Sonnet's Thunderbolt Products Used For 'Fare Thee Well' Concert Tour

Sonnet Technologies has announced its Echo Express III-R and xMac Pro Server products played significant roles in a 96K recording workflow taken on by Music Mix Mobile (M3).

Recently, they were used for the Grateful Dead's concluded 'Fare Thee Well' (Dead 50) concert tour.

M3, an Emmy and Grammy Award-winning provider of mobile audio facilities for high-profile live entertainment events and broadcasts, deployed the Sonnet solutions on its Eclipse mobile production vehicle to provide highly reliable and redundant Thunderbolt 2 connectivity and PCIe card expansion for recording the five-concert tour.

Marking the 50th anniversary of the Grateful Dead's founding and also its final public appearances, the 'Fare Thee Well' mini-tour included two dates at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara, California, before arriving in Chicago for the final three concerts, played to sold-out crowds at Soldier Field on July 3, 4, and 5. M3 provided recording and broadcast services for the tour, which broke the pay-per-view record for live music shows with more than 400,000 cable and satellite viewers. An even broader audience watched the shows at theatre simulcasts and online through live streaming services.

"Our biggest challenge for the Dead 50 tour was their requirement that we track each show at a 96K sample rate — which puts a whole new set of hardware demands on the truck. To make it happen, we needed to rely on Thunderbolt technology and expansion systems that would take up a minimal amount of space," said Joel Singer, co-founder and general manager at M3. "We've had enough experience with Sonnet's Thunderbolt expansion chassis to know that they're absolutely reliable and rugged. Plus, they're some of the quietest expansion systems we've ever worked with, a critical requirement in the cramped recording environment onboard the truck. Sonnet systems have become an integral part of our equipment mix, and the fact that they're certified and qualified by Avid, Blackmagic, and other key technology providers is a huge plus."

The Sonnet Echo Express III-R and xMac Pro Server provide a highly reliable and scalable, yet cost-effective, means of extending and streaming M3's on-location audio recording workflows. For recording the "Fare Thee Well" tour, M3 extended two six-core Mac Pro cylinder computers by connecting each, via its Thunderbolt 2 ports, to an Echo Express III-R Thunderbolt 2-to-PCIe card expansion chassis housing three Avid Pro Tools | HDX DSP I/O cards. Each Pro Tools | HDX card was attached to a MADI I/O device that enabled M3 to record 192 stage inputs at 96K. This master recording configuration was duplicated to provide a safety backup, and a third recorder system utilized a MacBook Pro and an Echo Express III-R in a similar Pro Tools | HDX configuration to record 128 channels in 96K.

For video recording, another MacBook Pro was connected to an Echo Express SE I Thunderbolt 2-to-PCIe card expansion system housing a Blackmagic DeckLink Extreme HD PCIe recording card, which output Apple ProRes 442 LT files for playback by the M3 postproduction team. An additional Mac Pro cylinder housed in a Sonnet xMac Pro Server was extended via Thunderbolt 2 to three Pro Tools | HDX cards and three MADI I/O devices. Sonnet's RackMac mini 1U enclosure housed two Apple Mac Mini computers to provide backup in the event of any computer failure within the recording workflow.

"We have relied on a broad array of Sonnet expansion and storage solutions since our founding in 2008, and the equipment has always worked flawlessly. The devices give us extra peace of mind in high-pressure recording scenarios," Singer added. "Thunderbolt technology has transformed our workflows by enabling ever-higher data rates for recording and storage, and the Sonnet expansion chassis lets us take maximum advantage of Thunderbolt technology using minimal rack space. All of the Sonnet devices are extremely well-designed, well-built, and easy to use, and the support we've received from the Sonnet technicians has been absolutely top-notch."

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