Office Hours | Wednesday | October 21, 2026

0:01 Good morning everybody. Welcome to Office Hours. We're going to talk about some audio things and some video things. We're going to talk about Blackmagic. We're going to talk about little boxes that help you send signals around the world, whatever. If you want to ask a question, you can use this QR code. That's one way to do it. We'll talk about other ways to do it.

0:16 Alexander, what's the first question that we have? First question this morning is coming in from the QR code submission. We have John Melms in Madison, Wisconsin, asking Blackmagic Design stated that unfortunately they have to raise their prices. Due to shortages of components, increases are pretty significant. Will prices ever come back down? Jeff? John is one of the funniest comedic writers I think we've had in a long time.

0:45 Or, by asking if prices will come back down. Or, John, I have some bad news about the Tooth Fairy and Santa. So, no, when does that ever happen? But let me show the post that John is talking about. And now, I must say, you know, I don't know who's doing the marketing for Blackmagic either. You know, if you start your post with, unfortunately, that's not a good way to start.

1:15 You want to tell, you know, you want to do like Apple and tell everyone what a great thing it is of all these great new components with only a minimal price increase. So, they don't take that approach. They just give you all the things that are going up and they tell you right there. I mean, they're being transparent. They're telling you all the new prices and exactly how much is going up.

1:38 So I guess they figured this is the rip the Band-Aid off approach. But I can't see prices going back down on these things. Mr. Francis. The price that changed that really stood out to me was the ATEM Mini Extreme that went from $19.95 and increased $1,095, a 54% increase in price. Wow. Yeah. That one's going to hurt. And that's probably the place where they're going to make the most money

2:11 because they're going to sell a lot of those. And that's the Mini Extreme ISO? The G2 ISO, yeah. Yeah. Courtney, what's your thoughts? Yeah, I was looking at the prices and thinking about, well, when will they come back down again? Ooh, maybe after 2030? Because everyone's saying memory prices, this is because of memory availability constraints in the industry because of all the data centers that are being built worldwide,

2:42 even though a lot of people are going, not in my backyard here in the States. Other places are going to be building them like crazy, and they also need memory. So they're 60% – what did he say? They're 60% overdrawn for the next – they're 60% above what they can deliver right now. The orders are 60% above what they can deliver with all the manufacturing running full speed.

3:07 So that's going to create a backlog for several years. It will take them at least four years, three years to four years to build another fab to manufacture memory. So we're not going to get out that way. So I don't know. I don't think it's going to come down until after 2030 or 2031. What's your thoughts, Bill Davis? I'm trying to remember back.

3:29 I'm trying to remember if there has ever been in my career a price that got raised and then got lowered later. Hard drives, 2010. What? Hard drives. Hard drives took a spike. Commodity price stuff, like hard drives. Commodity price stuff, but general cost of living stuff tends to keep rising. And having been in executive suites and watched some of these discussions, for the corporate entity that's making these stuff, it's all about their ability to react to things and to run their company the way they want to.

4:03 And once you get extra revenue coming in, the idea that you're going to turn back the clock and give it – let's say you've got a 10% increase in revenue over the course of this. You're going to staff up. You're going to buy more machinery. You're going to have more initiatives happening through the company because we can, quote, pay for it. You're never going to, if you lower the price, ratchet those things down.

4:24 I mean, then, yes, they do layoffs and things like that. But the constant thing that everybody assessing their business looks for is constant growth. That's just part of the system we live in is you're only doing well if you're growing. You're only doing well if you're increasingly profitable. That is the latch pin. So just like a little watch thing, every time you go up a notch, a little peg sits there and says you're not going back down.

4:50 And I sometimes think of business globally as a billion little watches that are exactly like that. You know, you're allowed to go up. You're not allowed to come back down. Just the way it is. Mickey. Yeah. Yeah, Blackmagic has historically rolled back prices, and that is actually pretty common in the production equipment world, especially with companies that are relatively smaller, that have individual one-on-one relationships with their customers.

5:22 That's very common. Will it ever go back to the price it started with before this increase? I doubt it. That's rarely the case. but it's common for equipment to roll back in price when it makes sense. And Blackmagic has done that as recently as a couple months ago. And the bottom line is if the price is too high and people stop buying,

5:48 they have to make an adjustment. Jeff Cohen, wrap us up on this. Yeah, and at best what you'll do, again, to do the Apple parallel, is you will perhaps just not raise price. In other words, keep that price year to year, and then brag the next year about, like Apple, how this new thing and we're keeping the price the same. Yeah. All right.

6:11 Alexander, let's go to the next question. This one's coming in from Show Hub Submission. Mike Edwards in New York is asking, Morning, everyone. What does the panel think about Blast Radio? We can't figure this out. Courtney, what is this thing? Yeah, I don't know. This is the device for $250 you can buy. It's a streaming device that streams live people over the internet, kind of like a podcast, you know, only live.

6:44 Kind of like what we're doing right now, except you'd have to buy a $249 device to listen to audio only. Is it to listen or to broadcast, though? Well, this is to broadcast. Okay. Yeah. And listen. Because it's a private channel, I believe, unless I think you use – you've got this, which is – you can start your own radio. It's kind of like the concept of starting your own radio station that nobody will listen to.

7:14 And then there's this, which is the – that's a microphone. No, it's not an ice cream cone that has a pointy bottom on it. I don't know what you'd stand it on top of. You'd have to handhold it wherever you go, but it broadcasts directly to the internet from the cone here. And then there's software if you want to get in cheap, which is a mixer that runs on your PC or your Mac.

7:41 So there's that. And I think it's a subscription involved. See here, you got to pay some money every month. I think this is a Ponzi scheme. Yeah, I don't know what this is at all. It sounds, you remember Clubhouse? Remember that thing that was so popular? It was audio only, invitation only, and they'd have people show up live, special, you know, celebrities and stuff, and you could listen to them pontificate for hours.

8:08 And it lasted about eight months, and it became unpopular, and nobody does it anymore. What is this, Jeff Francis? So it's a audio-only stream box, and there is no monthly fee. there's no monthly fee for listeners there's no monthly fee for you to stream you can get people to subscribe to you much like a patreon kind of system but uh this is not for us and not everything

8:36 has to be for us i feel bad yeah but uh like you know i could see djs eating this up they can they can run a dj set and they will ship it out and anybody can tune in anywhere i mean even like doing a silent DJ event you could just point everyone you don't have to provide headphones everybody let everybody use their own phone and log into your blast

8:59 channel and you could run your silent silent DJ event for 250 bucks of hardware and it doesn't have to be just local you could have people tune in anywhere so the you know the actual device to one purchase and then it streams looks like YouTube twitch and their own last radio channel now at 250 bucks with no subscription. How long is the Blast Radio website going to continue to support the Blast device?

9:27 Who knows? How many of these are you going to buy, Mickey? You're going to buy a six-pack, ten-pack? What are you doing? I think Jeff is absolutely correct. Like, Jeff Francis, this is not for us. You know, the usual triangle, fast, good, cheap. This is cheap. This is fast. It's not good. But if you just want to get audio and the internet out there, sure, plug it in.

9:53 I don't know how this device works. Mickey, it's lossless. I'm assuming there's some sort of auto gain or some compression that's built in that you can't adjust. I don't know. But that's what I would expect from a device like this with no screen, no UI, no real controls apart from some really poor faders on glass UI. It's not for professional productions. It's for someone who just needs to or wants to get content on the air or on the internet.

10:32 Okay. Okay. Mr. Cohen, wrap this up. The funny thing, real quick, I was looking at this and trying to figure out, like, okay, is there built-in cellulars or you need, like, to be on someone's Wi-Fi? But no, no, no. I mean, there's an app. So the app is really doing the thing. The app is what's streaming over your phone, using your phone's data.

10:58 So any DJ will use, to Bill's point, they'll use one of the apps and services that people actually listen to as opposed to this. So this is in a weird place because you still need the app. You still need to know how to use the app like you would in any other streaming app. This just becomes, I guess, a way of plugging in your equipment because you

11:22 don't know about other stuff like iRig or any of the other devices. So it's a weird thing. To me, this looks like one of those April Fool joke websites that someone forgot to take down. That's what I think it is. But, yeah. Yeah, it seems more like a Ponzi scheme to get investors behind something. It just seems stupid. Anyway, you're right. It's not for us.

11:44 Next question. Thanks, Alexander. Next question is coming in from Jeff Francis in Columbia, South Carolina. For primary backup streams, how closely do the encoders and encoding need to match? same model different models with same settings free for all interesting ronnie yeah so normally yes uh and have a primary and a secondary at least and maybe a third one um normally we do

12:11 not have the same encoders so we tend to use a little bit different ones and the primary problem The problem is not exactly that you have to match encoders like serial number to serial number or product code to product code. But the problem can be if you're using different devices to have the exact same kind of levels going out of that. And maybe the input stage for audio is a little bit different if they were coming through different routes through your system.

12:46 system. That can be a small thing to look out for. Of course, the bitrate are really important, and check both bitrates for video and if it's constant or variable. We tend to use constant these days. And of course, also change and make sure you have the same bitrate for audio. Use the same encoders, for instance, etc. And that is, of course, if you're using let's say YouTube which is recommended to use the same type of bit rate

13:21 and settings for both the primary and the secondary channel. If you're going out to something like Restream or other destinations this may vary and if you have your own player you can also So see there and of course it's the destination that decides the settings for the latency. We seldom see big differences coming out of the encoders. They are usually pretty good in sync coming out of our venue, but then the redistribution

14:02 like YouTube or Vimeo, et cetera, they can have vast differences in encoding latency. So, yeah, that's my two cents. You know, Mickey, this reminds me of, and I'm going back decades here, but I remember talking to somebody, an audio guy in the 80s, and he said that when they set up for the president, this is in the U.S., they had two SM57s on the stand,

14:27 and the cables had to run different paths back to the broadcast center. And that was because somebody would slam a door and pinch a cable or a forklift would rip a cable out or something like that. So the backup had to be different. And it literally had to be a totally different path. What's your thought on primary backup streams? streams yeah and uh those 57th uh apparently nowadays uh contain uh shep's uh capsules in

14:59 them do they really i don't know with the current uh u.s president but i know when they go to the um the sm57 vip kit with the 257s that's traditional uh setup um they have shep's capsules in them um the microphones the uh regarding the uh jeff's question about the primary and backup uh transmissions this really depends on your cdn um of course in an ideal world

15:29 identical setups um identical encoding settings all that um but you're the leeway in terms of if you can get away with differing encoders and encoding settings, really depends on your CDN. I'm curious, Jeff, what CDN are you transmitting to? YouTube. Okay, YouTube. With YouTube, know that your primary and backup encoders don't actually, it isn't like, oh, everyone gets the primary and then it fails over to backup if something happens in the primary.

16:08 No. YouTube load balances between those two transmissions. So some of your audience sees encoder A, some of your audience sees encoder B. So people will get varying qualities in terms of your transmission, your broadcast, your live stream. And also, of course, if something happens between the encoder, what gets recorded as your VOD. We'll start on one of the encoders, and if something happens, it will switch over

16:44 to taking it from the other encoder. It could be the primary, could be the backup, at the start or at the end. So with YouTube, you really want those to match as well as have the same latency in terms of no different paths within, say, if you're going through an SDI route or to do another SDI router or going through varying paths

17:08 in your local pipeline. You don't want that. You want the encoders to get the same video at the same time. With YouTube, you want it to be the same. All right. Before we move on, I just want to say, if you're just watching this on YouTube, sitting there some afternoon watching, you're missing half the show. What you really want to do is you want to get more involved.

17:31 If you go to officehours.global slash join, there's a myriad of information you're going to get there. You're going to get access to the Mucana software that we use for asking questions. I mentioned we have more ways to answer than just going to the QR code. There's a back-end chat. It's a lot of fun. A lot of times you'll hear us say, hey, you know, in the chat so-and-so was saying something.

17:55 So, anyway, there's a lot of different things that you can get involved with there, officehours.global.com. Alexander, next question. All right. Next up is one of my questions. Opinions on adding drop shadows to picture-in-picture boxes in a layout for a show. Things look so flat with just the thin colored border and background. I'm not going to disagree with you. Bill? So, graphics changes a lot based on errors and other things.

18:24 And also the environment you're working in. I got trained with graphic designers back in the print era. And so you knew once you established the size of a border, it was going to stay the same. And what was behind that border was going to stay the same. We're in the era of motion media now. Everybody's watching kind of live stuff. And I've seen – I can't tell you the number of times I've seen something that when the swirling cloud behind the type is dark, it looks fine.

18:52 but as soon as the swirling cloud behind the type turns white, the type disappears and you can't read. In fact, I've actually recently had people send me still frames and go, why can't I read this? And it's because you had white type and the background used to be blue, and now the background is very light gray and you can't see it anymore.

19:10 So it's a challenge for designers to understand. One typical thing designers, I think, often run into is if you don't know the environment that your type or your design is going to be in, you make it bolder and stronger. And I think if you look down the standard rolling ads on YouTube or any of the other swipe on a phone design things, you're going to see these huge blocks of type and incredibly

19:35 rich contrast between the type in front and a background behind. It's a reaction to the fact that they understand the environment is somebody flicking through screen after screen after screen, wanting to catch their attention with a huge, bold message that cannot be missed so that you can carve out the few people who are interested in the message from everybody else as a billion people scroll by this stuff. It has made design less refined,

20:07 less delicate, and more bold and blocky. And it's just the way this era looks. Maybe someday Someday people will watch in a different way. Maybe someday we'll have things implanted in vision goggles or something. And design will change based on how people are consuming that information in that era. But right now, what I advise you is to make sure every piece of type you put on the screen is clear.

20:34 And it's clear in all circumstances, no matter what the background changes to behind your type and things like that. It's just the world we live in. Or the boxes, Ronnie. Yeah, so my designers always told me when I added drop shadows at anything, if it was text or anything. And as a segue from what was already said, if Windows could add a kind of drop shadow on the blue screen of death,

21:03 made that a little bit more interesting to read. That said, my designers always told me to use less than half of what I first applied. And then they started telling me there are a lot of other ways to have something stand out from the background and not only using drop shadow. So I think drop shadow has been kind of a thing we just go to as the first solution.

21:32 But a real designer would probably not do that. that, they would put this in something more energetic or a more three-dimensional type of graphic style and create depth using other techniques than just the drop shadow. Because the drop shadow is, of course, we see it as a thing that have a distance to the background, but it's so simple. There are so many other cool ways of creating cool depths into the picture.

22:09 So I would suggest also diving into a lot of the other samples. Just tell your local AI or your favorite AI, what other options are there to just put a drop shadow on something? I'll tell you, Alexander, there's absolutely nothing wrong with using a drop shadow. My personal, I used to very much pride myself in good shadows. I think the trick is if you notice it, it's too much.

22:37 If it feels right, it feels right. I think anybody that just flat out says, no shadow, you're probably wrong. And if you just hit the button and you go with the default, you're probably wrong. It might be perfect in that instance. It is absolutely a matter of taste. it's kind of like putting salt and pepper on your on your food and it but

23:00 if you notice it it's probably too much but I agree I'm looking at my stuff that I use on my show and I'm like I could use a little shadow maybe anyway next question all right next up is from Andre delay in Berlin I thought about a replacement for the Panasonic PTZ software essentially just visual preset preset tiles to click on. Now I have more or less a full replacement of the Panasonic

23:25 GUI because vibe coding possibilities are nearly endless. What are your thoughts? Courtney? I think you ought to come on the panel here and show it to us, or come on Tuesdays and let Bill interview you and show you what you did and how you arrived at it. You know, we're going to see more and more of this because, as you say, because reverse engineering

23:46 engineering anything is out there now that you haven't been following what's been going on here in the last month. People have been reverse engineering all kinds of software out here and creating their own bespoke versions or just an open source version of something that cost a lot of money. And it's because of this software called REA that lets you take a piece of software,

24:09 load it in and let your cloud code go out, agents go out and reverse engineer it and create a a copy of exactly the same software that runs on your machine and then publishes it in a form that you can then put up on the Internet and let anybody make bespoke. So I think there's just going to be a flood of this kind of software

24:29 coming out on the market that's open source. And it's great to share. If you want to share what you've done, that's a great thing. So I'd like to see anything people share. share, but we're just going to be overcome with software here in the next few months, I think. That'd be you, Chris. My mic is muted. Jeff Cohen. I was right on top of it, but my mic is muted.

25:01 All right. So this, Andre, I love, not about this specifically, but the whole concept you have, there, which is, you know, we have the software and I would have been locked into their UI in the way they do things. And now, and also, I mean, to Courtney's point, most of it is frankly not reverse engineering in the sense that you're typically developing something with APIs and that kind of jazz. But to

25:30 Andre's point, you're able to develop it so quickly, I don't even know if you need to share that much because everyone can just say, do their own customization say I want my software to do this so I've mentioned a few times for quite some time now Reaper's my daily driver dog and I use DaVinci Resolve and you could do a lot of customization I've probably done more

25:53 custom scripts and additional custom functionality in the past few months than I did in the past few years it's amazing I just did another test with my my new buddy, Muse, where we were testing, trying to document some new features, or use some features in DaVinci Resolve, and I was testing them, and I said, wait a minute, why don't you just do all of it?

26:15 So he wrote a script that I ran in DaVinci Resolve that did all the testing and logged it, and then I just went away and then just gave him the log, and he had all the results. So it's amazing what you could do. So I would absolutely encourage anyone, if you have any kind of software with APIs or anything, thing and you keep saying, I wish it did this, it could probably do that now. Bill?

26:39 So I want to look at it from the point of view of workflow. One of the comforts in my life is when I sit on a Final Cut, I know the workflow that I enjoy. And the software reacts to me based on an agreement we kind of have about how the software is going to work and how I'm going to work it.

26:57 With all this vibe-coded software coming out and so many people able to do their own things and and customize their own things and recode this. And I don't want that up front. I want something other. I'm just a little concerned that I'm going to get to the point where I'm going to sit down and people will say, well, here's Final Cut, do something.

27:12 And I'm going to go, wait a second. None of this works like I expect. Why? Because this isn't the real software. It's a 17th generation Vive coded change on the original concepts. And are we going to get to the point where literally none of us can effectively do anything unless we have complete command of our worlds and can narrow our focus to just what we like.

27:36 Sometimes too much choice is too much choice. I don't know where this is going to end, but that's my concern right now. And I'm sorry, I'm on the wrong screen. Ronnie? Yeah, so there is probably something wrong in that question because Andres says vibe coding possibilities possibilities are nearly endless. They aren't, they are above and beyond endless. And that said, I would, I would think you use your time to create something and reusability is

28:16 something that is really important. So you can use it for other stuff as well. If you're only coding something that works for those specific cameras, that is kind of a work you have to do several times if you suddenly decide to change your cameras or need to add another camera. And what I would do is to build on top of something like middle things.

28:39 Just a few weeks back they released the middle control. The Pro app is really amazing. I'm going to put it to work on my main camera that I'm using today and build something on top of that using their really, really powerful APIs. And I purchased this software, so this is not a shameless plug or something. I'm really amazed at how far MiddleThings has taken this software.

29:14 It supports an unreal number of different types of devices, both cameras, PT set kind of heads and DJI gimbals. They are controlling or using everything from StreamDex to other hardware control surfaces. So it's a really, really, really good software to start on and use as a brain for everything. thing and then just build your APIs, using the APIs to build your very advanced frontends

29:48 as I'm pretty sure you are doing these days direct. But instead of using them only for the Canons, you can use them for any of these cameras that are supported by middle things. And that's a big number of devices. Mikki? Yeah, definitely support using hardware controllers as opposed to mouse and clicking clicking and clicking. One thing I would say, though, like with, you know,

30:13 you self-developing software yourself, test, test, test, test, test. There's never enough testing. You, when you're developing the software yourself, you have to support yourself. So if something goes wrong, something's not working, there's a bug, you don't want to have to troubleshoot that on the day or while you're even live. just make sure you're you thoroughly test the the products that you develop

30:42 you know a couple weeks ago a few weeks ago i had a doc rock on on my other show um the grill and just yesterday he was showing how he built one of his plugins and it blew me away and again i am the I am probably the absolute neophyte when it comes to the whole AI vibe code PS. Sorry. But what he was doing, what he showed is that he was literally screen grabbing user interfaces from other pieces of software.

31:18 And he said, by the way, put all of these controls in too. And I was like, wow, that got my attention because it just seems hard. Anyway, next question, Alexander. All right, next up is coming in from Paul Val, who's in Austin, Texas. Production expert picks Fender Studio Pro, eight best music features. Is Studio Pro a real rival to Pro Tools and Logic now?

31:45 What do you think, Alexander? It absolutely is. So just to give some history here, so Fender acquired PreSonus. Studio Pro is not a new product. It is simply a rebrand of a product that PreSonus has been developing for years called Studio One. And I would say, is it a rival? Is it a competent DAW? Absolutely, with an asterisk there. They have been developing that product at such a rapid pace that I could only equate to how Blackmagic has been developing DaVinci Resolve.

32:19 And everyone else is like just really, really slow and kind of falling behind. They were the first DAW that I am aware of that offered native Dolby Atmos mixing without, you know, just tacking on extra software and purchasing additional licenses, which is super cool. It comes with a lot of great sounding plugins. It's a really cool user interface, although I haven't done a deep dive on it, briefly messed around with it.

32:45 You know, anytime they do major new updates, I always check it out. So it is, I would say if you're working by yourself or if you know you're working with someone else that is using it, it's awesome. But if you're going to work in the industry, if, you know, Pro Tools is still kind of the standard there. Well, not kind of, it is.

33:05 So just be aware of that. But yeah, if you're just using it by yourself and you're looking for a new data pick, it is incredibly powerful. Compatibility is important. Mickey. Yeah. Yeah, with a DAW like this, it's been recently acquired by Fender. And of course, I should say that I believe Production Experts is sponsored by Fender. So be aware of that. At least have that in your mind when they put out articles about Studio Pro.

33:39 pro. But with any of these DAWs, you can, it's not about the gear, it's not about the DAW, it's about your creativity. But in terms of if you want to, for example, collaborate with other studios, with other artists, other musicians, other engineers, then you have to decide on something on using a tool that everyone works with and certainly in the composition world

34:11 logic and pro tools are the more prominent ones there especially if you're working a lot with vi's virtual instruments and midi the logic really shines with working with midi and in the mixing engineering side of things that's the world of pro tools but if you're just working on things by yourself and you're happy with this doll then use it if you're able to you know put out your

34:37 creativity and you're happy with the ui and it gets out of the way of your just composing or or whatever you're doing use whatever tool makes sense for you let's go to the next question alexander all right next up is coming in from brody hefner in new york city new york any opinions on on B&H's suggested audio interfaces for less than $500.

35:04 And for the record, this question has the most upvotes of the day. Alexander, what's your thought on it? Yeah, so they list a bunch of interfaces here from Universal Audio, starting with the Volt series. These are great interfaces, very, very high quality. The preamps sound nice. Build quality is great. I will just say they did just release the Gen 2, So that article does not mention these newer versions of the Volt interfaces, which I'm not going to get into because we don't have time for that.

35:33 And then they also compared it against Audient, which is a British company who, by the way, started making high-end analog consoles. And then, much like Solid State Logic, went the opposite way and started coming out with consumer-grade, more affordable stuff. I really am a fan of the way the preamps sound on these. if you're into MIDI or have MIDI devices, synthesizers, keyboards

35:56 Audient is not for you they are an analog audio kind of very simple company, they don't I don't know what it is that they seem to object to MIDI but there's no MIDI on their interfaces at all in any of their products and then of course there's the SSL interfaces, also a great choice and here's the thing these days and of course the classic Focusrite Scarlett

36:17 they're all fine, I mean they're all all fine. They're all going to sound slightly different. The thing is that when you walk into whatever your dealer is that sells these products, whether it's Sweetwater or B&H or Long & McQuaid up here in Canada, you go into a recording department in these stores, the whole wall is full with interfaces. There's like a bazillion choices. And the reality is

36:38 they're all pretty good and they're all sort of in the same price point. Yes, I will agree, some sound slightly better, some have slightly better features. Like the SSL's monitoring control section is really, really cool. But they're all pretty good these days. So I would say just don't focus too much on, unless you need something specific like loopback or something. I would say, you know, once you get these interfaces,

37:03 you can, much like on the last question we talked about, it's not always the gear. Just be creative, focus on creating stuff. Don't get too bogged down on having the latest and the greatest. Yeah, sometimes the features you benefit the most are kind of hidden in the software. Mickey? Yeah, I have to agree. With anything listed here, you'll be happy. I can't recommend a specific model without knowing the specific requirements of the audio interface that you have.

37:36 But in terms of preamp qualities, they're roughly around the same. I would say though that if you want full analog control the SSL to I have a bunch of them there they have every every single function has a knob or a button and I believe with the volt it's the same is that correct Alexander yeah yeah physical game control yeah there's there's no like

38:00 weird rotary multifunction like confusing yeah I'm not a fan of I like everything as much as possible having their own encoder or knob or potentiometer or fader or whatever. But again, preamp quality-wise, they're all within the same realm. Courtney? Yeah, I'll defer to the audio experts here on the quality of the preamps. You know, No one mentioned the Behringer Flow 4. Now, all criticism aside, they have updated the firmware.

38:39 It now works almost properly as a production recorder, but using it as an audio interface, it has decent preamps. It has four inputs. It has XLR inputs. inputs. It does, you know, it does the, you know, can handle 48-volt phantom, and it does auto-mixing all over USB ports. So, as an audio interface, yeah. And as far as the Audient ID4s, you know, I kind of like the design of this because it blends perfectly with my

39:10 RadioShack Model 1 computer that is now in the Smithsonian. But, you know, so. So I think it's a great throwback design for the audience, the gun metal silver gray with the curved front on it. I think Courtney has entered into a financial kickback situation with Behringer. He brings it up so much now. I have to suspect that he's getting paid. Well, there's a kickback going on, but it's a kick going into my backside.

39:36 Let's go to the next question, Alexander. All right. Next up is coming in from Guy Cochran in Seattle, Washington. When live streaming an event where the audio is handled by another team, what do you ask for first and what do you carry just in case? Good question. Jeff? So I would ask for stereo line level balanced on XLRs. and I would watch the response I get from that

40:07 that might tell me a little bit about what kind of audio team I'm dealing with. I would also say pro line level and see if they understand what that is. I would ask for it to be not overly processed as far as dynamics. And what would I carry? I would carry something that I could put that into that would allow me to control levels,

40:30 maybe have a bus compressor, probably like a little SSL 6 mixer would be something handy to have just in case. Also, it would give me a four-input mixer that if their entire team goes south, at least I could pick up a couple of mic and a couple of line-level inputs and put something together. But the first thing is about reading, is this audio team competent?

40:54 So if they glaze over when you say balanced line-level, you know to be concerned. Mickey, your thoughts? With this, I think, assuming you have had a pre-production meeting aligned with this team, there shouldn't be really much that you have to bring just in case everything is planned. I'm curious with this situation, Guy, if this other team is creating a broadcast mix, if they're actually mixing for the broadcast, or if this other team is just like for the front of house mix or some other aspect of sound or audio within the production.

41:38 If they're just doing front of house, then I would just take splits of everything and bring my own full broadcast mixing console and team to handle the broadcast mix. Because what goes out in front of house is rarely what you want to go out and broadcast. Just do the broadcast mix separately. But if this is actually a team that's doing the broadcast mix and you've aligned with them,

42:04 You know, they're expecting a proper, you're expecting a proper broadcast mix to get to you. It's more of how do you interface with them. If they're just delivering analog, then bring your own cables, analog audio adapters. I would go ahead and, of course, like bring tools for troubleshooting. Basic thing, multimeter. You can solve a lot of issues or at least diagnose a lot of issues with analog audio with a simple multimeter.

42:36 You don't have to go this expensive. You can get really affordable multimeters for less than $40, $30. Cubox, a good old problem solver when you're trying to troubleshoot analog audio. There's also the Sonnet soundboard, very popular now. Now, again, this is for analog audio. It has a signal generator, and you can also test the balanced audio cables or unbalanced audio cables. I don't know why I do unbalanced.

43:09 If you need to test something like AES-3, NTI has the Minirator. It can generate AES-3 and also analog audio signals and test those in case you're doing AES-3. In case you're doing MADI, DirectOut has the Analyza, which can do both fiber and also MADI over coax. It also has a signal generator built in. If you are doing fiber, you want to bring a little fiber power measurement generator, those little fiber optic pens, as well as a little meter with you.

43:50 and of course a bunch of clickers and also cassettes to clean fiber optic ferrules at the connectors. It's more of a lot of troubleshooting on that. And if in case they're not generating a broadcast mix, bring your own console again. Also, I should add that bring a whole bunch of room mics because you want a bit of room or liveliness in your broadcast mix

44:18 that you wouldn't get from just a Fond of House mix. Yeah, I would say at a bare minimum, I would bring a little mixer, take his feed, put up two mics, stereo pair, just to add a little more. That's the bare minimum I would do. Let's go to the next question. Next up is coming in from Andy Kokendorfer in Vieira, Florida. Andy's asking, for conference room design,

44:45 can you suggest resources to learn room modes reflection measurement, transmission, etc. Thanks. Reminder to the crew here, we have entered the speed round. Ronny? I'm going to start slowly. No, so basically I put some links in the chat. You can have a look at Acoustic Insider. That guy is going through a lot of the concepts that are needed for what you're asking.

45:18 He also has this amazing YouTube channel, which is called Acoustics Insider. This guy, Jesko, is taking you along all different types of things that you need to be checking out. And yeah, Jesko is a cool guy. I think he's from Portugal initially and he's moved to Germany. And he also does consulting, but his free stuff is really, really full of knowledge. I apologize, Alexander?

45:54 Yeah, and so my suggestion is, he has a YouTube channel for this, but I would recommend you visit acousticfeels.com. I will put a link in the chat. Dennis Foley, the guy that owns that company, he's a real acoustic engineer. He's been doing it for 30 plus years. His stuff's being used all around the world. His video tutorials are incredible. Like he they're like they're very short and they're kind of taught like a class

46:20 Like if you were to take take a class on it It's and he explains it to you like assuming you know absolutely nothing about acoustic design If you go to acoustic feels calm You will see that he's got a free if you go to videos These are just links to the stuff on YouTube, but you'll see there's a free PDF If you put in your email address, you can download this free acoustic guide

46:44 which talks about everything that you're talking about, reflection modes, measurement, all that sort of stuff is covered in this. Plus, there's a great forum as well. So if you want to be part of his community, you can actually – you can sign up for it. It's free and he often will post there and provide comments and feedback. And if you're designing a room, he can also give you a free assessment as well.

47:08 And who's next? I'm dealing with – Jeff Collins next. Yeah, Jeff Collins, sure. All right. Here we go. So I'll give you a couple from the flip side, which is a lot of these panel companies have all kinds of great tools. Audi Mute, and I can put links in the chat also. So these guys, first of all, they'll just give you a free consultation,

47:32 which if you have a room or a room you've worked in is great. Take them up on the offer. And some of these have tools on the site. So Prime Acoustic has at the top here this room designer and acoustic calculator tools. So really cool stuff. You could play around with that. And they, of course, you know, you map out the room and they'll tell you what kind of stuff you need.

47:56 And then where's the other one? And then there's one more. Here we go. GIC Acoustics. So they also have a room designer right here. So three great. And a lot of the panel companies now are adding this also, either the free consultation or these calculators that they have that help you tweak and play around with what works. And let's see. And that's it.

48:20 So, hey, I hit the wrong button a while ago, and I apologize. So Andre Dole had a question. It had a lot of votes. I accidentally hit the wrong button, and I sent it back to Andre. But the question was, he's in an event, loud room, a lot of bouncy walls, guy goes up on stage, PA's pretty loud, everybody's talking, nobody's paying attention.

48:45 Can we get, I think two or three of you guys had your answers up. Courtney, what was your suggestion? My suggestion is the age-old process of holding up one of these and... That gets everyone's attention. They know the universal sound of tapping on a glass is shut up and pay attention to the moderator. So that's my suggestion. Or the groom will kiss the bride.

49:08 Mickey, your input? Yeah, of course, there's how the presenter grabs our attention. But in terms of what can be done on the technical side of things, I would rely less on a single PA that is pushing out loud and give more direct sound, more delay speakers. or if there's no delay speakers, add delay speakers so that there's more direct sound hitting the audience's ear

49:32 and less of the echoey, the fused sound that they're hearing. Speed round, Bill. I saw a teacher solve this instantly. She said to everybody in a chaotic classroom, if you can hear my voice, clap once. And she clapped once. If you can hear my voice, clap once. My camera's black? That's weird. Okay, I can see myself, so sorry about that. Anyway, then she said, if you hear my voice clap twice,

49:58 it rippled through the audience. And before she got to clap four times, the entire room was paying attention to her. She reached the first and then it spread to the second because there was a physical thing happening with the sound. It was magic. She was brilliant. And Andre, speed round. I'm sorry, Ronnie, speed round. Oh, thank you. So what you tend to do, Chris,

50:23 is sometimes when there's a specific person coming live, there is an audio file being played, and we call it just attention grabber. So we hit that volume, and these DNBs, even if they are small, they are loud. So just push out a really, really loud walk-on music or a jingle or something that grabs attention. The coolest one we've done is the sound,

50:47 the foghorn of a ship coming in to the harbor in Tromsø, So, and we just, you know, it's almost like brain damage and people were paying attention in the same second. All right, Andre, I apologize to everybody. I know I probably broke a million things by doing that question like that. Next question. All right. Next up is coming in from Guy Cochran in Seattle, Washington.

51:13 Any NAB New York news? Nope. No news. Next question. All right. All right, next up is coming in from Douglas Carmichael. With BMD announcing significant price increases, do you think that will drive users to competitors? That's a good question. What do you think, Alexander? Not necessarily. Now, price is always one factor, but not always the factor. What drives people typically to other competitors is some failure of the product,

51:45 whether it's unreliable hardware, whether it's unreliable software, or a combination of the two, maybe a lack of support or the product not getting patched when it needs to get. There's a lot of other factors. Usually price for me is at the very bottom of the list, although price can be a factor for sure. But it's usually just a failure of the company to support the product

52:05 or they've built something that I can't trust. Courtney, and if you want to answer the New York NAB question too, you clicked it right as I was moving on. No, you gave the correct answer. There is no new news. There's never any news coming out of NAB New York because they never announce anything at NAB New York. It's mainly for the local broadcasters.

52:23 All right. What about Blackmagic? Blackmagic Design is moving in a direction of 2110 support, which is a whole different tier of price and performance and reliability and usage. So I think they're going to aim more at that market in the future. And their low-end products, you know, the ATEM Minis and the ATEM Mini Pro ISOs are not – They're going to let them kind of fall by the wayside.

52:49 They'll increase the price on them because it's more expensive to make them. But I think they're going to be making the majority of their income off of that 2110 move. So we'll see. Yeah, I tell you, this Blackmagic announcement is creeping its way into our questions time and time again. Alexander, handle this last one. The next one. Douglas Carmichael is asking, or no, sorry, that was the last one.

53:11 Roland Booth in Jamaica is asking, Does the fact that the Blackmagic ATEM Mini Pro appearing on this list hint that it is still being produced and in demand? And? My answer is yes. It is still in demand. Well said. And let's go to the last question. All right. There might be one more. Next up is coming in from Douglas Carmichael. Jeff, you mentioned the SSL-6 as a utility mixer for streamed events.

53:38 events, wouldn't an Allen Heath CQ be a better choice because it's compact and has dynamics and effects in a small chassis? Jeff Francis? Yeah, I wasn't looking for the SSL to do everything, just be a beautiful, clean, analog path for my stereo program that the other team is providing to go through that I can have some adjustment and a good compressor on there.

54:03 the allen heath is going to have more inputs and so if i need to like completely replace the audio system it might be a good small chassis choice but also you know there's something about analog and real controls and no touchscreen and next question all right next up is coming in from douglas carmichael the allen heath qu series has a gain assist which can automate initial

54:30 preamp gain setup along with monitoring preamp gain during an event has anyone used such a feature? A lot of consoles now products of this type digital mixers are getting this function I think it's fine for someone that just wants to get up and running quick but an experienced engineer is never gonna use this I'm never gonna use this have I tested it yes it works as advertised

54:53 it'll listen for about 10 seconds and set your preamp so that there's enough I've had room, but I can do this so quickly without an auto gain function. It really doesn't speed anything up for me. I think for someone that doesn't know how to set up levels, yes, it probably would make it faster for them, but I would never, ever, ever use this at an event.

55:13 Yeah. Tim McCullough in the chat says, gain assist for people who don't know how to read a meter. Jeff Cohen? Exactly. Now, I'll take your word for it that it is just the initial setup because a lot of audio interfaces. I'm sure consoles also are doing real-time gain setting, basically. So in other words, they're constantly monitoring. This is, so I'll take your word for it, that's just the

55:39 initial. My audio interface does this. Again, it's, I don't know, good marketing thing. It's okay, but I mean, to Alexander's point and probably everyone else, I mean, at best, it's going to give you an analysis of what it was like at that moment but that doesn't mean that you know when you really need it everything is going to be the same so i mean you really have to again it's great for

56:02 setting up but you really have to know how to monitor levels and gain stage and all that good stuff that's you chris mickey yeah like someone who who joined the high school av team doesn't need this. Especially like for something that adjusts throughout the show and event like auto gain. That's horrific. No. Sergio Leal Alright, high school AV team. A couple of little

56:35 announcements. First of all, thanks for watching. If you want to get involved and help out with the show, go to office hours that global slash volunteer, all kinds of pathways for you to get involved and help out with the show. If you want want to help but you don't really have the time to volunteer, go to officehours.global.com. I want to remind you, Office Hours is a 501c3. Anything you donate to help support the show is tax

57:00 deductible, at least here in the States. So I want to thank all the crew that worked. You guys work tirelessly and you give of your time and we want to make sure that you all can get off to work. So thanks for giving up your morning. If we were to all have gotten on the office hours bus this morning, we would have had to travel 38,000 miles

57:26 to bring you this episode 2402. That's 61,000 of Alexander's kilometers. Apparently other people use kilometers too. And that's 302 million SM58s or bananas for scale. So thanks for listening. See you next time. One way to get the audience's attention, just start roasting the people in the front row immediately.

58:18 That will wake them up. Yeah. That's a frustrating thing that Andrew was saying, you know. Yeah, how do you fix a rude audience? I've used that teacher trick a couple of times. It actually works. The clap once if you can hear me, then clap twice if you can hear me. You know what's really disappointing, Alexander? Clap once if you can see him or his video is flat.

58:39 I do these, Alexander. I actually Patamined that, and it was lovely, and you all missed it. Sorry. Was that Chris? It's hard. I was going to say, you know, I do these immensely expensive, very time-consuming opening videos. I just possibly finished one last night. I think we'll have a few little changes. And on occasion when I'm at the event and they're playing it, it's like half the people aren't paying attention.

59:04 Everybody's still walking in. It's like so frustrating. It's like, I hate you. I hate all of you. Why are you here? Yeah. Yeah, just stay in your hotel room. I hate you. This is funny, Mickey. I was trying to bring up. Thanks.