Broadcast News

Bookmark and Share
31/10/2017

Firehouse Productions Sets Live Sound Ablaze With Dante Audio-Over-IP Networking

News Image
As a sound production company specialising in live events, Firehouse Productions is regularly entrusted with the design, operation and management of complex audio network infrastructures for concerts, TV shows and special events.

As more venues and facilities gradually transition from legacy analog systems to the network, Firehouse Productions has found significant value in the excellent sound quality, quick deployment and low total cost of ownership of Audinate's Dante audio-over-IP networking.

Over the years, the fast-growing company has provided sound production systems and support services to major rock concert tours by Coldplay, Radiohead, Hall & Oates, Florence and The Machine, Tears for Fears, Nine Inch Nails, Lorde, Peter Gabriel, Sting and David Gray, among other A-listers. Their technicians are also integrally involved with sound production for special live events, such as the 2017 International Indian Film Festival, which was held in mid-July at the MetLife Stadium as well as live events for corporations including Mac'’s, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Biogen and Wyndham.

In television, the company has played a key role in producing audio for live broadcasts, such as The Tony Awards, NBC's TheWiz and Peter Pan, The Daily Show, In Performance at the White House, the iHeart Music Festival and Global Citizen Festival.

"Whether they take place in a stadium or a studio, these events all have one thing in common—they are live. There are no do-overs to get them right," said Luis Espinal, Senior RF/PL Technician for Firehouse Productions. "As we move toward more networked architectures, Dante brings the reliability, routing flexibility and capacity we need to do it right the first time."

In essence, Firehouse Productions' mission is to pick up sound from 'Point A' to deliver it to 'Point B'. But considering how complex and multi-layered today’s audio network architecture has become Espinal found it challenging to deal with the growing array of snakes and cables, connectors, amp racks, audio protocols and other systems that have to interface together.

"Given the complexity of today's networked live sound infrastructures, it's not enough to just bring in trusted brands of legacy audio gear," said Espinal. "If the third-party audio devices don’t network together seamlessly, with uncompromised quality, low latency and spot-on timing, even the slightest glitch could detract from the viewer experience. Dante solves these problems, andnow serves as the backbone of our service. With Dante, we can customize networks of third-party audio gear to meet the demands of even the most ambitious live events."

At the heart of Firehouse Productions' Dante networking solution are several Yamaha mixing consoles, including the MP10, CL5 and Q1; a Lab.gruppen Lake LM44 digital audio system processor; and several Focusrite RedNet I/O interfaces for conversions between Dante and MADI or AES10 environments. All Dante audio traffic, data, control and other functions are natively supported over a Cisco SG550X-24P Layer 3 Switch configured within multiple VLANs. Espinal also points to the value of Dante Virtual Soundcard to record and process multichannel audio from laptops.

"For a very advanced show, we need an integrated solution that's manageable from end to end from a single interface," Espinal said. "Dante is the only solution I've found that makes it easy to integrate so many third-party audio devices together. At every event, we can count on Dante to save us hours of work that were previously spent running cables and setting up patch panels. It's smart enough to acknowledge devices or systems as they’re added to the network, and to automatically failover to theredundant path when a technical issue arises that could derail the show."

Dante is an Ethernet-based, bi-directional network solution, it's easy and logical to set-up a number of signal pathscompared to the traditional method of running and patching cables between various points.
VMI.TV Ltd

Top Related Stories
Click here for the latest broadcast news stories.

29/08/2013
SSL To Join Dante Diigital Network At IBC
Solid State Logic, the world’s leading manufacturer of advanced tools for audio professionals, is proud to announce the introduction of the MADI Dante
26/05/2015
DELEC Delivers Dante™ Audio Networking Interfaces
German intercom and commentary system specialist DELEC has introduced unito a set of task-specific, powerful tools that will integrate conventional au
24/01/2024
Barix To Unveil Its First Native Dante Hardware Solution
Barix is releasing its first native Dante hardware solution at ISE 2024 next week, six months after announcing plans to bring wide and local area netw
20/02/2024
NADiV Audio Introduces Range Of Dante Audio And Control Devices
NADiV Audio has launched its NADiV range of Dante-enabled audio interface and control devices for portable and installed AV and pro audio environments
06/06/2023
Barix Expands Suite Of Hardware Products
Barix is to travel to InfoComm next week with an expanded suite of hardware products for installed AV systems, courtesy of its growing IPAC (IP Audio
02/07/2004
Digital audio to Ethernet adapter enables networking in pro-audio applications
Axia audio has introduced a new product-the AES/EBU Node-into its growing range of networked professional audio products. The AES/EBU node packs eight
01/10/2021
Audinate Announces Full Availability Of Dante Application Library SDK
Audinate has announced full availability of the Dante Application Library™ software development kit (SDK). Previously available to a select few, Dante
27/01/2023
Bolin Technology Introduces Dante AV Dual-Stream Cameras
Bolin Technology expands its leadership in Pro AV with the introduction of the company's groundbreaking, dual-stream Dante AV PTZ cameras. Making thei
06/09/2019
Sonifex To Display New Dante Commentary Units At IBC 2019
Sonifex is showing its new Dante® commentary units, the AVN-CU2-DANTE Configurable Dante Commentary Unit for 2 Commentators and the AVN-CU4-DANTE Conf
15/07/2016
Audinate Updates Dante Controller
Audinate has announced an update to Dante Controller, enabling end users to better manage larger networks with more high channel count devices. Dante
08/07/2015
Audinate Installed For Coachella Experience
Rat Sound integrated a Dante audio network from Audinate at this year's Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and consequent Stagecoach festival. F
19/01/2016
Audinate To Increase Dante Training At ISE
Audinate, alongside audio equipment manufacturers, has announced it will host the annual Dante AV Networking World education event during Integrated S
10/06/2014
Studio Technologies Sponsors AV Networking World Conference
Studio Technologies has signed up to become part of a group of sponsors that will participate in the 5th annual AV Networking World Conference. Presen
12/01/2024
AJA Releases Dante AV 4K v1.1
AJA Video Systems has released Dante AV 4K v1.1, the first update for its Dante AV 4K-T and 4K-R transmitter/receiver converters, which enable the tra
03/05/2023
Production News : WePlay Esports Arena Installs Model 5422A Dante® Intercom Audio Engine
WePlay Esports Arena in Los Angeles has been equipped with the latest including the Model 5422A Dante® Intercom Audio Engine from Studio Technologies.