TV Productions around the World

TV Productions around the World posted: 17/04/2019

A rose for Sennheiser Digital 6000 wireless systems

Whether it is the nerve-wracking Rose Ceremony or a one-on-one date: When television goes in search of the perfect love story and all emotions are laid bare, the sound is also vitally important. Only with perfect sound can you really express every emotional facet of the actors' voices. Cologne-based smartregie GmbH, the company responsible for the technical presentation of TV formats such as The Bachelor and The Bachelorette or the personality show 7 T chter (7 Daughters) for commercial TV channels, relies on top-quality sound provided by wireless systems from Sennheiser's Digital 6000 series.

20 digital wireless channels

In early 2019, smartregie GmbH bought ten EM 6000 DANTE two-channel receivers, which can be combined with 20 Sennheiser SK 6000 bodypack transmitters. Added to this are several SKM 6000 handheld transmitters with Neumann KK 205 capsules, formats like the international recall shows of Deutschland sucht den Superstar - Germany's version of Pop Idol - use up to six SKM 6000. The transmitter battery packs and spares can be recharged in four L 6000 rack-mount chargers. The new equipment is rounded off by two Sennheiser ASA 214-UHF antenna splitters. The bodypack transmitters are mainly operated with Sennheiser MKE 2-4 clip-on microphones, which offer the benefit of being particularly robust in practical use, especially with concealed cabling. For open cabling on the other hand, Sennheiser MKE 1 clip-on microphones are the tool of choice at smartregie GmbH. Their special feature is their small size.

Practical tests have shown that the new Sennheiser SK 6000 bodypack transmitters even offer a little more range than the established SK 5212 in the applications typical at smartregie GmbH. In particular over large distances, the high signal-to-noise ratio of the new models has a noticeably positive effect on the sound.

The Sennheiser Digital 6000 systems were supplied by Audioservice Norbert Gutzmann e.K., Cologne. The company had already equipped smartregie GmbH with three racks, each of which contains five EK 6042 two-channel slot-in receivers, two ASA 214 and one SR 2050 IEM transmitter.

The 19 racks hold the Sennheiser EM 6000 DANTE receivers

Perfect for worldwide use

smartregie GmbH operates its newly acquired transmitters from the Sennheiser Digital 6000 series in the A1 to A4 (470 - 558 MHz) frequency ranges, thus enabling them to be used worldwide. When formats such as The Bachelor are filmed, for example, in Miami, sometimes only a single TV channel in the typical US bandwidth of 6 MHz is available for wireless transmission in sunny Florida. Accommodating up to 25 analogue wireless channels without interference in this situation used to be almost impossible - the Sennheiser Digital 6000 systems solve the problem.

To calculate the suitable transmission frequencies, smartregie GmbH uses Sennheiser's WSM software (Wireless Systems Manager), which also serves the purpose of controlling and monitoring the Digital 6000 systems that are connected

To calculate the suitable transmission frequencies, smartregie GmbH uses Sennheiser's WSM software (Wireless Systems Manager), which also serves the purpose of controlling and monitoring the Digital 6000 systems that are connected. Alternatively, the control systems available on the company's own Yamaha consoles are used. The consoles (CL and QL series) also display the remaining battery life, thus helping to ensure a smooth workflow.

Rack transport with practical details

In order to keep freight costs to a minimum, smartregie GmbH frequently uses particularly lightweight but nevertheless sturdy transport cases from SKB Cases. The newly acquired Sennheiser Digital 6000 systems are also kept in two of these transport solutions. The 19 racks not only house the EM 6000 DANTE receivers but also a connector panel mounted on the back that provides, among other things, the analogue receiver outputs to XLR connectors. The main antenna inputs A and B ( RF IN ) are also available and are connected in the rack with a Sennheiser ASA 214-UHF four-way antenna splitter. The antenna signals can be looped through to a second receiver rack via two outputs ( RF OUT ). A further equipment feature of the transport case is an Aruba network switch that carries the Dante signals from the receiver and which can itself make a corresponding signal available to an RJ45 output for connection to the network.

New sound potentials

Small, high-quality clip-on microphones such as the MKE 2, which have been part of the Sennheiser product range for some time now, are able to fully develop their sound potentials on the SK 6000 bodypack transmitter. As no dynamics processing is performed by a compander, there is noticeably more signal depth and transparency in a direct A/B comparison. As Martin Gro comments: I can absolutely tell the difference; the sound is finer and more delicate; you can really hear that the signals are not being processed as much as they are in a typical analogue channel. It's often the case that actors speak very quietly when filming, and if you as a sound engineer then have to turn up the gain control a long way, digital transmission means that you no longer increase the noise that is typical of an analogue channel - and the signal remains clean!

A further equipment feature of the transport case is an Aruba network switch that carries the Dante signals from the receiver and which can itself make a corresponding signal available to an RJ45 output for connection to the network

Integrated digital system

The Dante signals coming from the Sennheiser EM 6000 DANTE receivers are tunnelled via the Riedel MediorNet, together with other data, and can be taken off at the required output points.

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