Firehouse Productions, a provider of live sound support for concerts and live award shows, has selected an integrated solution of Riedel's Artist digital intercom matrix and new Performer Digital Party Line for several of its recent projects.
Among the recent projects was the MTV Video Music Awards, where the Red Hook, N.Y.-based production company was faced with the unique challenge of coordinating setup for a pre-show performance on the roof of 30 Rockefeller Center in New York City--and with no roof access to analog or copper wires. Firehouse Productions resolved the issue by using Riedel's Artist 64 and DPL to provide intercom communications during the show.
"The building had fiber optics installed from the ground floor up to the roof, so we just plugged in at the ground floor and set up the entire system," said Mark Dittmar, vice president/system design and engineering at Firehouse. "With the Riedel system, there are no distance limitations; it sounds as good 10 feet away as it sounds 4,000 feet away."
The Artist platform is a digital matrix design for intercoms as well as the distribution of analog and digital audio and TCP/IP data signals. The Artist series provides three mainframe sizes with a maximum number of 32, 64 and 128 ports per frame. The system is scalable from 8x8 to 1024x1024 ports, and the distance between nodes is from 1,650 feet to 12 miles. Riedel's Performer digital party line series is an integrated digital matrix and party line intercom. It is completely digital, however, it still maintains features found in a traditional analog party line system, including daisy chaining.
Firehouse also used Riedel systems for the MTV Latin Video Music Awards in Mexico City and at the Latin Grammy Awards.
