Signal To Noise Podcast
The Signal to Noise podcast features conversations with people from all corners of the live sound industry, from FOH and monitor engineers, tour managers, Broadway sound designers, broadcast mixers, system engineers, and more.
Signal To Noise Podcast
291. Cody Heimann, RF Applications Engineer At Sound Devices, Part 2
In the second part of Andy’s conversation with Cody Heimann of Sound Devices (part one is here), the duo rolls up their sleeves and goes deep on the company’s Astral wireless platform that offers 32 channels in a single rack-unit, Optocore integration, and a handheld transmitter that can take almost any capsule on the market without any additional adapters, there’s a lot to discuss. This episode is sponsored by Allen & Heath and RCF.
Episode Links:
Episode 290 — Cody Heimann On Large-Scale RF Deployment
Sound Devices Astral Wireless & A20-HH Intro Video
Episode 291 Transcript
Connect with the community on the Signal To Noise Facebook Group and Discord Server. Both are spaces for listeners to create to generate conversations around the people and topics covered in the podcast — we want your questions and comments!
Also please check out and support The Roadie Clinic, Their mission is simple. “We exist to empower & heal roadies and their families by providing resources & services tailored to the struggles of the touring lifestyle.”
The Signal To Noise Podcast on ProSoundWeb is co-hosted by pro audio veterans Andy Leviss and Sean Walker.
Want to be a part of the show? If you have a quick tip to share, or a question for the hosts, past or future guests, or listeners at home, we’d love to include it in a future episode. You can send it to us one of two ways:
1) If you want to send it in as text and have us read it, or record your own short audio file, send it to signal2noise@prosoundweb.com with the subject “Tips” or “Questions”
2) If you want a quick easy way to do a short (90s or less) audio recording, go to https://www.speakpipe.com/S2N and leave us a voicemail there
Episode 291 - Cody Heimann, Sound Devices Astral Wireless
Note: This is an automatically generated transcript, so there might be mistakes--if you have any notes or feedback on it, please send them to us at signal2noise@prosoundweb.com so we can improve the transcripts for those who use them!
Voiceover: You’re listening to Signal to Noise, part of the ProSoundWeb podcast network, proudly brought to you this week by the following sponsors:
Allen & Heath, whose new dLive RackUltra FX upgrade levels up your console with 8 next-generation FX racks – putting powerful tools like vocal tuning, harmonizing, and amp simulation right at your fingertips. Learn more at allen-heath.com
Hear the Power of Precision: RCF presents the & TT+ Audio GTX System live in Atlanta on April 30th! Don’t miss your chance to experience the future of concert sound with RCF’s revolutionary GTX system, live and in person. Time is running out—Visit RCF-USA.com for more info, and/or use the link on the page for this episode on ProSoundWeb.
Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green
Andy Leviss: Hey everybody. Welcome to another episode of Signal to Noise. Once again, I am Andy Leviss and, uh, we're picking up, uh, with Cody Heimann where we left off last time talking about wireless.
So, it's enough of a tangent that you don't necessarily have to have listened to that episode, but I'd recommend doing it 'cause I like everybody to listen to everything. And if you're into wireless and you didn't listen to that, there's some cool overview of like, all sorts of scale of gigs that, uh, Cody's worked on, a little bit of tips and tricks and, and advice, um, just kind of a little bit for everyone in there. So check that out.
But the, the...the two reasons we wanted to have Cody on the show were one is just, he's done like some really cool gigs of wireless coordination on like all sorts of scales like we talked about. The other side of it is that nowadays Cody works for a company that y'all have probably heard of Sound Devices, which in the live audio world, most folks I think are familiar with it initially through they make the USB pre. That's been like a lot of our Smaart interface of choice forever and ever, because the thing's built like a tank. It was one of the first interfaces to have an analog loop through built right into the device. Um, up until recently that was of I've, it's come off my desk so that I can keep it in my backpack more for now. But a whole bunch of Signal to Noise episodes were recorded through mine and that's still usually what I grab when I'm recording on the go.
Um, but. What folks in the live sound industry haven't known until fairly recently, I think as much is that Sound Devices has a huge, huge chunk of their business in the wireless side, which is why Cody's working there. So why don't we rewind from there and Cody, like, how, how did you end up at Sound Devices?
And then we can kind of dig into like what Sound Devices is doing now. 'cause you guys are doing some cool shit that we, we've talked about a little bit after seeing it at Nam. And you know, talking about crazy channel counts like we were in in our, our first half of this conversation. It gets, gets real fun with some of the stuff y'all are doing.
So...
Cody Heimann: No, it, uh, it, it makes me happy, uh, to hear our stuff, uh, in quote, uh, cool shit. Uh, it definitely, I, I love that 'cause that's exactly what we're trying to, it is, it is the most technical term for our stuff. Um, but yeah, that's, that's what we're doing is we're trying to make really cool shit for, uh, RF guys and RF girls and everyone that's, that's doing RF right now, uh, has challenges.
And so hopefully, uh, our stuff, you know, helps, helps support that in every way possible. Um, but yeah, why I'm here right now, um, so a great. Great friend of mine, uh, Mr. Gary Trenda, um, I had been working with him for, yep. Yep. Gary, Gary, Gary, I act so quick side story. There's a, a Capital One commercial with Samuel Jackson on it, and he's sitting in the back of his taxi cab and he is like Gary, Gary, Gary.
And he starts going in on this tangent about his Capital One card. Uh, every time, literally every single time I answer the phone and Gary's on the other side, I, I say I start my conversation with that to the point now where my three-year-old only knows Gary's name as Gary. Gary, Gary. So,
Andy Leviss: That's amazing. I.
Cody Heimann: But, um, anyway, so.
Uh, yeah. Gary and I had worked, uh, a million shows together, uh, throughout our, you know, careers as freelancers in the RF space. And, uh, he went to work at Sound Devices a couple years before I did, and while he was there, he kind of kept reaching out and, you know, was telling me that they're gonna start looking at doing some wireless stuff and they were getting into the wireless game a little more.
And, you know, I always kinda like, man, that's really cool and I appreciate it, you know, um, uh, you know, I've got a really good freelance career and you know, I know the gear I'm using and whatever. And, uh, just being the amazing person that he is, uh, you know, and saw what, you know, kind of a, a team that we could start building at Sound Devices.
Uh, kept on me and, and started looping me in on some of the stuff. And then I got involved in some of the design processes as a consultant. And once that happened and I got inside and we started really getting into what was happening, uh, it absolutely blew my mind and it was, I. The most incredible thing that I had seen and one of the most refreshing things I had seen in the RF space, I think ever.
Right? And it was just to, to have an opportunity to be a part of this, uh, as the RF nerd that I am. Uh, there was just no way I couldn't be involved. And I'm just so grateful, uh, every day in my life right now for Gary and keeping on me. Um, and so now, uh, fast forward, uh, I've been with Sound Devices for a few years now.
Uh, and I'm an RF applications engineer. And, you know, I handle, um, a lot of the, uh, external kind of designs, uh, some of our bigger clients that are deploying this stuff and the more complicated designs. I also work on the design team, uh, internally for our products and get to do just so many really cool things.
I mean, it, you know, for me it is an an RF nerd utopia that I get to sit in every day. So it's pretty cool.
Andy Leviss: Well, so, uh, I mean, I guess the, the next logical question is again, like Sean and I gave the quick, like we've seen it on a trade show overview of what y'all are doing now, but why don't you give folks the, the actual explanation of, of like what, what these products are.
Cody Heimann: Sure. Yeah, I would love to. Um, so yeah, our big thing, uh, that we kind of started looking at and, you know, the thing that I think everyone is running into is, and as noted in our prior episode, is, you know, spectral access. Um. A lot of other equipment is somewhat limited in its range and where it can operate at.
And you know, when we were looking at how to make a product and what kind of product we really wanted to make to support our end users, just to the nth degree was, you know, our number one priority was spectral access. And so with our receivers, um, they all cover 169 megahertz up to 1,525 megahertz. So with all, everyone listening to the show that's toured around the world, uh, and had to bring different hardware to replace it to, you know, go do a show, you know, in a different country or has been into Times Square and had the same equipment as everyone else that couldn't operate their equipment.
Um, that was the big point behind this. And one of the big driving factors was just, there's so much spectrum out there for us to use and we're always limited by, you know, the, the equipment we're supported by. So we wanted to change that and kind of flip the script on that. Um. The other really cool thing is that all of our receivers are what we kind of refer to as multi-channel.
Um, and I know a lot of receivers out there are technically multi-channel, but the way we look at it is, you know, all of our receivers come as kind of a base channel count, and then you can upgrade the channel counts via rental or perpetual license purchase, right? So you can have, uh, with our flagship product, the A 20 Super Nexus, uh, it comes stock as a 16 channel, uh, receiver, and you can expand it to 24 or 32 channels of RF in that one singular rack space.
Um, so working with, you know, just density, you know, a big thing that I ran into in a lot of shows that I was doing was. The pre-work and getting the shop staff to prep this stuff, or the, uh, production company didn't have the amount of equipment that was required to facilitate the channel count. And we didn't want a user to be kinda limited by some of that stuff, right?
Because, you know, there's, there's things that exist like bad patch cables between your, you know, receivers going to your distro or any of these things. And, you know, we wanted to mitigate a lot of that and make people's lives that were not RF folks, uh, inherently, you know, uh, have more fun doing wireless and the people that are just full-blown RF nerds have access to all this new, you know, fun stuff to really kind of get their shows to the next level, right?
With, uh, not only confidence, but, you know, Sound Devices has always kind of been known for fidelity. Um, and, you know, just the robustness of our hardware as you mentioned and all that stuff. So we wanted to build all that into our lineup. Um. And that's kind of where we're at right now. We've got three receivers, uh, the A 20 Nexus go, the A 20 Nexus and the A 20 Super Nexus.
Um, we've got a handheld belt pack, a mini belt pack, um, and all of those, you know, have that what we call spectrum band, so that really, really wide access to spectrum. So you don't have to switch, uh, SKUs on your tour or whatever city you're in. You know, you can just use the same SKU no matter where you're at, uh, with receiver and transmitter.
Andy Leviss: And then as far as like, 'cause since that does cover a wider range then like you could use in the us is there like, I'm assuming you're switching like a region mode at a certain point to lock out the stuff that you can't use to make the F CCC
Cody Heimann: Yeah, very
Andy Leviss: that sort of thing.
Cody Heimann: Yep. Um, so what's really cool is, uh, on all of our receivers, uh, in that system menu, you can actually go in and tell it what country you're in. Um, and we've got a list of, you know, 50 some countries, uh, in there. That we have done all the work for, so we know all the legal operating spectrum that a user can have in that specific country.
You will, uh, basically tell it you're in that country, and then what you do is you take your phone, um, so it can geolocate you appropriately. So you're not using, uh, you know, UK spectrum in the US and getting access to that sweet 700 meg full of cellular, uh, you know, garbage. But, um, uh, and then yeah, once your phone authenticates the receiver, uh, we have this protocol called Next Link, which is a bidirectional control protocol that automatically, um, without any additional hardware sends and receives to all your transmitters, um, just over the air without you having to interact at all.
And so once your receiver is actually geolocated to that country, it will push that information to all the transmitters that you have on your show. And now they're all, you know, set for exactly whatever legal spectrum you have in that country.
Andy Leviss: Right on. That's, that's really, I didn't know about the phone bit. That's a really clever way of doing that, and I assume with making the various, um, uh, a hgs to use another TLA to make the, uh, uh, to, to make them happy with it. That's, that's really smart.
Cody Heimann: Yeah. I mean, we really, you know, we, we definitely wanted to respect, uh, you know, the governing bodies and, and the spectral access because, you know, there's just so many, uh, there's so many areas that we need to stay out of. But then when you have something like this and you do show that you're compliant, you've got access to all these areas that, you know, a lot of other people generally don't because they would have to have other hardware to support that.
Right. So it, you know, in some aspects is an extra step, but really, you know, it is a very minor con for all the pros that you get out of that part of it. So it's very cool.
Andy Leviss: I mean, you already had me at like 32 channels and one, are you with nothing extra? Like then adding it to also not have to swap it when you, when you travel to a different jurisdiction is, is yeah, like sync on my phone. Great. Love
Cody Heimann: well, yeah, and that was, you know, the idea is portability, right? I mean, you know, we've all seen these monster racks, uh, show up on, you know, award shows or tours and being able to fit these channels into, you know, either A one RU or a half r ru. Um, 'cause our A 20 Nexus go and our A 20 Nexus are half Rackspace units, and then just smaller channel counts.
But, um, but yeah, so there's, you know, the, there was just so many things that were pros and so many things that were just gonna benefit the end user with the form factors that we chose.
Andy Leviss: Yeah. And then so, and you were saying with the, with the next link stuff, uh, 'cause I know like looking over the website and down the product list, there's like, I see the outpost unit there, but that, that's for like range extension for that, right. You were saying it's normally you don't need that for like a
Cody Heimann: Correct. Yeah, no. Uh, and one thing that's really cool and that I, I just challenge everyone to kind of take a look at if and when you've got your hands on these products is our next link protocol is a proprietary protocol. And, uh, we're just so, so proud of it and we think it's just a really robust, uh, system.
And so yeah, generally, you know, you don't really need any additional hardware for your full coverage. I mean, most tours that have our stuff out right now aren't using anything but the whips on the front of the unit, uh, for their next link coverage, and they're having fantastic success with it. But yeah, the outpost, um, is, is a next link extender, um, or you know, where you could have next link in a remote location.
So if I needed to control a transmitter in a, you know, in a green room that's, you know, on the other side of the venue or out in a broadcast truck, or, you know, maybe I've got my. Super nexus in a machine room and I need to, you know, run this via fiber 'cause it has SFPs on it, um, to a studio on the fifth floor.
Right. I've got all that ability built right into both the receiver and the outpost, so, yep.
Andy Leviss: Right on. Um, and, and you also just like look it over, like the, the other, like bonus we'll say, but accessories you guys make there. You also make the prettiest wide band, uh, omni antenna I've ever seen
Cody Heimann: Yep. The
Andy Leviss: is that the, the Monarch, which does indeed look like, like a little beautiful black
Cody Heimann: Yep. Yep. Uh, and so that was really cool too because, you know, on a lot of shows, uh, if you do, if you are fortunate enough to get some gear, uh, you know, pre us, uh, that does work in a very weird or very specific range of the spectrum. You know, the next, uh, challenge you always ran into was, well, now how do I get the rest of the infrastructure that supports that part of the spectrum?
Right? And one of those challenges usually is the antenna because most antennas or a lot of the antennas that we use kind of specifically are, uh, you know, kind of limited to wideband or just outside of what Wideband is capable of, right? So we wanted to support our users right away. So when you get any of our receivers, you get a pair of the Monarch antennas, um, with it.
So if you do want to access some of those obscure areas, um, you've got access to that right away with antennas that are capable of it. Um. And then to the next point, um, just our antenna thought process, uh, alone, kind of on the Super Nexus unit. We took that to kind of a whole nother level as well, um, with, you know, six antenna inputs and six antenna outputs on the unit by itself.
So definitely do some crazy things, uh, with that. Um, if we, you know, wanna get into that at some point, we can definitely talk about those antenna modes and
Andy Leviss: do it.
Cody Heimann: Oh, okay. Cool. Um.
Andy Leviss: I mean, or I don't know if you wanna do some of the, some of the more basics of, of it first and then come back to that, or, or we can go to it.
Cody Heimann: yeah, no, let, let's come back to that one. Um, but yeah, so just real quick with all of our receivers, uh, the other thing that's just kind of cool is so not only do you get just next link native on all of our receivers, you don't have to have upgraded or, you know, added anything. But the other really cool part about it is we have a spectrum analyzer built into all the units and.
The cool part about this is it works while it's decoding audio, which, uh, was, you know, generally I'm walking around at most of my shows before this with a, you know, $5,000 signal hound spectrum analyzer. So I could have, you know, real time, uh, spectrum analysis or RTSA. Um, and so when we decided to kind of go this route, we, you know, put the RTSA in the unit.
So now as you're decoding audio and you see your carrier or your transmitter working on stage, you know, you know instantly if you have a problem, right? Or if there's an environmental aspect to why your signal to noise isn't as good or why you're getting, you know, interference. Um, and you can make great decisions about where you want to change it to, uh, because you have that information literally right in front of you.
So with that realtime spectrum analysis plus next link, uh, you know, and I think I did this for you guys on the trade show floor, but it's just so fun because. If I've got this in front of me and next link is always working. So if I get any sort of interference while my mic is on stage, I can just click that carry on the RTSA and just drag it to somewhere that's clean and it reprograms it and sends it to it on stage.
And you never had to interfere with it at all, right? You didn't have to go to the artist and change it or sync it. Um, and just a super powerful workflow. So that's another one of those just really incredible situations with all of our receivers that you just get natively, right? Um, so yeah.
Andy Leviss: Um, and then. So obviously like we're talking up to 32 channels coming off of a one U unit, uh, physical signal transport. How's that? How's
Cody Heimann: Yeah,
Andy Leviss: off that
Cody Heimann: totally. Yeah, it's a lot. Uh, if you look on the back of the Super nexus, there are, uh, there is not a lot of blank space on the back of that thing. Um, but yeah, so what we did there was, uh, 32 XLRs obviously would not fit there. So we use the a s 72 protocol, uh, with RJ 45 ports. And so we have these, uh, custom cables that are, you know, again, just follow a standard a s 72 protocol so people can make it themselves as well.
But it's a single RJ 45 to four XLRs, so you can use those for every one of those ports as four channels of analog audio, um, or eight channels of a e audio. Um, and then to add to that, uh, natively and simultaneously, you can also output Dante and Maddie from that Super nexus at the same time. Um, and all those RJ 45 ports on the back, uh, if you are not using 32 channels of, you know, transmitters.
You can actually use those ports to be kind of a matrix mixer. So I could send, you know, my transmitters one through eight to channels one through eight and nine through 16 and 17 through 24. So I can actually move these channels around wherever I want to or have a passive splitter built right into the unit.
Um, so just the flexibility with I with, uh, output is incredible. Right. So,
Andy Leviss: Yeah. And, and, and for analog connectivity or as connectivity on a scale of one to 10, with DB 25 being negative 47, RG 45 is a solid way to go.
Cody Heimann: well, I hate to tell you that on our, on our half rack ones, uh, DB 25 is our analog at ES connector. Um,
Andy Leviss: mean, it did, it, it is a solid
Cody Heimann: yeah, it, you know, it's been a standard for a long time, but I definitely, yeah, the, the RJ 45 a 72 protocol is, is pretty awesome. Um, and allows for a lot, a lot of flexibility. I.
Andy Leviss: Right on. And then for, for those working in an optico world, you guys also have one of, one of the, the most unique approaches to, to making opticore happen on that. So you wanna talk about that a little
Cody Heimann: Yeah, absolutely. So, um, with our one RU A 20 Super Nexus receiver, um, we also sell an accessory called the A 20 Opto. And what this does is this is a one RU expansion chassis that mechanically actually bolts to the bottom of the Super nexus. So there is no cable for transport control between them. It's actually this high speed bus connector on the bottom of the super nexus and on the top of the opto.
And you literally mechanically like mount these to, to make a two RU thing. Yep.
Andy Leviss: like sand sandwich in like an Oreo
Cody Heimann: Absolutely. Yep, yep. And what that allowed us to do though was have that high speed audio transport between 'em, but also now we are able to share the power between those two. So you have a redundant power supply now once this is actually terminated to each other.
Andy Leviss: gotcha. This is a bit the, the initial built in power supply and then the second one's coming from the
Cody Heimann: Correct? Yep. And then you also have a DC option on the Super Nexus as well. So you could have actually three. Ways to power this thing. Uh, yeah. So, um, but uh, what this opto expansion chassis does on top of that, um, allows for another one through 32 analog out, another one through 32 a ES out, and an SRC Madi source on there.
So I could actually be taking Maddie out at a separate clock. And then I have my optico option. So we sell this in either ST or HMA Optico. So if I terminate that into my loop, my Sound Devices receiver now shows up in your DiGiCo loop as as a device.
Andy Leviss: And I've, I've definitely talked to folks who have been on the fence about what console brand and what wireless brand to get and saw this. And were like, cool. So DiGiCo and, and Astral...sold!
Cody Heimann: Yep. Yeah. And you know, with our, uh, kind of newest update too, and with the newest DiGiCo update, we now actually have, um, a whole, you'll notice in DiGiCo. Now there's actually, for your external device protocol, there's actually one in there now labeled Astral Command. And that is now from your Astral receiver or Astral transmitter.
You could actually fire a macro on your DiGiCo over the Astral command network, right? So,
Andy Leviss: Uh, so for, for like making like a shout button
Cody Heimann: a, a shout button or we've actually had an artist, uh, that put a button on their handheld that enabled audience mics in their in ears. Um, there, there's a million things you can do with it, right? Uh.
Andy Leviss: Yeah, like switch, switch into like an effects channel instead of having to switch
Cody Heimann: Yep. Um, or, you know, uh, we have a very, very cool kind of, uh, matrix ability to do talk back routing as well. But this could add just another layer to that too, where, you know, if I engaged this. Uh, 'cause we have a, um, rings that you can put on our handheld. So one button, three buttons, or a slider. But, uh, another use case of this macro thing was, uh, we have an artist that's using all three buttons for three different talk back sources via macros on the DiGiCo, right?
So they click one button, it goes to the md, another button goes to monitor engineer. So there's just a million ways you can use these. Um, and because those buttons are programmable over Next link, I could change that on the fly at, you know, intermission or, you know, halftime or whatever the application I'm using it in.
So it's, it's totally flexible in all those aspects. So yeah, our DiGiCo integration is pretty sweet. Uh, yeah, we're, we're very, very proud of it. And just love, you know, being a part of the, the Audio Tonics family. Um, so we can, you know, partner with Digi and all these other people. So.
Andy Leviss: Right on. Um, I mean, going down the punch list on, on stuff, on, on all the Nexus stuff that I wanna ask you about is, do you wanna talk a little bit about like gain forward and like gain setting and how, how that works? Because I know that's one of the big selling
Cody Heimann: For sure. Yeah. So, um, yeah, another thing with, you know, Sound Devices for the last 25 years is our CEO Matt Anderson has just always been, you know, fidelity is key, right? Uh, you know, back when, uh, kind of our predominant market was, you know, location, sound, and ENG, you know, if there's a $10,000 chefs at the end of that boom hole, I mean, it, it better sound like it, right?
Um, and so fidelity has, has always kind of been, you know, at the forefront of, you know, quality, you know, and, and those just go hand in hand. And so in pushing to our. Wireless systems. Uh, one of the massive pain points I always saw on shows was gain structure, right? Inappropriate use of offset, or, you know, adding too many things from the receiver side or the transmitter side.
As far as gain stages, I. And we really wanted to help alleviate the challenges that came with a lot of that. So we have a 32 bit float, uh, you know, 10 hertz to 20 k gain forward protocol into our system where we are always maintaining nominal output at the transmitter. So you do not need to have any sort of gain stage from the transmitter side.
It, you know, allows you to change at the output of the receiver if you need, you know, a little more juice or whatever. But you are not ever going to screw up the gain structure to the input of your transmitter. Um, and all of our transmitters have at minimum 130 DB of dynamic range and a lot of 'em, even 140 db of dynamic range.
Um, because again, we learned a lot. When you go from whispers to explosions and Mission Impossible movies, uh, you, you gotta be able to, uh, you know, to support that stuff. So, um, but you know, same goes with us, right? We go from a lot of dialogue and in the concert area where there's screaming and there's whispering and there's, you know, light singing and there's, you know, distorted bass guitars going into the packs.
And, uh, you dynamic range is, is a, a massive proponent of success in that gain structure. So, um, yeah, so gain forward is, is basically our way to kind of help that protocol and, and ensure that workflow is seamless, you know, from start to finish in our signal slow.
Andy Leviss: Right on. And yeah, I mean that, that, I know that's always the game people play with. Like any brand of transmitters having to like, yeah, oh, are we matching 'em for this? Are we matching them for that? Like, oh wait, is my clipping happening at the transmitter? So taking that away, you know, is, is fantastic. Um.
So I, I'm trying to think if there's, I mean, I guess we should probably talk about the hand 'cause again, because those who do know Sound Devices for wireless for a long time have associated y'all with like, news in particularly film, like coming out with a handheld the last year was, was kind of big news.
So why don't we, and there's, and y'all like, I got the walkthrough from Gary at Nam and there's, y'all are doing some really, there's definitely some stuff in there that's like, this was designed by people who use these things. So
Cody Heimann: yeah. Well,
Andy Leviss: let's talk a little bit about
Cody Heimann: I, I apologize. I won't be able to do this as well as Gary can, but I'll, I'll give it my best shot 'cause yeah, that, that guy's an.
Andy Leviss: I mean there's only one Gary Trenda.
Cody Heimann: there is only one Gary Trenda for sure. Um, but yeah, so the handheld, uh, just again, you know, the great thing about Sound Devices is just taking, you know, all these past experiences from Gary and myself and, you know, employing other engineers and, and understanding all these pain points that we've had, um, just kind of throughout the history of rf, right?
And so we really wanted to approach this thing in such a unique way, uh, that was just making it kind of a no-brainer choice, right? And, uh, the, the first really big thing that we did, um, and I, I just always love, you know, it's always the first question I get with a handheld is. What capsule does it support?
Right. And so, you know, we have our own oem just incredible sounding dynamic cardio capsule that goes on it. And I urge everyone to try it 'cause it's pretty freaking awesome. Uh, but what I do is I unscrew the cap and I show them and I'm like, Hey, so it's, you know, the Sennheiser ring set right? And it's like, okay, half of 'em say it's great and half of 'em say they don't.
Uh, and then I go. But if you undo these three screws right here and flip over this ring, it supports the Sure ring set now. Um, and we worked just so incredibly hard on this design in particular where, you know, it doesn't matter if you have a DPA annoy man, a tele funkin, a sure a Sennheiser capsule. We support it.
Um, and we wanted that to be, again, a native thing, right? With our stuff. We never wanted you to have to go by other stuff to make our gear work. Um, and so that really was a, a cool and a fun one to get going and, and see people's face kind of light up when they understand that, you know, the, the capsule, what capsule is supported is not really a question anymore.
Um,
Andy Leviss: That was the first thing that really made my eyes light up. And then, and then the other cool thing is the, the weight insert is, is kind of bro.
Cody Heimann: Yeah. So going directly from the top of the handheld to the bottom of the handheld, now I. Um, when you pull off our, the shell on our handheld, there's a little, uh, spot in the bottom of the antenna where you can actually drop in a counterweight. Um, because I've seen so many artists in my career where you give 'em a new handheld or you want 'em to try a new capsule, and before they actually listen to it, which is, you know, and most of our minds what matters.
You always see 'em do this really, like this thing where they're kind of wiggling the handheld, right? The center of gravity.
Andy Leviss: feels off. Feels
Cody Heimann: The, the wiggle test, right? Like, uh, how does this feel in my hand? And, uh, it, it just, it always happens, right? I don't know if it's just, uh, you know, if it was a fad for a while, like the mic drop and, you know, freaking just everyone started doing it or what, but it's just everyone does that.
And so what we wanted to do was, because we support so many capsules, you know, some of those are very, you know, cumbersome capsules. I mean, they're really large, they're heavy. Um. And so you can actually drop a counterweight in the bottom of our handheld, uh, to offset the weight of the capsule. And, uh, so that just, you know, the customization option of this was really fun, uh, to be able to help people make sure that it feels and works good for them.
Um, I. To that note, uh, that antenna is also something very, very unique that we did, um, with our handheld. So we, we kind of designed this just really cool kind of revolution, revolutionary new antenna into our handheld where, you know, not only is it capable of four 70 to 1,525, um, so, you know, it's again, one handheld for your skew.
Um, but the other thing is, uh, and everyone listening to this podcast, man, as soon as I say this, I can just see the eyes rolling in the back of their heads. Uh, when, you know, your artist or your news person or whoever grabs the mic from the bottom of the handheld and you start seeing your RSSI drop and everyone starts puckering up and getting worried and, you know, you gotta send an A two out to ask 'em to hold it at the right way or everyone's freaking out.
And, um, what we did was alleviate that so you can actually hold the bottom of our handheld and, and that RSSI, uh, if it does move, it's, it's very, very, very slightly, um, or none at
Andy Leviss: I, and I can, I can vouch. I have, Gary had me try it looking at the receiver on the show floor, and I, I would say the Nam show floor is probably one of the worst environments. You could have
Cody Heimann: a good one. Yep, yep.
Andy Leviss: and yeah. It, it barely wiggled. It was, it was pretty fucking
Cody Heimann: Yeah, I mean, it, it can kind of be the difference maker in your show, right? I mean, I, I've definitely seen shows where, you know, it's like the coverage is, is so mu or so little that you, you're having dropouts because the person has actually covered the antenna, right? So we really wanted to help alleviate that, um, and, and just again, support the end user with not having to fear or worry about that part of the, um, uh, of, of the performance.
Um, and then, yeah, we talked a little bit about, uh, our control rings. So I've got, uh, a one button ring, a three button ring, or a slider switch, and that goes directly underneath, uh, that thread collar that we've got that's, that flops from Sure. To Sennheiser ring sets. Um. And this is just a modular piece.
Um, you know, natively the handheld does not have this, uh, it just has a, a blank piece on it. Um, but you can have this one button, three button or slider version. And again, that can be anything you want it to be. You can make that slider a talkback routing. You can make it an RF mute. You can make it power on off, you can make it fire a macro.
Um, and when you have the three button version, you know, you have those options times three, and all of that is changeable over the air. So you know from next link, you're sitting in your receiver and you need that button to do something different for the next song or the next show or the next keynote speaker.
You just hit the, you hit the setting change on your receiver or your web gui and it just applies it to that transmitter without ever having to go to it and interface with the, the end user. Um, so. That was just another great part of the handheld that we really like. And then, um, the, the, probably the most fun one, uh, the one that we like to talk about the most is, uh, and God, I hate saying it, but, uh, if, you know, your artist is a mic dropper, uh, intentionally, uh, you know, we wanted to make this thing where it was almost indestructible.
So, uh, the shell on this is rock solid and it is drop proof. And, uh, we, we've got, uh, some slides and some videos of us dropping the, the mic 110 times before we really saw any sort of challenge with it. So, um, and then it's waterproof too. So, uh, your capsule obviously is, you know, uh, not, or you know, the majority of 'em are not.
So that part, uh, you know, the end user will have to work with, but the handheld itself or the transmitter, um, is waterproof. So,
Andy Leviss: Nice. I mean that's, that, that's pretty much ticks down the checklist of all the things I think to ask for and a couple things I wouldn't have thought to ask for.
Cody Heimann: Yep. Uh, and then, uh, sorry. All of our transmitters have E ink displays on 'em as well, so even when they're off, you're seeing the name. The frequency, uh, the battery indicator also updates if you put batteries in while it's off too. So, you know, if you, you know, the A two or you or whoever forgot to charge the batteries overnight and you drop 'em in the transmitter, it'll update the battery icon while the transmitter's off, so you know
Andy Leviss: That's
Cody Heimann: Yeah.
Andy Leviss: Um. And then, and you've got, so handheld, you've got a couple belt pack options.
Cody Heimann: Um, so we have a mini and then, uh, so the A 20 mini and the A 20 tx, um, the A 20 mini is really cool and, and kind of a unique, uh, take on how to do a belt pack transmitter. Um, no buttons and no screens. And this is kind of one of the only times we've seen, uh, this come out as a transmitter side of things.
Um, and the idea there was, uh, a lot of work in our, uh, movie side of things and TV and film sort of things. Uh, you know, the transmitter has to be hidden, right, or it has to be in very difficult attire or, you know, maybe placed under a visor and a car or who knows where.
Andy Leviss: I grew up in the Broadway world. We hide 'em inside
Cody Heimann: Yep. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, who knows where you gotta get this thing to get the take or the shot or whatever.
So we really wanted something, you know, ergonomic and slim lined. Um, and because of the next link protocol, you know, you, you don't really need access to the transmitter to know, you know, what it's doing or how to change anything. So, um, we have that and that has a battery doubler option for it as well. So you can just literally, you don't have to get a whole new transmitter, you can just take the door off and get a second door that supports a second battery, um, if you need double the battery life on that.
So, um, then our next one, uh, is the A 20 tx, and this belt pack is just a freaking powerhouse. Um, so it is, uh, one of the only ones that supports full 48 volt phantom power, uh, from the belt pack. And we actually wrote a test and measurement modulation to support PA tuning. Y
Andy Leviss: my next question before I get to it.
Cody Heimann: Yeah. This, uh, dude, this transmitter is just so freaking cool, man.
Um, but what we did with that is you have, you know, when you drop it in to that modulation, you get linear flat phase response from 10 hertz to 20 k. And it is like, you know, if you pull it up into Smart Trace, you don't have to just believe us. You know, you, you can check it out. Um, but it is just, you know, ruler flat, um, from 10 to 20 and you know, because we've got that full 48 volt phantom power support in there, it's really opened up, uh, a lot of people's eyes to kind of streamlined wireless that were front of house techs that, you know, either had a pain point with wireless or didn't want to use wireless because of spectral access or interfering with their current show.
So that was really cool. Um. Another one that's really unique for us is we have, um, again, just a fidelity and just the way Matt Anderson, our CEO really loves to play with, you know, taking fidelity to the next level. Um, we actually have some stuff for guitar players, uh, that kind of makes this a really unique system where we actually have a cable emulator inside of the belt pack so you can emulate, um, you know, a one foot.
A guitar cable or a four foot guitar cable or a 40 foot guitar cable to impedance smash that, um, and, you know, get that tonality that the guitar player was getting, uh, from that cable. Um, not only that, uh, amplifier input, um, impedance as well. So we can actually have a few settings there too to put a, a higher load on the pickup.
Um, and all that's done from the belt pack. So, you know, we've had, um, a couple very, very, very large, uh, a-list country acts, um, that have, you know, are very particular about, you know, guitar playing and have really old guitars and, uh, really, you know, picky guitars. Um, and I've had them, you know, sit with their back to an amplifier, an ab r pack with a cable and, and can't tell the difference.
So, um, just, yeah, working with game structure and tonality, the, uh, the guitar players that are really picky with tone. Yeah. You know, they're guitar players. They're still gonna be picky, but I'm kidding. I'm, but, uh, yeah. But, uh, we like to support them as, as much as possible. So, um, yeah, we have those cable options in there.
And then, um, three lithium ion, 3.7 volt batteries power this thing, so you get really great run times out of it. Um, and there's a onboard recording, um, so you know, you can record this thing, you know, without having to go downstream and hit anywhere else. So that's a really cool feature. We just, we really wanted to give people the ability to, to dive into whatever they needed to with it.
Andy Leviss: so I'm gonna ask a question that. There's probably a 50 50 chance that your answer is gonna be like, I can't answer that. Um, but is, is there any possibility of like in a 20 x and like a plug on form factor, now that you've got that measurement mode, is that something you guys are working on or is that a We can't answer that.
Cody Heimann: No, uh, you know, we definitely hear that. Um, we've got a really good situation with our a boom mount. Uh, so it's like a little l bracket that hooks onto the back of the A 20 tx, uh, transmitter. And, you know, you put a couple LO twos between it, uh, and it just drops right onto your mic stand. And then we've got our limo to XLR cable.
Um, and that so far has been just a really great solution. Um, people kind of inherently just ask for the plug on because it's just what we've known, right? And everyone's always had that form factor. Um, but once we kind of got over the initial hump of people looking at it from this way and just how kind of easy it is to deploy it with LO twos or the quick disconnect brackets, um, it, it really has just been an awesome way to do it.
And we see a lot of people really kind of embracing that workflow. So that's, that's kind of what we're sticking with for right now. So,
Andy Leviss: Right on. That's cool. I'm actually looking for that bracket now 'cause I hadn't seen
Cody Heimann: oh yeah, I'll get you a link to that. It's, uh, on our accessories page for, uh, a
Andy Leviss: gotcha. Yeah, there's a lot, there's a lot of stuff down. Uh, yep. There, I, now I'm seeing it as I head down the page. Um, yeah, if anybody out there is listening is interested in a good deal on four channels of my Pro 5.8, yeah.
You keep me.
Cody Heimann: Yeah,
Andy Leviss: Or if any, or if anybody wants to gift me like four channels of, of uh, of, uh, nexus. Go.
Cody Heimann: totally. Yep, yep.
Andy Leviss: Um. I mean, is there, I know we said we were gonna circle back to talking about the antenna side of things a little bit and the, the, is there anything else we haven't touched on before we get there that, that you think we ought to, or have we hit most of those other
Cody Heimann: Yeah, I think we've hit a lot of that. I mean, if we think of anything else we can, you know, definitely circle back. Um, but yeah. Um. Hitting the input side of this, uh, antenna wise and the output side of this. Uh, to me, this is my most absolute favorite part of the A 20 Super Nexus. And what we did with this is making people's lives so much better and so much easier when thinking about how to build and how to design an RF system.
Um, so the A 20 Super Nexus has six antenna inputs and six antenna outputs on it. And so primarily what we've seen is either two or four antenna inputs on, on other manufacturer's equipment where you can use two or four antennas to kind of support your workflow and have a little bit more robust coverage.
Um, we took it to six, so we, you can do six antennas. And you don't lose any channel count. So this can be a 32 channel wireless mic receiver with six antennas terminated directly to the unit and you, you sacrifice nothing. Right? So that part already is just really cool, but what you can do with those six antenna inputs is also kind of the more amazing thing where, you know, you just go, simply go into the menu and you can tell it.
I want it to be a multi-zone receiver at this point, and it could take three separate diversity zones in. Or you can tell it, you want it to be a hex versity receiver where I want six antennas to cover one monster area and do all the math and all of the calculations for me internally, um, I could say I want it to be four versity plus a pair.
So four antennas covering my main stage and two antennas covering a backstage area or a separate studio or a B stage. And all that is done on the fly, right? You don't have to have upgrades, you don't have to have any different configurations. So every show you can hone in how you need your antenna deployment to look.
Um, or you know, you know, a lot of our tours now just because you don't lose anything or just having six antennas hooked up to this 'cause, why not? Right? It's better error correction, you got better coverage. And uh, it's just a fantastic way to kind of look at how we're deploying these systems 'cause. With touring, you know, it's all about the out right?
We don't want to have all this extra gear and all these extra cables and all this extra work or, you know, on corporate shows if you really gotta make sure that you've just got coverage everywhere. Um, so, you know, having those there is, is just really cool and super flexible for the product. But then we support it with the three pairs of cascade outputs.
So you can take that to other equipment if you need to, or, um, you know, one of the things that we heard when we were talking to engineers about this was, uh, quote unquote, that's a lot of eggs in one basket, right? 32 channels and one RU and so.
Andy Leviss: really do like our cliches.
Cody Heimann: do, right? I mean, you know, you, you never hear that when someone's talking about a console.
But when we talk about the wireless, you know, it's, it's that, that's where it comes up. But, um, what we decided to do there was if you have a second Super nexus, um, or even a second or a nexus, right, just a second receiver, as long as the channel counts match, you can run these in what's called mirror mode.
And so the receiver is actually reading and writing to each other in real time. So if one of 'em fails or one of 'em has the power unplugged or something happens, the other one automatically takes over without any interface from the user. And so with those six outputs of the antenna situation, you just cascade out of our primary into your backup.
And if you lose that primary. Your antennas from your main unit can pass through it and go directly to your secondary unit. You can control 'em all from there. So we really wanted people to think about redundancy in the fact that it is completely available to you and you don't have to plan on this elaborate, you know, secondary system.
You just need a second receiver and everything you need to make those work is already built in. So, um, we also have the LFA and BFA support, uh, natively from our menu too. So if you have any of those products, uh, you can actually control those from our receiver. So that was just another one of those. You know, if you're on a really obscure part of the spectrum, uh, and you've got one of those antennas, you can set your filter to that area and help make your, you know, uh, signal to noise even better with filtering or additional filtering.
So, um, yeah, those antenna inputs and outputs are just a massive part of this, you know, topology of, of this product.
Andy Leviss: On, and you know, I feel like there's. Something I should have asked you in like the first part of the conversation we did, if I can sort of half cock the Sound Devices hat off your head and put just the, the RF coordinator
Cody Heimann: Bring it. Yeah, let's do it.
Andy Leviss: because one, one of the questions that folks have when you're getting to larger events and that like we sort of alluded to a little bit with like the, oh hey, they're gonna come in from like the dressing room area now and be on camera the whole time, is how to approach that like multi-zone and obviously with the Sound Devices hat on, the great answer is just use Astral.
Like the receiver will handle it for you. You're using legacy gear from whoever and you need to do multi-zone or they're like, can you give a couple of like more generic pointers for like when you don't have the advantage of that, how to manage that multi-zone.
Cody Heimann: man. Yeah. And that, um, you know, not only is, you know, just the prep work and the knowledge and all that stuff have to be, you know, you've gotta have kind of a hand in all of it if you're gonna do those on shows Right. The, the warehouse has to know how to build it and they gotta have all that gear available to 'em.
And then when you get it on the show, then we get into the part of actually deploying it if I got all that gear to the show to begin with. Right. And when we're talking about multi-zone, um, you know, the misnomer, which I think has gotten a lot better with just education and the more people have, you know, unfortunately have had rough scenarios, is that multi-zone just meant more antennas.
Right. Or more coverage area, but
Andy Leviss: Just throw 'em up. It'll be, it'll, it'll pick it
Cody Heimann: Yep. Um, but you know, a lot of the times when the RF space or the area that, that put your one diversity pair of antennas is seeing, um. Overlaps your secondary pair or your second zone of antennas, or that RF space is where we start running into challenges, right?
Because they're both trying to feed the same information because this equipment is kind of mucking, you know, different pairs of antennas into that same diversity input of the receiver. So. It has to be able to take that information in adequately. And when that RF space is overlapping, is where you run into these problems.
And then comes the knowledge of, well, now I gotta know how to attenuate or amplify or, you know, um, filter whatever I need to do to make that multi-zone stuff work. Right. So we saw a lot of requests for multi-zone and, uh, insert this one here. A lot of requests for RFO for fiber because it was. Supposed to be this while I can just put, you know, my RF on fiber and everything's great.
'cause now I can run it out to front of house and not have to worry about, you know, cable loss. Well we've seen, you know, firsthand with a lot of deployments that that is, you know, not the case when you don't know what you're doing with it. Right? There is so much more that goes into RF over fiber at this point.
Um, and people have definitely seen the complexities of it. Uh, there are definitely a lot of benefits, but, you know, sometimes I, I really urge people to start thinking about the perverse con, you know, Venn diagram of what, what am I gonna get out of this right? When those two intersect, like, what was really worth it at the end of the day?
Or, you know, if I would've just used RF best practices, which. A lot of this, you know, we we're, people don't apply that as much, you know, as we used to because you know, in some ways RF is a little easier now with the digital modulation, but, you know, line of sight and short cable runs and the appropriate power and the appropriate portion of the spectrum and the appropriate signal of noise ratio.
I mean, you'd be surprised what you can get away with, with a standard pair of diversity antennas and a really good, you know, transmitter receiver ecosystem. Um, but people just, you know, I saw it just the other week where it was a four zone diversity antenna deployment for, uh, just a typical tour setup, right.
It was a thrust to front of house and a main stage, and it was four zones of diversity antennas. And I'm like, you know, what did we do, you know, eight, 10 years ago when, you know, we didn't have all this stuff available to us Right. And we were just doing diversity and, and still making it work. So. There's a lot of points where it's very beneficial, but, uh, yeah, the knowledge of attenuation, the knowledge of filtering, the knowledge of actually deployment and keeping RF spaces appropriate.
That's, you know, one of the biggest things with, when we're talking about multi-zone, um, that we really need to kind of take care of and, and understand. So with the Astral system, we, we build all that into our receiver, right? So even if your zones are overlapping, um, like with our, our hex versity antenna situation, you can put six antennas out, right?
Four feet away from each other if you want, right? Or put one on the other side of the venue and four of 'em.
Andy Leviss: because, because you've got like the ability to analyze the signal that's actually coming in each antenna and choose which to use or
Cody Heimann: Yeah, exactly. We, we've got our own set of voodoo built into the, into the receiver and how we handle all that data that's coming in and, and, and when it's coming in, um, to be able to kind of make that our secret sauce, right? So, um, we do have as a mode on there that is just a true three-way diversity multi-zone mode where you, you can mess that one up, right?
'cause it's made to be a proper diversity, multi-zone option. Um, but then there's just, you know, five or six other antenna modes in there that get you multi antenna, multi-zone distribution without having to worry about, you know, RF spaces and attenuation and all that stuff. So,
Andy Leviss: Yeah, because like, that's the thing people, like when you're go into like a normal, like just dual diversity receiver and trying to multi-zone antennas in, like you've gotta take into account these two antennas are now being combined and the receiver is seeing them as one. So you've gotta be aware of like how those signals are gonna electronically combine before they hit the receiver.
'cause if, like, if the same signal is hitting the two out of phase enough, suddenly, like neither one of those antennas is, is getting useful signal into that input anymore. Whereas either one of them on their own might have been fine.
Cody Heimann: yep. Exactly. So it's, uh, yeah, I definitely always encourage people to look at, you know, how much effort is it worth to get this next zone? Right? What are you really accomplishing with it? Because, you know, sometimes coverage is, is, uh, better than you think it's gonna be.
Andy Leviss: so have you ever, have you ever, I'll ask both. Have you ever played and then have you ever played successfully the passive radiator game to, to extend range
Cody Heimann: Sorry, you were, you were chopping up
Andy Leviss: oh, sorry. Sorry, I, I, I was asking if, if you've ever both ever tried playing or successfully played the, the passive radiator trick to extend range a little bit without having to, you know, the, like two antennas on the end of a cable game?
Cody Heimann: Uh, more in fun, uh, more in, uh, you know, in, in testing things out in the garage and getting with other RF nerds and seeing what we could kind of get by with. Uh, never on a show. No.
Andy Leviss: I was gonna say, I've, I've never done it for show critical audio. I've, I've been party to it happening for like, we wanna be able to just be able to confidence monitor a little bit in a dressing room that's just not getting reached. And it's one of those things like, when, when it's explained to you for the first time, you're like, that doesn't sound like that would work at all.
Cody Heimann: Yeah. Yeah. And it doesn't seem like it should, but I mean, it, it passes audio for sure.
Andy Leviss: yeah.
Cody Heimann: um, yeah. But no, we, we've, we've definitely done some fun things. Um, you know, being in Nashville, uh, I'm, you know, in, in the same city as some, some great rf. Uh, and I, I think they'd be fine with me saying it, but we're all nerds, right?
So with other RF nerds. So the things we've done in some of our garages, uh, has been a, a bit ridiculous. But, you know, we, we try to defy physics a little bit here and there, and we have fun with it.
Andy Leviss: Nice. Uh, I mean, is there, is there anything else we haven't touched on, on, on, like the Sound Devices and Astral side that you wanna make sure we get out there? I feel like we've covered a wide range of what the system can do in the cool stuff, uh, you're doing. And actually, I guess that's the question I should ask that I, I know the answer to, but I, because folks are gonna ask if I don't ask it, is like, is the, this isn't any sort of, you know, like w mass sort of stuff.
This is just fairly bog standard digital, uh,
Cody Heimann: Yep. So right now, um, you know, kind of what we refer to it as a spread spectrum narrow band. Um, so we are, you know, a, a standard narrow band digital carrier. Um, and I, I say standard, uh, loosely. Our, our carrier's pretty awesome. Uh, you know, with, with the fidelity we cram into it and the range we get out of it and all that stuff.
But yeah, 200 K wide, um, so you know, what you're used to seeing with a carrier width or a bandwidth of that. Um, so no wm s in our system, um, as of this point. Yep.
Andy Leviss: Right on. Um, and then that being said, now that I've asked that question, is there anything else I haven't asked or you haven't mentioned that you wanna make sure we get out before we wrap up?
Cody Heimann: No, I mean, you know, we, uh, we covered a lot of it and you know, I think it's just, uh, we're a different name, right? We're a name people haven't really seen or heard in the live event space. Um, and, you know, I just, I hope, you know, after hearing this, people kind of understand our, our passion, uh, our expertise and our knowledge on, on what we're doing and, and give this stuff a try.
'cause there's
Andy Leviss: Yeah. And to be fair, you guys have been like smoking it out on, on some like fairly high profile. I know that was one thing we mentioned beforehand that we haven't gotten to is like, where, where have you been kind of, you know, kicking the tires on
Cody Heimann: yeah, we, uh, we have, uh, some amazing tours that are out with our stuff. Um, you know, you've definitely seen it out on the Drake tour. You've seen it out on the Ken, or you're gonna be seeing it on the Kendrick Lamar. Um.
Andy Leviss: that's a joke right in itself,
Cody Heimann: Well, you know, uh, you, uh, and then we had the, you know, the, the just profound honor of being a part of the halftime show as well.
So, um, you know, I think when people understand that, uh, that that's the box we're playing in, right? And we, we were confident and we knew that this was something of that scale and could handle that, um, you know, that's where we really want people to know that we're, uh, you know, we're not just. Playing with rf.
I mean, we, we, we've got a pretty good idea of what we're doing over here and we're having a lot of fun with it at the same time. Um, and we've got a bunch of other tours out too, and a bunch of corporate stuff. And, you know, if anyone, you know, is interested in, in the whole slew of things we've got going on, I mean, I'd love to sit down with anyone that wants to chat with us and, uh, you know, some of the deployments we've done, uh, we actually just had this article, um, that came out from when we were at Glastonbury Festival.
And the, the band Coldplay, uh, needed to just somehow cram in, uh, you know, an entire orchestra and a horn section into Glastonbury Festival. Um. And we brought Super Nexus and utilized versity and, you know, uh, just incredible parts of the, the DME band, uh, in the uk, uh, because we had the hardware that could support all that stuff and, and fit into the spectrum for, you know, the, the chaos that exists at Glastonbury, much like it does at Coachella.
So, um, if people wanna read that article and understand a lot more about how we deployed that system and, uh, you know, achieve success there, that's, um, that's kind of what we're out to
Andy Leviss: will, I'll. And I'll, I'll link to that, the Coldplay Glassen Bear article in the show notes
Cody Heimann: Oh, very cool. Yeah. Thank you. Um, but yeah, we just, you know, again, we're, we're just, so, I. Passionate about wanting to make a tool that people not only have fun using, but enhances their workflow. Right. Hones into the how they wanna do their show and not the other way around. Right? We don't want people to change their workflow because they get into our ecosystem.
Um, and that's why we have all the options we do. So, uh, we're, we're, you know, just really excited having a lot of fun with these products and I hope everyone gets a chance to, uh, to see it and hear it and play with it and love it. So,
Andy Leviss: it's awesome and I'm, I'm glad to get a chance to dig a little more into it and to get to. You know, let our listeners hear a little more about it because we're all about helping people find more tools to keep doing what we do. So, I mean, to wrap it up since we started our first half of the conversation, go going, uh, with some throwback traditionalism for signal noise that we've fallen off the trainer for a little bit.
We'll wrap it up in the traditional way too. Uh, if we're coming out to visit you in Nashville, uh, where, where should we go out to eat?
Cody Heimann: Oh man. Uh, all right. We're gonna do, uh, we're gonna do two things here. Uh, old school Nashville Steakhouse, right? The place, one of the few places that still exists. 'cause all the places that are coming to my mind are either gone or have had to move or whatever. Uh, the Southern Steak and Oyster House. Uh, man, that's like old school Nashville Steakhouse.
It's not overpriced. It's like, that's the spot, man. That's where I like taking clients. That's where I've been going since I moved here in oh four. Uh, love that. But then, uh, if you're gonna hit a dive bar and you need food at the dive bar, the centennial,
Andy Leviss: Okay,
Cody Heimann: is the must hit spot where, you know, it's, it's, it's a, it's a roadie spot too, right?
So you're always gonna run into a friend at the centennial. Yep.
Andy Leviss: Wait. Roadies in Nashville, who would've
Cody Heimann: Oh my God. Crazy. Yep.
Andy Leviss: Well, that's, that's two great solid spots for folks. And I know, as opposed to some of the more obscure cities we have on the show, I know a lot of listeners will be through Nashville, so we'll get to check those out. So, you know, re report back and let us know, let us know how Cody's wrecks are, and I am certainly adding them to top of my list next time I end up in Nashville.
Uh, cool. Well, thanks for joining us, Cody. I'm glad we can make this happen. Um, and, and please tell Gary I said hey, and I love him and I'm, I'm, I'm both glad and sorry we got you before we got him. Uh,
Cody Heimann: Yeah, look.
Andy Leviss: it, like, literally we had like dual, we've had dueling messages for a few of, we were like, Sean was talking to you and I was talking to Gary.
He was like, I got Cody. I'm like, cool, let's see where we're going. And then I'll see if I still, I'll have Gary on to talk about other stuff later. It'll be
Cody Heimann: Yeah. Uh, no, I, I know, uh, Gary's will be much better than mine, but, uh, you know, I, I'm happy to at least get here so he knows where the bar's at. Right. So we're gonna have a lot of fun with it. But, uh,
Andy Leviss: No, it's awesome. And like I said, it's, it's so good to finally like, meet you and put a, put a voice with like the face on the name. 'cause like I said, I've known of you and we've passed Adjacently for so long. So it's, it's cool to hang out for a couple hours and, and
Cody Heimann: dude, I've been a fan of the podcast for a long time and, and likewise, you know, know your name, I've heard your name. And, uh, this has just been great. So, you know, uh, again, sorry it wasn't Gary, but I think, uh, I'm, I'm very stoked
Andy Leviss: and I'm sorry I'm only me and not Sean, so.
Cody Heimann: But I'm stoked I got to do this, man. It was an honor to be a part of this thing and uh, I, I had a lot of fun, dude.
Andy Leviss: Awesome. And I will now do the, I will try and remember how to do the part that Sean normally does at the end, which is, uh, thank RCF and Alan and Heath for sponsoring us and keeping the, the lights on in our, our virtual studio as it were. And, uh, that's the pod, y'all.
Music: “Break Free” by Mike Green
