see people trying to warm pizzas on it.

SPEAKER_06 0:14

Yeah. People think it's a shallow head.

SPEAKER_02 0:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 0:17

I like that idea though. If you see a DCA901 in the wild, then it's a picture head type.

SPEAKER_02 0:25

I always say in broadcast, we don't make our money for things to go smoothly. No. We make our money when everything goes off the rails and it's how we get through it. And make sure the user, the viewer at home doesn't notice. Yeah. Literally, everything's on fire behind us, and we're just putting those out one fire at a time.

SPEAKER_03 0:47

No one sees how the sausage is made or that a finger fell into the sausage.

Welcome And Guest Intros

SPEAKER_04 0:51

As long as it tastes good at the end of the day. Welcome back to another episode of Behind the Rack. I'm Vince Simono, joined by my co-host Franco Caruso and Hugo Chavet. Hugo's running the console today. So we're diving into a really cool and super prevalent topic: experiential capture. And honestly, who better to talk about it than our guests from sure? Everett Sailier and Bill Oakley, and they're here to share their experience and walk us kind of through the um DCA 901, which is a broadcast array microphone. So grab your headphones and pull up a chair and join us for some honest. Sometimes nerdy, always fun conversations, all happening behind the rack. Especially to talk about this topic. And who better than you guys with so much experience, uh so much experience, uh, you know, hands-on, especially in the in the world of of that type of of uh broadcast capture microphones. It's uh it's gonna be fun.

SPEAKER_06 2:06

Yeah, thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. Welcome to the studio. And I think we'll start off with something pretty easy. Uh let's let all the viewers know a little bit about yourselves and a little brief introduction.

Why Experiential Capture Matters

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Yeah, that's the hardest question. It's right out of the gate. Uh as you mentioned before, I'm ever saw your I came from a world of broadcast. I was in broadcast for 25 years. I just started my journey at Sure back in April of this year. So uh specifically brought on board to work with these guys, and I couldn't be happier, man. It's been the best, you know, the best time of my life working with these guys. And every single day I'm intimidated to walk in and like the these uh really great minds at sure. It's it's it pushes me to be better and to learn more and to um more than I ever thought.

SPEAKER_03 2:57

I really thought I'd I would die in broadcasts, but um yeah, it's it's we should have introduced him as Emmy Award-winning Everett Settlers. Oh you're making him blush, anyways. I've had an Emmy, my name's Emmy Award winning Bill Oakley. I like that. That's amazing. Bill Oakley, uh, but sure. Uh geez, I think I just got past 25 years, which so sure just celebrated a hundred years, and I'm celebrating a quarter of that, I guess, with them. Um been in product management most of my time there. Uh had a short stint in artist relations, industry relations in LA. I opened their LA office back in 2006 out of center staging. Um things I've worked on or was product manager for was uh ULXD from a pro audio standpoint, um, MXCW from the conferencing system space. Um prior to this project, I was in innovation and strategy, which is how this uh all kind of got started. We'll cover that shortly, I'm sure. Um and then after kind of doing that innovation and strategy bit, was pulled back into product management to execute this to market.

SPEAKER_04 4:06

Um so many different spaces, many different industry. Well, yeah, verticals, let's say within the A V space.

SPEAKER_03 4:14

Started with Phono. I was responsible for all the TJ stuff for the first six years.

SPEAKER_02 4:18

That's why it's so intimidating to work with him. He knows like everything about any anything about everything.

SPEAKER_03 4:23

Wow, yeah, portable wireless, um, a lot of AD projects, some of them came to light, some of them did not. But uh yeah, it's been it's been great, a lot of fun.

Storytelling And The Power Of Audio

SPEAKER_04 4:32

Nice. Yeah, that's amazing. And uh this whole space of we're we're I'm seeing this trend. I actually saw a video not too long ago, no joke, before you even guy before I even saw you guys uh being scheduled to give us uh a seminar today um about um you know just this whole like ambience capture and stuff like that. Um and I I'm seeing it's more and more of a trend and a lot more people and I it it just and I and I realize myself that uh when I'm watching a sport or whatever, I feel or even a concert and just getting the crowd mics, I feel more pulled in, and it it sounds minute, and I think it's it's a lot of I think a lot of people see it as an afterthought, but it's super super important. So is this a trend that you guys are seeing more and more happening?

SPEAKER_06 5:24

Or yeah, why is it becoming more and more important?

SPEAKER_03 5:28

Yeah. I mean, as an audio company it's great, but I think it's long overdue. But yeah, you're right. I mean, what do they say? Uh uh video conference with audio is a meeting, a video conference without audio is over, you know, right? Um audio is you has been an afterthought for a long time, and um there's been a lot of milestones that that that's sure where we feel we've done uh our part to not make it an afterthought because it is important. Um video has had a lot of milestones in its development over the last what 60, 80 years, whether it's color or whatnot, and audio hasn't really changed in in all in that in that time. Um in the experiential part, I mean, it has a lot to do with also the the consumer's side of what they can listen to. Um I mean it doesn't matter what you capture things in. I mean, we're still recording things in music studios at HD, right? But what are they listening it on in the end? Yeah, you know, so it's not being pressed to vinyl, it's not being put on tape, yeah. It's going in a poor quality MP3 if that stream. Um so audio has definitely been pushed to a lower quality in the recent history, and the video has had to be brought up to a higher quality. Um and I don't necessarily agree with that. Um, but things are changing um culturally. Different parts of the world are ahead and behind. Um I think here in the US we're a little behind, but we're we're we're catching up.

SPEAKER_02 6:56

I think too it's we're all about we're all in the business of telling stories, right? And it's sometimes easier to just throw in another camera uh, you know, and and help visually tell your story. But really at the heart of storytelling, we are auditory creatures. We're born in an immersive environment, right? Like we have uh we're you know, like we don't need uh uh anything extra to have to like be placed in an immersive environment. And then, you know, stories were passed down verbally, right, until the first recording happened, and then that existed forever. And now we're a part of that process where we can come in and and take these stories and document these. I mean, we are at every single major world event that happens, we are there, right? Like, isn't that pretty incredible? Yeah, it's true. And so like I just got goose, gave myself goosebumps to talk about it's um, you know, it's it's we're at the center point of storytelling, and so it is about time. I think now that we've exceeded the maximum amount of cameras you can put, the maximum amount of Ks you can put behind uh uh you know, pixels you can put in. What K are we on? 12k, 12k.

SPEAKER_06 8:10

Um, we'll be at 100k soon enough.

SPEAKER_02 8:12

Yeah, um, and and I've read story in story about how you know the the consumer can't really tell the difference between UHD and 8K, right? So, like, what do we have left to really create that immersive environment other than audio or bigger screens, right?

SPEAKER_03 8:32

Yeah, or wrapped screens.

Shure’s Path To Arrays In Broadcast

SPEAKER_02 8:34

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:35

Yeah, and that that's what you said in your presentation today. Actually, it was there's more advancements in the video side than on the audio side. So it's it's it's definitely interesting that that's the case.

SPEAKER_06 8:45

Bill said something today, and it's funny. I think all of us here I mean, we're so in the audio industry and the video industry, and we do this day in and day out, but you made a very good point. You're on a conference call, the video goes down, you still hear the other person, you can still negotiate, you can still have your business meeting. If you're in a major conference call and the audio goes down, your meeting's over. You're done. And I was like, you know what? It's funny, we're we do this day in and day out, but yeah, it's sometimes it's important to take a step back and realize and make other people realize how important audio is to your point, whether it's storytelling, business, sharing, you know, uh experiences, whatever it is. And that's where I think experiential sound comes in is how do we include people or how we bring them into the the center of that experience. That's right. So that was a good point.

SPEAKER_02 9:33

Do you remember the televisions with the rabbit ears? Everybody remember that? Right? And you would watch you would watch television and it's as snowy as the the picture got, you would sit there until when? Until starting going shh and then you would change it. Yeah, I can't watch this anymore. And that that goes to the same point. You'll you'll sit there until the audio goes bad.

SPEAKER_04 9:57

It's so true, it's so true. So so I'm assuming that Sure has always seen. I mean, I'm trying to figure out when this became so so important for a company like Sure to kind of realize that this is we want to elevate this experience for for users and when they kind of got into the game and stuff like that. Because cap like you know, experiential capture has been around for a long time, maybe not to the extent or the level it's at now. I think they're even doing getting into Atmos and stuff like that, and mixing into Atmos when they're broadcasting. Uh but when did how did this all start? And how and like in terms of tech and stuff like that, I mean to the best of your knowledge.

SPEAKER_03 10:42

I would argue, considering what Sure has done over the hundred years, that and and how we've been focused on the customer over that whole time, we've been focused on the experience the entire time. I mean, you go to a concert, that's an experience. True, and we're there to assist and capture it. Going wireless, take detaching that XLR cable and having that art the artist be able to perform differently on stage is part of the experience of the crowd, and we're there to assist in that. So at a very high level, I would argue sure has been doing it the entire time. Yes. Um, I think what has changed is um more people are able to use the tools that we've already had to get more creative on the creative and content creation side. Yes. Um, and we've created the cre we've created some tools along the way in the recent history that have been more assistant. I mean, just the the podcast thing alone, right? In the last decade, um, pre and post-COVID. Um, we've done some tools for that, this product. But um the yeah, the company we've we've been focused on the experience, I would say, the entire time.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

Yeah. You can't stay around a hundred years without being able to connect a few dots and get ahead of the buck. Very true.

SPEAKER_04 11:52

Very true.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

I think from my perspective, coming from the broadcast area, is the the whole revenue stream changed for broadcasters, right? And they had to get um it was either die or innovate, right? And so um I think we started to see, you know, at least from the stories that I heard when I joined the team, is they started seeing A1s take arrays out of the conferencing space and carry them into the broadcast space and have a lot of success, and uh were able to say, you know what, we can do that better.

What An Array Mic Actually Is

SPEAKER_03 12:31

Yeah, I mean, there's always been products from any company that were intended for one thing and ended up being used another way. Right. Um, and when it comes to this array technology, when Sure Sure first made it, there wasn't a specific target application for it in mind. Um and uh it just happened that it went into one particular market, but it didn't mean it didn't have opposity in in others. Yeah. Um and we'll get to this, I'm sure, sh soon. But uh yeah, to Everett's point, we had customers that w saw the potential and took initiative to experiment. We heard about much of it, but it wasn't until recently that we were internally given the green light and the resources to kind of validate that at a at a larger scale and and see if there was something something there that we wanted to invest behind. And uh that was basically the last four years of experimentation.

SPEAKER_02 13:23

And because workflows are changing in broadcast and this fits perfectly into those workflows, yeah. I mean, it's the right time. Everything is just kind of the universe aligned, you know, and and every it really did. Um, everything has come together with you know, the needing to come up with more revenue streams, needing to cut costs, needing things that are remotely steerable, um, remotely accessed, like everything just kind of came together in one point. And that I don't think it was dumb luck, it couldn't have been, but it's definitely good timing. Somebody read the writing on the wall and and it sure and took action.

SPEAKER_06 14:03

So when you say, you know, people start to experiment and that there was better ways of doing things. Um in front of us we have an array microphone, and traditionally for experiential capture, broadcast, whatever it may be, even live events, we've used you know different types of microphones. We've used shotguns, uh parabolic, and now we're starting to see array microphones because we can do things better. Um, can you guys give us a couple of examples of, you know, like you said, with the experiments, market research? How did this product come to life?

From Shotguns To Planar Arrays

SPEAKER_03 14:34

Well, um, as you said, shotguns and parabolics have been the primary uh parabolics have been around since Roman times. Uh shotguns uh started in the 50s, basically, and it hasn't really changed since. Um we had engineer friends, some A1s. Um I'll drop a few names, so I hope they're okay with that. But um, in particular, a gentleman made by the name of Dave Grunvig, who's uh been with very close with Shure for longer than I've been there. Um was experimenting with some of the conferencing products. Um there's been some other engineers, uh, I won't drop their name, um, but they've had projects, well-known projects, um brands like NFL Films, um, even the MBA, they're actually all the uh leagues I would say have recently become very innovative in their capture and taking uh interest in doing things better and differently. They were all kind of experimenting with some of our other of our array technology. So it was happening. Um, and we were hearing about it and seeing pictures of it from some of our regional offices around the world saying, hey, we had an engineer try this in this application, it worked really well. Are you do you know about this? And we're like, great. You know, thank you. Yeah, yeah, cool idea. Yeah, hopefully buy some more. Yeah, uh, but it wasn't like an official positioning or a marketing statement or anything like that. Um and then um, yeah, so within the company, um our product management leadership, uh Scott Sullivan, uh, started a new group. He had been doing GPM for product management in some type of uh name in some way for 20 years or so. Um uh started a new group called Innovation, Strategy and Innovation, and insure's development process in the very front end of all of our process. We do what we call the front-end process, which is to um take uh an advanced development form of an idea, hopefully semi-working, and take it out into the world and experiment with it and see what if it sticks, see what works, work with a few key um partners. We've worked with SF marketing on that, um, we've worked with individuals on that. And we just get a very early concept to kind of like see if there's something there. And then usually that leads into writing a proper definition within the company to then get the company to get behind uh assigning resources to make the thing a reality. And we start a development process and go on from there. So this group, Innovation and Strategy, was given the basically the freedom to do only that front-end stuff, which gave us more time and more some more money and more flexibility to one, to fail and try things. And one of the one of many things we're doing in that department was this array. There was other things we were doing, and I was assigned taking the array technology, and now going back to the people who we heard were playing with it and going, hey, tell me more about why you did this, how you came across this, what what problem did it solve for you, what are the benefits, why did you why are you using it? Um, what challenges you had, um, what can we do to make this a better product for you? Um, and that was my job for a good year and a half, maybe. I can't remember. It's been a while. Um and that was very successful. A lot of big names I can't mention that we worked with and had our product behind the scenes in a prototype form. Um, and the feedback was amazing. Brought all that back to the company, said, I think we got something here. Redid the official paperwork and the definition writing and and the approvals to then get Greenlit to have a team to execute making it a product. And that's how we got to the 901, which by itself is a little bit of reuse and a whole lot of new software tailored for this application versus the conferencing application, which is where the array technology was first applied.

SPEAKER_07 18:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 18:26

Not invented, but first applied.

SPEAKER_07 18:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 18:29

Um can you talk about that a little bit? Because we saw a little snippet today in the presentation of uh well, first of all, for our viewers, let's step back even a little bit more. Yeah. What's the difference between a regular microphone?

SPEAKER_05 18:42

I I think we should because nobody said so far what's the uh modal number of that new microphone.

SPEAKER_04 18:49

Yeah, I said that.

SPEAKER_05 18:50

Okay, so I've got this.

SPEAKER_04 18:53

I always think of you, so that's why I had to say.

SPEAKER_06 18:55

But then you go to the point, you know. Um let's talk a little bit more. DCA 901. Yeah. It's a planner array microphone. Planar array. Planar array, excuse me. Let's talk a little bit about the difference between a traditional microphone and what makes this extra special.

SPEAKER_03 19:11

I'm going to channel my technical engineer, Brent Schumard, here, who was trained me well to uh speak correctly about this, and I may still get something wrong. So let me try this right. So, what is an array microphone? Um, you could argue in its most simplest form that anything with two or more capsules, you could argue is an array microphone. VP88, one of Sher's I think it's a great stereo microphone, mid-side microphone, technically is an array microphone, although it only does stereo or midside. If you were to take multiple capsules, um affix them in a known distance, so you have a fixed plane, um, you know the speed of sound, you could take as Audio hits each of those capsules, run the mathematical equation to then create a polar pattern. 58 creates a polar pattern as a result of audio hitting it on the front side and then audio hitting it on the back side, and you know the time difference in that to create a cardioid pattern. I'm probably gonna I probably oversimplified that, but that's basically. No, no, it's good.

SPEAKER_06 20:23

You've got viewers of all levels of technical college, so it's important.

Real-World Trials: Sports And Events

SPEAKER_03 20:26

And we've got a some really great, amazing analog um condenser mics we recently come out with um from one of our engineers, Roger, legendary, uh within the company, um, that's solely based on analog acoustic principles. I mean, everything comes from that. Uh, and it's all started on paper by hand math. Um, that's how this started. Going back to 1938, Ben Bauer, the same gentleman that invented the dynamic microphone, the 58, invented this in 1938 in the same book of notes. That is so cool. Um, and I'm sure you guys will share this with you guys. There's a photo of of his notes. Um with the mathematical equation. Basically the math and how how and what an array microphone could be and what it could do if the technology ever became available, which at the time was not available, mainly because of the processing needed to do the math. Right. Um Sher then kind of dug it out. I want to I'm I'm getting my dates wrong, but it's in the deck in the presentation. Somewhere in the in the 2010s, I want to say, maybe nineteens. I might be wrong on that. I have to check my my notes. Um, and we the acoustics lab broke it out and then made a prototype. It was four feet in diameter, weighed like 200 pounds. It was not a productizable product, right? But they were able to produce a microphone that steered invisible lobes. And um it was awesome. And then that was kind of the early AD of it. Um, and that was able to then be greenlit to make it more productizable, smaller, lighter, cheaper, manufacturable, and um that is what started us on the path that we had with our um array mics for the conferencing space. Um and then we got to this, like I said, we did the the validation of it outside of the conferencing space and within the strategy innovation group with certain partners under NDA, validated the technology and decided to go with a planar product first. Oh, taking a step back, sorry, planar versus linear. So linear microphone would be uh these elements lined up in a in a straight line, effectively, you're in one dimension. Um and you can create basically an incredibly tight pattern the more you have. So if you go with two micro two elements, four elements, eight elements, sixteen elements, you get that tighter and tighter pattern in that dimension parallel to those elements. Um a planar array has um basically the mems laid out in a specific pattern in two dimensions. So it could be a circle, square, combination of both. So in this particular product, for example, there's 78 elements. So albeit mems, very tiny microphones, there's 78 of them there. Um ambisonic mic has elements that listen in a three-dimensional spherical pattern. 360 degrees. 360 degrees spherical, not just 360 degrees in one X or Y or Z, but all the way around. And that's an ambisonic. And there's different orders, first order, second order, third order, based on how fidel the fidelity of that uh capture. Um and those products exist already. Right. Well, first and first and second order ones, I should say. Third order ones are still kind of expensive and hard. Um so yeah, 58 single capsule, shotgun mic, single capsule, VP88, two capsules, array microphone, many capsules, depending on what you're trying to do. And size. Like our larger ones have more elements than the smaller ones, right? Obviously. And basically it fix it the difference between like this and the two foot version is is basically low-end rejection.

SPEAKER_04 24:02

Okay. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 24:04

And when you bring up trying to prove it out in in different use cases, yeah, I think I think it's fair to say we're still doing that to some degree. Because people come up with incredible ideas all the time that we've never thought of. Yeah. And then we think to ourselves, we're gonna try that.

SPEAKER_03 24:20

Yeah, they ask us. Do you think it would work for this to be like, yeah, I think it could.

SPEAKER_02 24:25

Let us know how it goes. Uh uh, an engineer brought up uh marching band, and we then we contacted several people to test it on a marching band. We found one in an enclosed space, which is exactly what we wanted, but we tested on a march. How many decibels again?

SPEAKER_03 24:42

114, they were hitting up in the balcony.

SPEAKER_02 24:45

Right. Yeah. And it sounded good. Sounded good.

SPEAKER_04 24:48

Yeah. It's so funny that that you know, we're talking about you guys experimenting on this mic, and it's like, of course they would, because we've been people have been doing that with regular microphones for the especially like as a studio musician, like a studio engineer or whatever, they're experiment there's even to this day, yes, they're still experimenting. So why wouldn't you? But I I want to step it back just for the audience who's not uh aware. Experiential capture is basically you know capturing audience mostly. This is where we can get into another topic and we should we should go through it, but you know, any type of crowd or um field level ambience sounds and capturing that. And from the past, I think mostly it was shotguns. It's it's mostly been using shotguns, parabolic.

SPEAKER_03 25:39

It depends on what you're capturing. I mean, like I said, the ambisonic microphones are are the traditional method of capturing in um a space, uh, especially if you're looking for taking that audio and reproducing it into a system, whether it's 5-1, dot, whatever.

SPEAKER_07 25:58

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:59

Um, you need to have the channelization. Well, if you want to do it right, you want to have the individual channelization on the capture side, yeah. So you can then reproduce it and amplify it on the experience side, like a theater or a home theater studio. Um yeah, so you can you you could use shotguns. Um one of the problems with using shotgun mics or any microphone that is placed in multiple locations is you have your speed of sound problem. The sound is going to hit all of those elements at different times, so you have to time align them based on whatever you're trying to capture. And it's not really putting you necessarily like in a location. It's producing a space for you, but it's not like you're sitting here versus here. That's right. Um with an embisonic product, you can put yourself exactly where that microphone is. And if you have multiple embisonics, you can put them around and then have someone sit in that seat and then change the channel, and they can sit in that seat because maybe that seat has a different sound or experience. And then combine that with your video capture. You know, they got these immersive spaces. Um, I mean, the video thing is amazing. Most of that stuff, though, the audio is not matching.

SPEAKER_02 27:10

And it's not just capturing the environment, right? It's capturing specific sounds in an environment. And Dave Grunvig was quoted as saying his job is to capture subtle sounds in a hostile environment. And I think that that's a really great way to talk about it.

SPEAKER_06 27:28

Yeah. And I think people take it for granted. I mean, uh, you guys highlighted it perfectly in the presentation today of an audio recording where, you know, it was a recording of, I think it was a hockey match. You heard the crowd, you heard the sticks hitting the ice. But the PA. The PA, heard the puck hitting the boards. You know, obviously we're talking about Canadian sports because we're in the Canadian podcast. But uh just to say, we heard that version, then we heard it with the DCA 901, and it was amazing to hear the highlights and the important sounds, like you said. Yeah. Just the sticks, just the puck.

SPEAKER_03 28:02

So that example, it was actually also our D our some DSP that we're working on. Yeah. So sorry to add to that too.

SPEAKER_04 28:11

There was also the the soccer.

SPEAKER_03 28:13

Yeah, we did we did so yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:15

Our soccer one was the one that really like stood out for me as well. That one, your your example as well. Yeah. But I think like to his point, you were mentioning uh just an ambient space. Or you you uh Bill, you were mentioning ambient space where versus the DCA where you're you're really like focusing on details.

SPEAKER_06 28:32

Yeah, and you can do that because of the different you know, eight different lobes that you can place and and decide what you want to pick up. But what I'm trying to get to is as an end user, we take it for granted when we're watching these or when we're watching these sports or whatever it may be, these live shows, but then you realize how important that audio is in the mix to make it that full experience.

SPEAKER_03 28:53

Yeah, we're trying to get to. You have you have capture in the space, which may or may not be stereo or greater, right? So you could have your basic stereo mix at home, um, or you could have a five-one dot whatever mix from that space, which can also be upconverted, faked, which is often, which it often is, unfortunately, right? That's one thing. But then you also need to even just to create a good stereo mix, capture good clean capture of the things you you want and less of the things you don't want. So in the in our conversation in the in the seminar today, we talked about we give both audio examples in basketball, hockey, and then the soccer example, or football, sorry. Yeah uh where it was a combination of both the microphone technology that the array offers and in honing in on a targeted location and rejecting everything outside of that location, excuse me, as a as a result of the technology of the microphone. And then with that, we also showcases some DSP that we're playing with that is running some AI algorithms that then are targeted on the sounds you want and remove the sounds you don't want. Very cool. And what's good about the DSP is that it's gonna be it'll work with any audio you put through it, but obviously the better the audio going in from something like this, the cleaner it's gonna come out the other end, garbage in, garbage out, right? So we've done with kind of two things there. Um, but the point was, I think, as an experience to your point with the soccer football game, I'm gonna say that soccer football.

SPEAKER_05 30:28

That's fine.

SPEAKER_03 30:28

I gotta remember what country I'm in. In Canada, though we say soccer, that's like the thing you play with your actual foot. Um until we had partnered with um this product with a uh a partner of ours, Edge Sound Research. Um I'd never heard a soccer game, whether it was on TV and definitely not at at the arenas. Uh I mean when you go to a bar, they turn the sound off and you're just watching it because there's nothing to hear but crowd noise. What do you want? What do you want its sound on for? Well, for the first time ever, you can now hear the kick, the grunts, the chatter. Some of it you might not want to hit hit here from a chatter standpoint, so that'll have to be sussed out by the broadcaster. An AI uh removal to hear it is in the tool. There's a lot of chatter going on there you don't want to hear either, right?

SPEAKER_02 31:13

So I mean that's I just want to I want to everything else gone, and I just want to hear that. Right, right.

SPEAKER_03 31:20

But the point is, we've got a sport that has never been heard in the history of the sport unless you've been watching your kids' YMCA team because there's no one there. I mean, you I don't think soccer has ever been heard. And for the first time, I think, and I'm I'm excited that for maybe for the World Cup, people might actually hear the game for the first time.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

You know what's interesting about that is I had a chance to listen to um, you know, the same for me. So if you've ever played like FIFA World Club on PS5, it makes it sound like that. It's really cool and it really brings you into the game. And Edge Sound does a really good job where they can also take the existing um shotguns and run those to their software, and it sounds better. Not as good as the array, not as good as the array, and when you it like almost makes you mad when you even though it sounds better, just because it's like you've been you gave me this like really amazing experience, and now you know he's taking it away. Um that's not their fault.

SPEAKER_06 32:21

That belongs to the that belongs on the the I was showing my dad, you know, FIFA 2025 on the PS5, and the first thing he said was, Wow, it feels like you're in the stadium. It wasn't even like look at the graphics, you can see the guy's hair moving while he's yeah, you know, dribbling with the ball was like, Wow, it feels like you're in the stadium, and it's an important part whether we're watching it on TV, playing it in a game, that experiential capture is so important.

SPEAKER_02 32:45

And that's what we want to do, right? We want to, you know, traditionally, we like we said, we wanted to bring the game to the fan, but now we want to take the fan and put them into the game.

SPEAKER_04 32:56

Yeah, very well said. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's that's um, I wanted to touch so what's really cool, and I I'd love for you guys to share a little bit more. Um, what I really liked is pairing that with the edge. Can you talk a little bit more to the audience who doesn't quite know about what happens when you pair this beast with I I think first we should really talk about how the lobes reject sound, right?

SPEAKER_02 33:24

I think we should talk about that what the mic actually does.

SPEAKER_03 33:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's start there. So let's do that.

SPEAKER_02 33:30

So um the microphone itself creates eight virtual lobes with the memes that Bill was mentioning earlier, an algorithm created. Uh I hope Brett, I don't get a nasty email from Brent.

SPEAKER_07 33:44

Okay, I'll correct you.

SPEAKER_02 33:46

Okay, great. It has its own internal DSP, but those lobes are really good at rejecting outside noise. So unlike a shotgun that's going to kind of bring noise in from behind and more noise on the side, it'll kind of reject the outside noise a little better. Um, and you'll get so you'll get tighter sound in the specific areas that you want. Now it has its own built-in DSP, its own auto mixer, its own noise reduction, its own EQ, compression, uh delay, um, all built into the microphone. The microphone, you could set a couple of these up and they will mix they'll mix a game for you, right?

SPEAKER_03 34:22

But with edge sound well, it'll mix the game for you, assuming that it's mixing the sounds you want.

SPEAKER_02 34:28

Right.

SPEAKER_03 34:29

And with soccer or football, um, there is a whole lot of sound that is not the game. I mean, the crowd section, the voo vozelas, the drums, you know, it's it's a loud experience. And I mean, uh the the PS20, you know, football. I don't play video games, sorry, PS25, PS5, Phoenix. I mean, you're hearing stuff in there that you actually aren't gonna hear at a game. No, it's true, which is the kicks, you know, hearing the kicks in players.

New Revenue Streams And Fan Feeds

SPEAKER_02 34:52

Yeah. And that's kind of what I was getting to, right? So, so it's it's a you want to kind of pair everything down to a to a smaller footprint, and then with would the more energy you sorry, let me cut there, but the more energy you bring into an arena, the auto mixer doesn't know what to open or what to close, right? It's dumb. Because it's just, yeah, well, I mean, there's so much energy, it's like every it's all around me, it's everywhere. Right. Um, so what Edge Sound does really well is they can take the existing tracking software that exists on almost every venue, and they can follow the action and isolate that specific lobe and open that specific lobe. So again, then you're you're you're maintaining the imagery. You are picking up those subtle sounds because they're right in the line of sight, right where you want them. So, so in that instance, like if you took shot, if you put shotguns all around the entire pitch, it would be insane, insanity. But with this and with edge sound research, you can put these to create a sound field all the way around the pitch, and you will hear those, you will hear everything that happens in the moment it happens in the space that it happens. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 36:09

Yeah. That is super impressive. Very impressive. And they're doing it for other sports too. Um, it's not just football. Um and there's uh there's what's great opportunity is is you know, as this business has changed for the content creators, the rights owners, um there's opportunity with the combination of these now soft these pieces to have additional revenue streams potentially for them. You know, like would you like to listen and pay as a fan of Messe and listen to the Messe channel, which is the audio stream following him as he plays.

SPEAKER_04 36:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:42

And that can be done now. You can yes, you can have the general broadcast feed that everyone hears, yeah, but I can have my player X favorite feed that's been created as a result of the technologies combined. So whether a team or a league or the or or a venue chooses to do that, we'll be we'll we'll see. But now we're at that potential to and they've already at least in the tracking aspect, they've already invested in that, which wasn't cheap to do for other values. But now we are coming in saying that thing you already invested in, you can get more out of your investment now just by adding us. Uh and we're way cheaper than that investment.

SPEAKER_06 37:16

Imagine hearing Messi's audio track while he's playing, calling for the ball. You can go back and listen to it. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 37:24

Well, you know, even like um you know, in the States, like the halftime shows during NCAA games are huge, right? And really grandparents or people who live out of state want to watch their kid and hear their kid. You could really isolate a tuba player. You could, you know, have the whole and those could be premium tiers on on an app, right? Like that's yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot of uh way to think about this. There's a lot of different ways to generate different revenue streams, and yeah, um people are really jumping into it.

SPEAKER_04 37:57

It's another level, yeah. And a lot, and that seems to be another trend. Everybody wants to like be the inside, have the inside, whether it's a membership for a a specific player and they're like that whole member like that whole fan base for whatever it is, it's it it's it's huge. Yeah.

Placement Strategies In Arenas

SPEAKER_06 38:14

Since we're talking about sports, I mean just to give some viewers uh some specific examples, where would you place a DCA 901 in a typical arena? Some use cases.

SPEAKER_03 38:24

Yeah, so there's been um I can talk about the technology where it's been placed already, like not just the 901, and I can talk about where we're where we've placed it uh you know in our experimentation and validation. Um so to date the 901 um sorry, the array technology, um starting with some of the one of the conferencing models, the 910 it was called, MXA 910, has been placed in a number of places around the world. We've seen it on TV shows, um venues like Cowboy Stadium has it in their Jumbotron. Oh wow, your Scotia Bank in Toronto. Yeah. Um shout out to them for being innovators, um, put it in their Jumbotron for the Raptors and uh Maple Leafs. Um, two of them, actually. Um the array technology, there's been a number of TV shows um uh that have had it um as the primary capture. There's one TV show in particular that um uh documented preseason football. I won't mention what it is, but it had 70 or 80 arrays to capture all the different rooms that the team and management were meeting in because they couldn't have any ENG location sound guys in the room. Um cameras were on PTZ and the arrays were placed out so that no matter what direction they looked, it captured the audio and they got great broadcast quality. So there's been a lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 39:41

And they and they found that the the players were a lot more candid because there's not a microphone in their face, right? So you hold back. But when there's when you're not there's not a microphone on you, there's not one.

SPEAKER_05 39:56

Yeah, I I think you mentioned something about the maybe a poker game.

SPEAKER_03 40:00

Yeah, yeah. I was gonna say, uh well, getting to getting getting to where we were testing the nine oh one. So again, partnering with uh really great um innovative brands like the MBA, um were allowing us to to validate it at some of their um summer league games. Um so we did basketball, we've done um Major League Baseball has been incredibly supportive. We validated at a number of um Major League games. Um We talked about MBC Bay area, MBC Bay Area area is very great working with us. They they are also very innovative in what they've been doing and ahead of the curve um on doing crazy things, even flying drones inside above the fans for some of the basketball or hockey games. Um they've been very supportive and happy with it.

SPEAKER_02 40:43

Um Chicago Sports Network has been around.

Poker Table Test: Wins And Tradeoffs

SPEAKER_03 40:45

CHSN has been a great partner, our backyard in Chicago. Yep. And then you mentioned uh the poker thing. We we had it at a poker event in in Vegas, and uh we had one of the final three tables, and uh we placed the microphone above, and typically they live up their players. The downside of that is you have to pay really close attention to where your packs are going because the players will just walk off to the bathroom, to the bar, or all the way back to their hotel room if they're not having a good day. Um and that microphone is on or that thousand$2,000 body pack is gone. Right. Yeah, you're done. So they they on this particular day they they put our array up and we set out the lobes across the the seats, eight lobes, and didn't mic the players with Lavs. And the director said it was great. They loved it. They give us gave us an A-. And I was like, A minus. Well, I was a I was I wasn't expecting an A, but why a minus? So two things. One, it was great sound, um, so good that the players didn't think they were mics, so the the the commentary, the banter was very colorful. So from a producer from a director and production standpoint, they got much better content. Entertainment value. Uh yes, entertainment value. Thank you. Uh it was it was not a PG show, I should say. Um and then the minus came from the fact that, well, the lobe is gonna pick up whatever is in the lobe. Right. So what else was in the lobe pointing down? The chips. So they heard a lot more chip sound than you would with a lava up here. Um, but thankfully we have we we have DSP tools that if we choose to, we could we could fix that later.

SPEAKER_04 42:17

Yeah, I was gonna I was gonna ask you about that. So this is my nerdy part. I was watching the presentation earlier this morning and I was like, the positioning of that that the DCA was right above them. I'm wondering if it was placed at a slightly off-angle. I'm wondering if the lobe would have just picked up them and not so much the chip. Do you think that would have been the case?

SPEAKER_03 42:35

You technically probably could have steered it in such a way that their head was like just on the cusp of the beam where it kind of terminated here. You're saying if higher than higher up just than that flashlight beam. Like if we had put it more offset, you're absolutely right. But you would have had a sharper angle. Okay, perfect. Okay. Um and that unfortunately the the mounting location we had to play with didn't offer that. Yes. So great point. Like any microphone, I mean, this is especially a big thing for studio guys, right? Um, we all know that someplace, some you you would think where to mic an instrument might not be where you should mic the instrument. So use your ears, right? Same thing with this, you know, your your angle of attack that that invisible beam that you can't see needs to be kind of in your mind and and pictured um to assist in in in location and placement. Um so that technically could have could have helped.

SPEAKER_06 43:25

But Bill, I don't know much about poker, but I know a lot about soccer. So if you need help at FIFA or whatever it is, yeah, I'll happily help you out. It's not a problem. You can talk about lobe location and all that.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

One of the one of the most fun events, I think, was the armored MMA, which was um it was armored MMA. Just as cool as it sounds. MMA fight, but they're wearing 80 to 100 pound suits of armor, carrying swords and maces and axes. Oh my god. And they go hard. They go hard. And one of the fighters, I um she happened to be standing next to me, and so I was like, Hey, do you want to take a listen? And she put it on, and she was like, Oh my god, that sounds beautiful. She goes, I can actually tell where they're being hit because it's so the sound was so detailed. She could, by hearing it, just tell where they were being hit on their body.

SPEAKER_06 44:16

And that was just one DCA901 in the auto.

SPEAKER_07 44:20

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 44:20

And I'm sure people viewing this at home must be like, oh, like it's just like they feel like everything.

SPEAKER_06 44:27

Yeah, everyone's YouTubing armored MMA right now. That's what they're doing. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:32

I heard that they they just landed a deal with Fox, so it'll be yeah, I'll be expanding.

SPEAKER_03 44:37

One of the very first sports that this got used online and live, uh, which we were a little nervous about because we were so early on in the testing, was actually boxing, and it was amazing. It was awesome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 44:48

Yeah, I know and I coming from my film background, I know that you know, doing Foley work or whatever, just the whole uh sound, uh just adding sound and good sound. Uh and I'll give an example like Top Gun Maverick or whatever, it just it just brings up the experience. So I can just imagine when you're doing like an armored MMA or even boxing, yeah, and just hearing those punches and stuff, yeah. You I I mean, it it that that just elevates the the amount of uh of how you feel.

SPEAKER_03 45:18

The entire experience. If you think about the movies have a really major advantage, is the fact that they have so much time in post to fix the audio, yeah. As best they can. When you're live, you don't have that option.

Use Cases: Boxing, MMA, Concert IEMs

SPEAKER_02 45:29

But you know what? So like I want to talk about film for a second because it because we talked about this earlier. I think it's really cool. Like you could get using different AI tools now, and I think the film industry is kind of doing it backwards where they're thinking about AI in place of artist, right? But I think you can use it to supplement the artist and let it so that you can give them space to do what they do best, right? And right now, everything everything is kind of tethered to you have to hit your spot for lighting and for audio and all that. Imagine if all that went away and you could just utilize AI, right? And you could change your environment, you can uh change your lighting cues with AI as your actor is moving into different sets, and you're programming that, you're controlling that, but you're utilizing the AI to make those subtle changes. That's right. And the same with sound, the same with audio, right? Imagine how better the performances would be. We have some pretty incredible performances now, right? Imagine if you give them the space to actually just be in character and just do what they do best. Like, how cool would that be?

SPEAKER_04 46:37

Yeah, you know, especially technology has advanced so much right now that the uh the uh the processing is so fast. So, like you said, when I think technology is uh I don't know to which extent, but it could adapt very quickly to a change of environment, like like you were mentioning. So that I thought that was I think that is pretty cool. Yeah, yeah. Um didn't mean to derail the no no no, I think that was fantastic. I think that was fantastic. Um one thing you did mention, I think we should bring it up, uh, what it's not, and that was and what it doesn't do uh at this time, anyway. Right, right, which is sound reinforcement. Because I think the first thing we think about right all the time is how cool is this, how cool and precise, and captures everything and it does it so well. Yeah, yeah. Why wouldn't it be good for sound reinforcement?

SPEAKER_03 47:30

I'll caveat that with an asterisk because it was actually used in the MMA event in sound reinforcement. They were piping the audio back in the room. Um so I I I shouldn't say that it's impossible. What I what I want to caveat people is um you know, you can you have problems today with any of the analog cardioid mic 58, what have you, solutions where you can get feedback, right? Imp incorrect placement on stage, incorrect EQing, what have you, and and it's a problem. And and that takes someone who has some experience to do correctly. Um this is so sensitive at what it's steered at, even with its rejection, but it's it's it's so great at capturing what it's pointing at that um if it's a reflective surface in the PA of a room, it's gonna reflect that and capture it, and then it's gonna be created to create that feedback loop. So we have tested it. It can be done. It's just a little bit more sensitive and difficult that for now, you know, maybe not the best thing. Experiment carefully, don't depend on it, maybe have a backup. Um, but I would I I do hope, um, given um some of the plans that we have for this category, that we'll add some tools maybe that could make that um uh a more a more easier application to go for. Um it shouldn't there shouldn't be a reason why we couldn't do it uh moving forward, but just in its current state, it's like uh I I I know how to prevent feedback with most microphones, and I was I was I had to work hard.

SPEAKER_02 49:01

I will I will add that you know, since I've been on the team since April, I have heard probably don't use it for that application several times. And uh we've found we've found ways.

SPEAKER_03 49:13

Yeah. I I I always err on the side of underpromise over deliver and set expectations, you know, correctly. Um there will people, there are people who are perfectly knowledgeable that will that will make it work.

SPEAKER_02 49:27

There are even people if you say you can't do it that way, they will do it that way just to show you I can't.

SPEAKER_04 49:34

Yeah. Don't tell me I can't. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 49:38

But we have lots of environments that it's being used in live and studio, uh TV studio captures for for for uh you know live news uh two studios or sports events. Um we've got some artists uh that are using it as um mic uh ambient pickup of the crowd for their in-ears. Um lots of examples of of crowd capture for broadcast, recording, archival, what have you.

Live Reinforcement Limits And Tips

SPEAKER_04 50:01

Um Yeah, there's a lot of Well the in-ear, like the in-ear, I didn't even think of that.

SPEAKER_03 50:07

Yeah, I mean we all have done, we've those of us who have done monitors have have have mic'd the crowd for the artist to give them their spatial experience, right? Because that's the worst thing about going in ear is you lose that feeling of being on stage, right? Your ears are amazing, protect your hearing, consistent sound, but the one drawback is you're closed, right? Um and there's of course products that do that do that uh built in uh at a at a steep price. So the traditional way is throw up a shotgun or two, probably far stage left and right, and it works, but it's yeah, it's still not right, especially if you got one fan that's just screaming right in front of that microphone. Well, that now has to come out of the mix for everyone, and you're shot, right? So um what this can do, especially with its eight lobes, is you can create a much wider image and channelize it such that it's not just this area and this area, but it's this whole area. You can, you know, the two outside ones are panned hard, harder, left or right, then the inside ones are a little bit less, a little bit less, a little bit less, and bring that into the mix using the stereo out or just into the console, feed it into this into the mix of the ears, and now you're getting a a more um better fidelity in that in that space than you would with just a shotgun here and a shotgun here.

SPEAKER_04 51:24

I was actually gonna ask you that. So like before we're talking about um kind of going after I think you brought a good point. The microphone can be used for ambience and details. Yeah. And that that's kind of two things that we you you guys kind of separate, right? When we're talking about experiential uh experiential capture. Right. So technically, even a mic like a DCA901, you can actually position it close to, let's say we're talking about football slash soccer or something that whatever sport. Yeah, exactly. Um you can actually position it. Would you think you'd be able, because it's it's outputting in Dante and AES 67, do you think you'd be able to uh create a two-channel where it's the detail of the field and another channel, the ambient of the crowd?

SPEAKER_03 52:12

Yeah, absolutely. So um the eight lobes can be positioned anywhere you want, and they can be overlapped as well. You can leverage them as direct outs, or you can leverage them as uh the auto mix out. Um and you can also do native five-one capture on this. That is like talked about the shotgun mics having to align them from a speed of sound delay that happens while they're all co-located, so there's no off there's no problem of having a time aligned, so everything is time aligned. You just use it, and then you can use the five-one channels, you can use two channels for stereo, you could use take a mix of one channel for your mono, whatever you want to do, or mix it down. So, yeah, you could, for example, um fan out five channels wide and create a a wide stereo image. And then you could take you got three more lobes to use, you could take three lobes and position them semi overlapping that, but maybe a little bit different configuration, and do you know a stereo with a center channel. Or just use two lobes semi-wide on top of that and just do your stereo channel. So channels one and two could be the stereo, and channels three through seven could be your wide immersive uh uh image.

SPEAKER_04 53:26

That's very cool.

SPEAKER_06 53:28

All through a Cat Six cable.

SPEAKER_04 53:29

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you think that and you you mentioned before that it's in like the perfect time because workflows are are are getting better. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:38

Uh and I believe they're changing, they're evolving, yeah, yeah, they're evolving.

SPEAKER_04 53:41

Sorry, yeah. Yeah. And you think that helps? Like just with the way that it's outputting and it's getting all the information back to technically, like you you guys mentioned like A1s, those guys working on those mobile trucks. It's like A1s.

SPEAKER_03 53:54

The people that are working really hard that you don't see. Exactly. There are not enough of them in the world, right now. Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_06 53:58

Yeah, I was gonna say because technically now the audio is on the network, it's going through Dante or AES 67. You can route this anywhere, anywhere you want. So it's changing the workflow to your exact.

Workflow, Dante, And A1 Focus

SPEAKER_04 54:08

But the guys are you still using boards that are not really visual, but they're not.

SPEAKER_02 54:17

Think about it. If you utilize the auto mixer or utilize something like EdgeSound Research, right? You your footprint of your console can get way smaller. Yeah. Right. Um, and you're managing a lot less. And then you can do as an A1, I always say this, you can focus on what your main job is, which is you are a storyteller, you are part of that broadcast, and you are telling the the auditory story that's happening right there on the field. You can focus on that because you have an extra set of hands, you know, which you need because you're managing a hundred jail counts.

SPEAKER_03 54:55

You know, if this helps bring the crowd noise down and foc and captures the sounds of the game, well now I can actually mix the crowd back in to now have it to now have my sounds above the mix. It's just like when you're doing Neo music and stuff, you want to have that vocal above the mix, right? Yeah. If that vocal's buried in in something, you you don't have the tools to pull it out.

SPEAKER_06 55:15

Yeah. That's great. Very cool.

SPEAKER_03 55:19

Yeah, it's it's not a you know, this in this day and age of technology, some of the things that you know, this is the same for studios and in live sound. Some things are just best done a simple way, in a in a in an acoustic way. Don't use necessarily DSP to fix it or EQ to fix it. Yeah. Right. If you got a good sounding mic, you don't have to EQ it, then that's why you picked that mic for Snare and this mic for Tom. And I mean, that's why we all use mics for different things by different brands. You know, there isn't a mic that does everything. This isn't a mic that does everything.

SPEAKER_04 55:50

Yeah. Um you don't always want to fix it in post.

SPEAKER_03 55:52

And and I I'm I'm not gonna quote uh Everett's quote. I'm gonna let him uh say his own quote about the sound.

SPEAKER_02 55:58

Oh, the the least interesting thing about this mic is how good it sounds. And I don't say that to say that doesn't sound good. I don't think we heard that one today. It's good, it does sound good. Um but it really is, it can do so many things, it's so flexible, it can fit into so many different workflows. It really is a modern day microphone for modern day workflows. It really is. Um, and that's when we when we visit clients or we visit um people who want to demo this, or or if they're just hearing about it for the first time and or we want to test, uh the first thing they say right away is like, oh, I could use this here. I could use this here. I mean, we went when we met with um Big Ten Network, all of a sudden they came up with 10 different use cases and we're trying to brainstorm with us, and we're like, it's dude. Try it.

SPEAKER_03 56:50

Yeah, this is just the I mean, I will get a plug in here that you know for sure this is just the first of many things to come. Um this was uh uh uh the a quick turn project, if you will, to to get the technology out there and define a new category, not only for sure, but we think for the market. Uh array technology is not new, but what we're doing with it, I would argue is new. Um so we're glad to be first um with something like this um for these applications. Um but we have much more to come. Uh you know, market willing, customers willing uh to receive it.

SPEAKER_04 57:24

Um something that kind of was birthed through a conference conferencing system.

SPEAKER_03 57:30

I mean SM studio microphone, yeah, SM 58. Yeah. No one uses it in the studio anymore. Well, a couple of people do, but yeah. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_04 57:39

Look at the SM7B. It's being used on podcasts when it was released uh years ago for yeah, vocals and all kinds of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 57:47

And yeah. I mean some I mean you guys probably have already done podcasts on this, but there's some really legendary recordings where the the vocal that's on the on the album is a 57 or an SM7 or a 58. It wasn't I mean they recorded it with those fancy condensers that were also present, but in the end, what did they use? They used the hundred dollar microphone.

SPEAKER_07 58:08

Yeah.

GUI, Presets, And Setup Pitfalls

SPEAKER_03 58:09

And that's what's on the rock album. That's fine. That's nothing wrong with that, you know. Um but this, yeah, this is this is this is um it's exciting. It's exciting times. And and uh this officially started shipping this week, so there's a little bit of a sigh of relief, you know, to get it through that gate. Um but uh there's still a lot of uh pressure on um just getting education, getting the word out there, um understanding the technology. Dante Dante is not prevalent everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 58:37

No. Well we don't know when people will be watching this, so let's say it started shipping in December.

SPEAKER_03 58:43

December December 1st, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:46

2025.

SPEAKER_06 58:48

And you know, we were talking about the applications and uh different use cases for it and uh how incredible the quality is. And I want to say like out of us four, I probably have the least amount of technical uh knowledge when it comes to experiential capture. But even today during the presentation when you're showing us the web GUI, yeah, the discovery application, like for someone who doesn't have a lot of experience, I was like, okay, I could figure this out. Even how easy it was to place those lobes, yeah. I mean, that's something that I think we need to talk about because it was uh it was really impressive to see. Like I said, for someone that doesn't have a lot of experience with that, yeah uh, I felt comfortable saying, hey, you know what? I'm gonna experiment with this.

SPEAKER_02 59:25

There is an intuitive feel to it, and I think they did a great job of providing that, but there is a learning curve to it because there you are, you are it is a little different than what you're used to in the world.

SPEAKER_03 59:36

Well, if you're dealing with something that you can't see, and you're trying to place it an environment that you're not sitting in and pointed at something that is moving or not moving, or you're trying to hit a specific point and you can't see it. I mean, whether it's a camera or a shotgun mic, point and shoot, right? This you put up there, the good news is it's very forgiving. I mean, it doesn't have to be oriented exactly right. Because you'll just end up steering everything and you know within the software. But to to get that through to someone um and do it in a way that's not going to be a burden to what is already a very limited time day. They don't need more stress, they don't need more work.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:16

Yeah. Give yourself some time and grace. Don't do it on air.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:22

But the good news is, even if someone's using this for the first time, um, I mean, we did a lot of work on on making sure that this could ins interest inject into the workflows with as minimal disruption as possible and provide enough benefit that the little disruption that is occurring, a little bit of learning curve on the box you have to do that it's giving you something for that extra ten minutes it took to be like, okay, I gotta open up the GUI, okay, the software's there, steer it. Like once you do it the first time, it it comes quickly, and and that was on purpose. It's not seamless. Um, but I was impressed. We were we were glad we were hopeful that the the result of that little extra effort the first time would pay off um and 10 to 10fold then as you as you integrate it into your normal workflow.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:04

We did during a presentation today see one of the mistakes that I've made um with the presets. And uh because you can create presets for whatever you want to capture to spread those. Yeah. And then for me, I got so excited that I got all the lobes exactly where I wanted them. I saved my preset and then I changed my game structure and and my uh I did all the other things after the fact and never resaved it. So then when I had to reload it. When I had to reload it, I lost everything because the game wasn't correct and started panicking.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:45

It happened. What do they teach you on digital consoles? Make a session file before you start programming and save, save, save, save, save, save, save.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:52

Right, right. But do you ever do that? Nobody ever does that. No. Yes, you do. Maybe Hugo does it.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:01

If you don't do it the first time, you're never gonna do it again.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:03

But you do it, you do it every time until the time you needed to do it, and that's when you didn't.

SPEAKER_06 1:02:08

It's like hitting record when you're recording a podcast. You just gotta make sure you hit that record button. We know a little bit about that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:15

Three times. Three times, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:20

That's awesome. That's terrible. All right. Yeah. Um that's a new podcast right there, beneath the rack. Just lands on top of you. Just yeah, just crying under the rack. All the stories where things have just gone off the rails. Yeah. Yeah, we've got them. We've all got them.

Live TV Reality: Macy’s Fireworks Breakdown

SPEAKER_06 1:02:40

It's funny. Every podcast we do, we're always like, hey, that's another episode. Hey, that's another episode. That's another episode, and we'll we'll get to that.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:46

We've been present testing this and have witnessed some amazing things hit the fan. Uh I'll tell one story really quick. Uh, Fourth of July fireworks for Macy's Fourth of July fireworks in New York, 2024. I don't know if anyone knows this, but they're counting down ten, nine, eight. All wireless and comms went down. That's a live show. That's timed. Oh my god. Right? Because they got fireworks to go off. And there's live music. It all went down. Someone had um tripped a plug or something, and it took down multiple channels of audio.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:23

Uh we got it. Oh no, I hit record that.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:27

I didn't record that. This was being tested and it was used as the 5-1 capture for that broadcast. So we were one of our representatives, Brent, was there and he witnessed this whole thing, and he just witnessed panic. And um the uh the director or producer of no producer for that show, um, I think she does SNL. She had to basically re re-time the entire show while they fixed whatever happened. And I think it was about eight minutes they were down. And sh I don't she should have won an Emmy because behind the scenes she is reprogramming the show so that they were back on track to end when the fireworks had to go. Wow. And that whole product that 10 sec eight seconds before going live, the whole production crashed.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:08

I always say in broadcast, we don't make our money for things to go smoothly. No, we make our money when everything goes off the rails, and it's how we get through it. It makes sure the user, the the viewer at home doesn't notice literally everything's on fire behind us, and we're just putting those out one fire at a time.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:34

As long as it tastes good at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_06 1:04:38

You know, I think that's what this podcast is about, right? Behind the rack. It's everything that you don't see behind the scenes, whether it's some of the products that we're using, the people that are working so hard day and night to make that magic happen. Yeah. Um, I think it's important that we highlight those people. Absolutely. Especially in in in the North American industry and Canada specifically for us. But and our partners. And our partners.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:59

Like that tested into the weirdest ways, and then it ends up being a market. Everett spending his nights at armored MMA. It's important.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:07

And I'll just put a plug to the broadcast market out there is that they are lacking new blood joining the the behind the scenes of these productions. Um there isn't enough people to do the work that to produce the content you're seeing on TV or on your phone or on your whatever you're browsing you Hulu. There is not enough in the audio I can't speak for anything but the audio world. But I know in the audio world there is a serious problem shortage of people wanting to do the job and able to do the job.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:37

So And if they want to keep the experience alive, then uh yeah, we're gonna need uh need more of those guys.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:44

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. For sure. If I had known what I'd known now years ago, maybe a different path.

Industry Gap: We Need More A1s

SPEAKER_06 1:05:53

Well, gentlemen, thank you for coming today. We really really appreciate all the stories. Thank you. Behind the scenes. We really uh we're super impressed with the product. Obviously, that goes without saying. But thank you for taking the time for coming today.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:04

Hopefully we can come back when we have the the next items in this portfolio. Yeah, teasing you product. I like that. We will do a little recap of you know what's next. Because like I said, this is just one technology that we're doing. Cutter for the viewers.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:18

Yeah, and maybe there's more ways since now it's shipping. Maybe there's new and uh innovative ways this thing has been deployed in.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:25

Yeah, hopefully people can comment. You know, maybe there's some sightings, you know, how people always do like sightings and send photos. Yeah, you know, put a sighting if you see this set up somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:34

We love that. We love that. Where we're where in the world is DCA901.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:40

Yeah. We love that stuff.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:43

That's so funny.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:44

Um I don't know. I did want to say, I think it's kind of important to say that this is maybe you can't think of this as your traditional share product, and as far as like it being rugged. And you know, you can't hammer a nail with this. It's it's um I don't know if you guys want to cut this out or keep it in, but I think it's important to talk about it. This is a computer. This is a basically like a laptop in a in a metal grate, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:11

So you you have to handle, you have to baby it a little bit. Yeah, there's some intelligence behind it. It's not just a microphone.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:18

I mean, I for sure wouldn't try to hang it on a magnet on a door and just let it drop. I wouldn't do that.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:23

Yeah. I understood they were using it as a shield in the armored MMA. They did it.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:29

I see people trying to warm pizzas on it.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:31

Yeah. People think it's a shower head.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:34

Yeah. You know.

SPEAKER_06 1:07:35

There's been lots of things. I like that idea though. If you see a DC8901 in the wild, send us a picture. Yeah.

Closing Thoughts, Shipping News, CTA

SPEAKER_04 1:07:44

Expensive shower head. Yeah. There's no hot water coming. Oh, amazing. Um, Hugo, do you mind just uh or Bill, do you mind just uh scrolling up just a bit? And I'm gonna do the out outro. Okay, perfect. There you go. No, yeah, uh right there. Perfect. Awesome. Well, thank you very much, guys, once again. Uh it's cool even just discussing this this trend. And uh and it's something that like I said, I I just recently uh popped up on my YouTube feed, and now I got you guys in here, and we're talking about the DCA 901, and it's exactly for that. It's like the timing was was perfect, and I think a lot of people um I think hopefully this episode will get uh more appreciation, people's appreciation for all the events or anything that happens on TV and stuff like that. And I think that that that that's cool. That's cool. Yeah, so if you've enjoyed this episode, uh hit that like, smash that subscribe, share the episode with a colleague or an AV fan, and help us spread the word. We'll be back with more stories, insights, and conversations from the worlds of pro audio, live sound, and systems AV. So until then, keep the Curiosity alive, and we'll catch you the next time on Behind the Rack.