Courtesy of JBL Professional

A complete JBL VTX Series audio system delivers world-class sound at Madison Square Garden for “Music’s Biggest Night”

NEW YORK CITY—Firehouse Productions recently deployed a complete HARMAN Professional Solutions audio system at the 60^th Annual GRAMMY Awards ceremony at Madison Square Garden.

Held on January 28, 2018, this year marked the first time the ceremony was held outside of Los Angeles since 2003. Firehouse Productions was hired to provide sound reinforcement for the event, which included live performances by Kendrick Lamar, Lady Gaga, Kesha, Bruno Mars and Cardi B, SZA, Childish Gambino and more. In order to ensure exceptional sound quality for both the audience at Madison Square Garden and the television broadcast, Firehouse designed a complete HARMAN Professional audio system centered upon JBL VTX Series loudspeakers and Crown amplification.

“When it comes to sound quality at the GRAMMY Awards ceremony, we have incredibly high standards,” said Michael Abbott, Audio Coordinator, 2018 GRAMMY Awards. “The HARMAN VTX system delivered incredible results, and in my opinion Madison Square Garden has never sounded better. It was one of the best-sounding shows we’ve ever produced.”

Firehouse Productions Vice President Mark Dittmar and Systems Tech Jamie Pollock began working on the design three months before the ceremony, which involved coordinating with the art and lighting departments to optimize the system configuration for the elaborate stage and lighting designs. Another primary goal was ensuring that the energy of the system stayed extremely focused to avoid any roomy or washed-out sounds for the TV broadcast.

Intelligibility and transparency were also key, since the system volume needed to remain consistent throughout the dynamic range of performances. Using a combination of VTX V25-II loudspeakers and the new VTX A12 loudspeakers for the main arrays, the Firehouse team created a system that delivered incredible clarity and precision, even at the lower volumes required for the television broadcast.

“The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences takes this show very seriously, and front-of-house sound is a top priority,” said Ron Reaves, Front of House Music Mixer, 2018 GRAMMY Awards. “The JBL VTX system was one of the best PA systems I’ve ever mixed on, it just translated so well to the room. I can’t say enough about the design and tuning of the VTX rig, because it was spectacular. The audience is made up of producers, engineers, and the world’s biggest artists—people who make their living listening critically to music. A lot of those same people came back and commented about how good the system sounded, more than I can ever remember. It was a huge win for Firehouse and JBL Professional.”

The HARMAN Professional audio system included two main hangs of 16 VTX V25-II loudspeakers per side, 14 VTX A12 loudspeakers per side, and nine VTX S28 subwoofers per side flown in a cardioid configuration. In addition, ten VTX G28 subwoofers were deployed in five ground stacks, 24 VTX V20 loudspeakers were deployed in six delay clusters, and 36 VT4886 loudspeakers were used for front fills. The entire system was powered by Crown I-Tech 1200HD and 4x3500HD power amplifiers in custom-built Firehouse racks.

“I’ve been designing PA systems for television shows for 18 years and this is probably the most successful design we’ve ever had,” said Dittmar. “The A12 loudspeakers performed great, and I’m a huge fan of the V25-IIs. We always go for an incredibly high level of intelligibility, but this pushed it to a level we’ve never heard before. It was a great-sounding show and it had impact, but it was several dB quieter than anything I’ve experienced in a long time. There was no need for it to be any louder because you could hear every S and every T, the diction was absolutely flawless. It was a perfect storm of things coming together to create an awesome experience.”

Courtesy of AV Network

With three days of events on a sprawling campus around Staples Center arena in downtown Los Angeles, NBA All-Star Game highlights included the Rising Stars game on Friday night; the slam dunk, 3-point, and skills challenges of All-Star Saturday Night; and the 67th NBA All-Star Game on Sunday.

Among live broadcasting, in-arena events, and visiting media crews, Firehouse was responsible for RF coverage throughout the Staples Center, along with managing and coordinating more than 1,000 frequencies throughout the surrounding campus, which included hundreds of media crews and several outdoor stages across the LA Live plaza area in front of the Microsoft Theater.

For all key systems inside Staples Center, Audio Coordinator Mark Dittmar based his system design on 64 channels of Shure wireless microphones and in-ear monitors, all feeding a custom antenna system that covered the entire arena, including about 100 feet of vertical coverage in the seating bowl. “We had three nights of events leading up to the actual All-Star Game on Sunday night, and they were all 100 percent Shure, top to bottom,” said Dittmar. “I specified it that way because experience shows Shure gives us our best chance for success in a very crowded RF environment.”

The on-site Turner studio broadcast team, from studio hosts to courtside reporters, was miked with Axient analog handheld transmitters equipped with KSM8 capsules, and Shure’s ShowLink system for full remote control and monitoring. For musical performances by stars like Pharrell Williams, Common, Andra Day, and Jaden Smith, Dittmar used 16 channels each of Axient Digital wireless and PSM 1000 in-ear monitors. “The performance on Axient Digital is off the charts, especially operating range,” Dittmar commented.

Additionally, Firehouse deployed 24 channels of Shure UHF-R wireless, primarily for moments like national anthems and player introductions. Whether used for on-air events or in-arena activities, all systems were monitored through Shure Wireless Workbench® software. “Wireless Workbench is instrumental to our success,” said Dittmar. “It lets us monitor all our various Shure wireless at once, in real time. It’s such a cool integrated tool.”

To handle frequency assignments for the many media crews and side events throughout the temporary NBA “campus” area, Firehouse brought in Frequency Coordination Group. “Along with actively managing our own wireless, we also need to register, flag, and provide frequencies for all the attending media,” notes Dittmar. “Brooks Schroeder and his team at Frequency Coordination Group do a great job of that, pre-registering hundreds of media teams online and assigning them frequencies throughout the week as they arrive.”

Dittmar notes that another Shure accessory came in handy over the weekend: the WA653 Microphone Flag Extender, which can increase the length of a Shure handheld wireless microphone by up to 2.5 inches. “NBA players’ hands tend to be gigantic, so adding a mic flag puts their hand down at the bottom of the transmitter, covering the antenna,” said Mark. “We ended up using eight Shure extenders, including double extensions for some TNT studio hosts and courtside commentators, most of whom are former NBA stars. It’s one of those little details that can really make a difference, and Shure obviously gets that.”

“NBA All-Star week was six days on site, three days of live events, 600 drops of comms, and hundreds of frequencies in the air,” said Dittmar. “Yes, it was a challenge. But that’s exactly what we do at Firehouse Productions. Over the years, we’ve developed techniques to succeed in a lot of difficult situations. That’s why we use Shure wireless. For us, big events are really all about advance preparation, using the right tools, and having a great team that works well together on site. We like to think that’s what keeps our clients coming back, year after year.”

Courtesy of Jason Dachman via Sports Video Group

Next-gen technologies offer new ways to view the action

This weekend, NBA All-Star festivities once again serve as a showcase for Turner Sports’ tech-savvy production efforts on the hardcourt. As the gem of Turner’s annual NBA calendar for more than decade and a half, All-Star Weekend continues to be a launch pad for next-gen technology and production workflows. This year in Los Angeles, Turner’s bag of tech toys includes an RF pylon cam on tonight’s Skills Challenge, shot-tracking technology for the Three-Point Contest, and an even more intricate ecosystem inside its already massive truck compound.

“NBA All-Star really shows what we can do,” says Chris Brown, senior director, technical operations, Turner Sports. “We definitely have a few cool new [production tools] here, but, in terms of the compound, we try not to mess with the secret sauce. We’ve found a [workflow] that works really well for us, so we are just trying to build on that each year. And the fact that we are lucky enough to do this every year means we get to push ourselves every year to innovate and make it better. It’s a lot of fun.”

All-Star Saturday Night: Providing New Perspectives
The raucous atmosphere of All-Star Saturday Night tips off with the Skills Challenge, and fans will have a new perspective in the three-round, obstacle-course competition, in which the players will dribble down the sidelines, weaving in and out of pylons. Turner has worked with AVS to deploy an RF camera featuring a GoPro/Vislink Herocast miniature camera that sits atop two of the pylons.

“It is going to provide a very cool ‘coming at you’ perspective as the athletes race down [the course],” says Brown. “It’s something we’ve been working with AVS on for quite a while, and then we adapted it a bit with GoPro. It’s mounted right on top of the pylon and should provide an angle that people haven’t seen before.”

The pylon cam will be just one of a whopping 48 cameras deployed by Turner during the weekend for the All-Star Game, All-Star Saturday Night, Inside the NBA studio sets, and NBA on TNT Road Show concerts throughout the weekend, including two additional RF cameras (also from AVS) and six robos (from Fletcher).

The pylon camera won’t be the only new tech at Staples Center tonight; Turner has teamed with Israeli startup RSPCT Basketball Technologies and SMT to deploy a new shot-tracking system for the Three-Point Contest. Data from RSPCT’s system, which uses sensors attached to the backboard and high-resolution cameras to track the ball in flight and identify exactly where it hits the rim/basket, will be integrated with SMT’s augmented-reality graphics system to offer fans a deeper look at each competitor’s shooting accuracy and patterns.

“This system is going to give the production [team] a chance to show shot accuracy in rapid-fire succession,” says Brown. “We worked with RSPCT to integrate their system with SMT, and I think the [result] is going be great for fans.”

Inside the Compound: ND1 the Heart of the Production
Turner’s truck compound this year is located at the top of the steps of the L.A. Convention Center and comprises 13 total mobile units, which arrived on Feb. 8 — more than a week before All-Star Weekend. NEP’s ND1 (A, B, C, and D) is once again at the core of the compound, serving as the audio- and video-routing/distribution center for the entire show.

“[Our use] of ND is continuing to evolve,” Brown observes. “This year, ND1 is coming straight off [serving as NBC’s A unit for] the Super Bowl. So my hat’s off to the NEP team [for bringing] that truck straight from Minneapolis, where it performed a more traditional role, right to here, where we basically pulled the truck apart and are using it several different ways.”

ND1’s B unit serves as the primary distribution point for the entire compound. All camera and audio feeds are fed into ND1 for distribution to the various trucks in the compound. Thanks to ND1’s robust fiber connectivity, the A, C, and D trucks can also serve as signal-distribution points for other trucks, shortening the length of cable runs throughout the compound.

In addition, Turner is using ND1 for a variety of other needs, including submixing in the B unit’s audio room and transforming the C unit’s EVS replay area into “edit central” to handle its extensive file-based workflows.

“We are going all the way back three years now with the use of ND1, and it was a bit of a crazy idea at first,” says Brown. “But, now that we’ve gotten to the point where we are, I don’t think there’s an easier or more efficient way to do this.”

In addition to ND1, NEP’s SS24 (A, B, and C) served as the primary game-production truck for last night’s Rising Stars Game and the NBA All-Star Game today; NCP10 (A and B) will cover tonight’s festivities. Throughout the weekend, NCP11 will serve as home to the Inside the NBA onsite studio show. SS16 and ATU are onsite for the entertainment and halftime-show elements, and Cobalt is handling the Turner-Intel virtual-reality production.

NBA on TNT Road Show Returns With Inside the NBA Onsite
As has become customary for All-Star, Turner Sports has pulled out all the stops with a massive fan-fest in Downtown Los Angeles. The 30,000-sq.-ft. NBA on TNT American Express Road Show is located at L.A. LIVE just outside the Staples Center and serves as home to live telecasts of TNT’s Inside the NBA studio show, as well as concerts Thursday, Friday, and Saturday (Lil Uzi Vert, Kendrick Lamar, and The Killers, respectively) and a host of fan activations.

Inside the NBA uses the onsite set for live pregame, halftime, and postgame coverage every Thursday through Sunday. Although Inside the NBA also has a set inside Staples Center, the bulk of the All-Star studio programming is originating from the Road Show set.

Turner has deployed six cameras to cover the Road Show area. The Turner Sports broadcast team produced the Thursday-night concert, and the Turner Live Events Team and the Solomon Group are handling the Friday and Saturday concerts.

“I also have to give a lot of credit to the folks at the Staples Center and the amount of connectivity that the Staples Center and AEG provide to be able to make all this happen,” says Brown. “Between the interconnected tunnels and the amount of fiber strands, the infrastructure that Staples Center and AEG have put in in this space is amazing. Getting to all these different locations is not easy, but they’ve been great to work with through all of this.”

File-Based Workflows: From L.A. to Atlanta and Back
Turner’s file-management team is out in full force in L.A. and has a 1-Gbps data circuit to Turner Sports’ Atlanta headquarters dedicated to the file-based workloads.

In all, Turner will move more than 15 TB of content throughout the course of the week and has a whopping 190 TB (100 TB SAN, 90 TB NAS) of local storage available for the onsite library to support movement of content between Atlanta, its Thumbwar editing system onsite (70 TB of SAN storage), and graphics (10 TB of SSD NAS). A total of 14 edit workstations onsite are supporting the TNT linear telecasts, NBA Entertainment, various social-media productions, and studio shows.

“We have our file-management team out here, and they have really grown this [operation] a lot over the past few years,” notes Brown. “Our entire EVS network and edit operation are interconnected, and we’ve worked very closely with our vendor Thumbwar to make sure [that is the case]. They’ve been a tremendous partner for a number of years now, helping us support these file-based workflows.”

Leveraging Firehouse Productions Mics, Comms
Turner also continues to expand its integration with the Firehouse Productions audio and communications infrastructure deployed inside the arena at All-Star each year. The hard-wired comms system — serving NBA Entertainment, some TBS positions, and the in-arena production — consists of eight Riedel nodes: six Artist 64 frames, one Artist 128 frame, and one Artist 32 frame. In all, the system serves 209 distinct users, including intercom panels, C3 beltpacks, and Bolero beltpacks. Firehouse is also dropping MADI kits at all of Turner’s primary trucks, making it easier to share and distribute audio throughout the compound.

“We’ve begun to leverage even more of Firehouse’s infrastructure from microphones and two-wire intercoms inside the building and on the floor,” says Brown. “It used to be a massive undertaking on our side to distribute all of that. But now we are more tightly integrated with Firehouse to assist in the distribution of the two wires across the floor and lots of the microphones that we use, particularly the shared house mics. It has become much easier.”