Like most people who work in audio for TV, NEP's Hugh Healy began with music. With a background mixing some of the worst garage bands on the planet , he realised that he had a talent for both mixing and engineering - and he found he enjoyed them both! He became Head of Sound at Disneyland in Anaheim, LA, and it was here where he started mixing for television.
So what happened after Disneyland?
There was something about the get in/get out mentality of television broadcast audio that appealed to me, plus the ngineering input was extensive - a lot to learn, and I do enjoy a challenge! I joined Green Crowe and Company, who were then the premier entertainment video truck company. Some years later they were bought by Unitel, and when Unitel went bankrupt in 2000 a small group of us engineers and sales folk set up Denali with the existing kit and client list. We made the transition and NEP came in with us so we were suddenly part of a very strong group which worked really well our entertainment clients were very happy because nothing had changed for them, and we had the support of a large organisation like NEP. This is how Denali, the entertainment division of NEP, was formed.
Do entertainment clients have different requirements?
They have very specific needs, and it's very important to understand those needs. There is a huge crossover between entertainment and sports in both expertise, equipment and
communications, but entertainment clients need to feel that their requirements are recognised and are being fulfilled. Having a specialised entertainment division helps us to do this; everyone at Denali is focused on what our clients expect to see.
So how does the service differ between sports and entertainment?
Let's start with the people: of course we only want the best engineers and we've stolen a bunch of guys from NEP who we've liked, but these guys also have to have certain personality traits. We can't turn up at a broadcast and just do the job, we have to be involved - one of our engineers referred to the job as being a Production Engineer in the sense that although we are all engineers our remit goes way beyond that. We are heavily invested in the people, the production and the progress of each show; we are involved with everyone from the talent to the production staff.
It's cultural. Our clients expect to be looked after and it's our job to make sure they feel that they are.
On the facilities side, there is an enormous amount of overlap with sports, but it's all the peripheral equipment which makes the difference. For example, the audio room is substantially bigger than in a typical sports truck - we have dual-trailer truck systems and we have single trailer trucks. In a single 53' trailer the audio room will typically have a room around 14' x 12', a dual-trailer system has an audio room around 17' x 15'. People are packed in there; there's an audio engineer, mixer, an audio playback person and often an audience sweetener to enhance the audience mix. These rooms are treated acoustically and we remove all the noisy equipment such as the audio router and the comms tray. The audio room is more like a recording studio.
Then there is the multitrack infrastructure. We support multiple 192 track MADI workstations for recording and playback along with AES multitracks, and we have the ability to QC any MADI path without interrupting the signal.
Finally, many of our clients still want analogue outboard equipment, things like tube compressors on a music show, which we insert into the console, and we've recently started integrating plug-in servers too.
There are some extremely good sports engineers, but there is a culture and a method which we adhere to in entertainment. Our clients are really not concerned with the engineer's issues; their expectations are very specific and we pride ourselves on being able to provide this service.
Also, all our trucks have a bagel cart, which is located inside the door with lots of snacks. That's cultural too. You won't find that in most sports trucks!
Which features on the Calrec consoles do you find useful in the field?
There are so many things! Firstly, the number of inputs. For example, we do a show called Capital Concerts with a live orchestra, choirs, guest bands, satellite stages, plus production elements, with over 300 live mic inputs which have to be working simultaneously. The show is similar to the way the BBC's Later with Jools Holland works, swapping from band to band, but often several bands will all jam together so there are over 300 inputs that are hot - memory recalls won't work here so the desk needs a huge number of inputs and the
capacity to control them all.
Multitracks are important, so the more busses the better, plus having a lot of Direct Outs.
Recall capability has to be instant - we have other desks which have slower recall so you have to be careful when you do it, but the Calrec's are near instant. Things like multiple dynamics sections, significant routing capabilities, and Automix!
Automix make our lives much easier especially when you have a lot of open lavalier mics - these things simplify everything and keep all our patching down.
Fibre is very important to us, and it integrates so well into the Calrec. There is no translation layer, no separate application, you control it directly from the desk. The channel counts are so high and the set up times get smaller and smaller; this helps us get up and running quickly.
Remix capabilities are very important to us, we multitrack so much, at some point we have to remix it. On the Alpha consoles we used the Remix Input Switching a lot, and were disappointed when the Apollo was launched without it, so it was good that Calrec listened and added it back in on later software versi
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Like most people who work in audio for TV, NEP's Hugh Healy began with music. With a background mixing some of the worst garage bands on the planet , he realised that he had a talent for both mixing and engineering - and he found he enjoyed them both! He became Head of Sound at Disneyland in Anaheim, LA, and it was here where he started mixing for television.
