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Dave Matthews Band Rocks Red Rocks Katrina Benefit Concert With New LightViper 4832 Digital Audio Snakes

– LightViper™ 4832 fiber optic digital “audio snakes” rushed to benefit concert for victims of Hurricane Katrina

AES Convention, October 7-10, 2005 — FiberPlex, Inc., the leading fiber optic supplier to the professional audio industry, announced that two of their new LightViper™ VIS-4832 bi-directional fiber-optic AES-3 digital audio snake systems (64 audio channels) were shipped overnight and immediately deployed by television production company, HDReady, for an eleventh-hour Dave Matthews Band benefit concert taping at the world-famous Red Rocks Amphitheater near Denver, Colorado.

Three days of regularly scheduled concerts at the scenic venue were to have wrapped-up a long summer’s touring schedule by the popular college band, but as news of the Gulf Coast disaster grew more desperate, an additional and consecutive performance day (Monday, September 12th) was added as a fundraiser for the victims of America’s worst natural disaster. Appropriately, Dave Matthews arranged to have New Orleans music icons, the Neville Brothers, flown-in for the show. The sold-out benefit concert netted $1.3 million - before final sales figures for drinks, food and merchandise were tabulated. Spokespersons for the event estimated that the final figure would easily top $1.5 million. Everyone involved in the last-minute event - from the Matthews band, the guest artists and all the production crews - to 220 food service employees, ushers, fire and police - donated their services.

St. Charles, Illinois-based independent High-Definition Television production group, HDReady, acquired concert footage over the entire four-day run for a Thanksgiving Day (November 24, 2005) PBS broadcast. The High-definition TV productions sister company, appropriately named “HDRoadie,” is a 48 foot mobile production facility on wheels for entertainment recording and offers up to ten (10) state-of-the-art SONY F-900 HD cameras as well as cutting-edge digital audio recording capability with Evertz (ECAS) fiber optic provisions for all acquisition signals, video and audio.

From the monitor mix position on the Matthews Red Rocks stage, sixty-four (64) channels of Yamaha AD8HR digital mic pre-amps were fed into two (2) LightViper VIS-4832 digital snake heads (32 x 8 each). The digital signals were routed to the HDRoadie remote truck located 1,200 feet away from the stage with four (4) core, tactical grade fiber optic cable. At the truck, the stage audio was reprocessed with two (2) LightViper VIM-1832 mixer boxes and subsequently routed into two Yamaha DM2000 digital consoles equipped with Yamaha’s MY16AE digital interface cards. These mixing consoles simultaneously fed control data into the same fiber optic cable run and back up to the stage. These control signals were then daisy-chained across all the AD8HR digital mic preamplifiers, thereby providing remote control from the digital console in the HDRoadie’s audio recording booth.

A primary application for the LightViper VIS-4832 digital snake is the transmission of signals from the output of existing high-quality microphone preamps directly to the inputs of a digital console. This eliminates the need to convert signals from the digital domain into an analog signal, send these converted signals through a conventional copper snake, and then, subsequently reconvert them from the analog domain back into a digital one at the mixing console.

HDReady Co-owner and Chief Operating Officer, Jim Wolande, was succinct about his first use of the new LightViper digital audio systems on the rigorous Dave Matthews Band gig:

“The LightViper performed flawlessly. All our cameras are on fiber so why not all the audio? It takes only a fraction of the normal time allotted to deploy the fiber audio runs. To me, that’s as significant as the performance benefits. I can’t imagine doing these large, high-profile assignments any other way now. I’m very happy with the LightViper technology.”

Audio Engineer (A2) for HDReady, Mike Czasczwicz, added some details and more praise:

“One of the big advantages of the LightViper is the complete elimination of ground loops. With fiber optic signal routing, the sound is completely isolated from hum, crackles and pops too. This gig’s sound was extremely clean and quiet.

“And, I totally agree with Jim on the labor savings. Another huge advantage to using the “Viper” system is how easy and fast it was to run 1,200 feet of multi-channel cable up to the stage. I can’t begin to tell you how good that is when you’re huffing and puffing at 6,000 feet!”

Editor's. Notes:

Venue Info

The Red Rocks Amphitheater has featured outdoor concerts since 1911. The venue sits at approximately 6,000 feet elevation and officially holds 9,000. “Major Artist” concerts typically draw a larger crowd however; people choose precarious seats on the high, jutting rocks just outside the seating area. A Red Rocks concert ticket isn’t $6.60 these days - as was a general admission ticket’s cost in 1964 when the Beatles played to a “packed house” on their first tour of the U.S.

LightViper Technical info

LightViper’s new VIS-4832 digital snake system is an AES3 digital audio alternative for the company’s highly-acclaimed VIS-1832 Fiber Optic 32 x 8 Analog Snake Head and consists of two (2) 1U electronic rack mount units and the requisite fiber optic cable. The VIS-4832 stage “head” will accept sixteen (16) AES3 digital inputs (32 audio channels). The system’s returns consist of four (4) AES3 digital outputs (eight channels) and eight (8) simultaneous analog line level outputs. Two (2) additional Fiber Split outputs are available for monitoring. A dual fiber optic “tactical grade” cable connects the system’s two components to provide a “pure digital signal transmission path” of up to thirty-two (32) channels of remote microphone preamplifiers. This system can be used in the reverse to operate as a drive snake. By simultaneous use of the system’s digital and analog outputs, it can transport digital mix busses to a digital, analog, or a mixed drive rack.

The digital snake system may also be deployed as a “drive rack snake.” Digital outputs of a mixing console may be sent directly through a LightViper fiber optic cable to the digital inputs of power amplifiers; this topology maintains an all-digital signal path throughout the entire audio signal chain. In addition, the digital snake system will simultaneously route the console’s digital output to both high-end power amps with digital inputs and to conventional monitor amps with analog inputs.

NOTE: LightViper™ is a registered trademark of FiberPlex, Inc. Other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.

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