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Sheriton

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Everything posted by Sheriton

  1. You did change both mics to RF1 didn't you? The two modes are completely incompatible so you have to run them all in the same mode. There's no relationship between the channel numbers in one mode and the numbers in the other mode. Interesting. Although the L6 channel scan displays 14 channels, they aren't in any way related to the 14 WiFi channels. Sadly the scan is also only useful in RF2 and won't show anything meaningful about the 12 RF1 channels as they use a completely different set of frequencies. (Each RF1 channel uses four different frequencies spread throughout the 2.4G band. Each RF2 channel uses two frequencies.) WiFi is a tricky beast - so many devices are frequency agile and will jump around and/or only transmit intermittently, so unless a scan averages out data over a long period of time, it won't necessarily show useful data. I never actually bother with scans when using the L6 mics - as I routinely use 10+ of them, it's impossible to avoid any existing RF traffic so it comes down to physical placement of equipment rather than channel avoidance.
  2. Maybe something related to their power supplies? Have you tried swapping out their power adapters for known good ones? And swapping those PSUs to known good receivers? Failing that, probably a repair job.
  3. 1. I would always recommend RF1 over RF2. It's more robust; you won't notice the difference in a quiet RF environment, but once you have an audience full of mobile phones in, the extra security it offers will be very useful. It uses four frequencies to transmit duplicated data whereas RF2 only uses two so it's a lot more resilient to interference. 1.5. It's unlikely that your UHF troubles are directly related. You're not leaving a L6 transmitter right next to your UHF receivers / antennae are you? Or clustering all of your receiving antennae very close to each other? 2. There's no gain adjustment but the headroom is enormous. I've never managed to make one clip. Some mics are more sensitive than others so it's technically possible that a real screamer eating the mic might cause a problem but I doubt it. The receiver outputs are set to roughly the same level as an equivalent wired mic output so as long as you treat the mic preamp gain the same as you would with any other mic, you should be fine.
  4. Getting the receiver antennae up high is part & parcel of making sure that's not an issue. I've seen signal strength vary a bit if an actor is tightly surrounded by others but nothing show stopping. Preventing the TX antenna contacting bare skin is, I believe, a good idea although costume practicalities can get in the way of that. The L6 TX antenna is just a bare wire inside that dome so it's perhaps less of an issue than those packs that utilise an external flexible wire antenna.
  5. Bear in mind that you'll have hundreds of mobile phones between stage and receivers, all transmitting wifi and bluetooth in the same band as your L6 mics. I would put the recievers side of stage if you possibly can. They'll almost certainly work fine out front in an empty house but once the audience is in, it may be a different story and there's no way of testing them in those conditions without an audience. The lack of remote monitoring is my only significant frustration with these mics; I'm not usually working with a sound no. 2 who can keep an eye on the receivers.
  6. I regularly use up to ten V75 units for musical theatre without any problems so it's certainly possible. Your concerns about line of sight are very valid. I would never recommend running any radio receivers with built-in antennae at table top height - human bodies are very good at blocking radio signals, particularly as the frequencies get higher. If you get your antennae high up in the air with a clear "view" of the stage, they'll be much more reliable. I use the P180 paddles up above head height which are great for this but may not fit in your budget. The antennae loop through outputs on the V75 are also useful as you can daisy chain several receivers from one pair of antennae. Having a cluster of several receiving antennae very close to each other is bad practice so best avoided. RF2 mode is of no use except in very specific circumstances; as the V55 only offers 12 channels, I assume they're fixed in RF1 so that aspect should be fine.
  7. Before chucking them in the bin, I'd respectfully suggest learning to use them properly. It's quite likely that out of the box they're set to RF2 which is (in my opinion) pretty useless. If they are, change them to RF1 which you'll undoubtedly find is far more resilient.
  8. The "T" and a square on the receiver simply indicates that the corresponding transmitter is set to RF1 mode. The absence of that symbol means that it's operating in RF2 mode. I think the introduction of RF2 mode came a bit too late to be properly included in the manual, although there's usually a big sticker with some details on the outside of the bag containing the paperwork. The reason you experienced problems is that you can't mix & match modes - all mics have to be in either RF1 mode (for solid reliability) or RF2 mode (if you need to leave space for a specific WiFi channel). That fact that it was only the two RF2 mics that you experienced problems with is actually quite a good demonstration of the different levels of resilience to interference that the two modes offer.
  9. I had two V70 beltpacks repaired under warranty with that exact problem. Cast members complained that the packs were burning them...
  10. There was an issue with some early models of the beltpack that caused a partial short which would drain the batteries quickly and make the pack rather warm. That was a warranty repair as it was a known fault.
  11. Absolutely nothing wrong with doing it that way. If you want to go slightly further than the recommended number of receivers in the daisy chain, it's better to wire them this way.
  12. Sontec are the UK distributor for spare parts.
  13. As it's impossible for a mic to feed back all of the time, I suspect what Hal might have been experiencing was simply the pack generating a high pitched whine that sounded like feedback. I recall that's a fault that has occurred before. On the general topic of feedback... The best way to deal with it really depends on the scenario. It starts with the full system design, including placement of speakers and choice of appropriate speakers with polar patterns to suit the application. That stage will head off many issues before they even have the chance to arise. That said, we rarely have the luxury of using the perfect speaker in the perfect position so some electronics are often necessary. If it's a conference type scenario - one person speaking at a time - an auto mic mixer is your best friend. Most digital desks have these built in nowadays and they're also available in external hardware form and software plugin form. They just listen to which person is currently speaking and reduce the gain of all the other mics to intelligently keep the overall gain of the system below the feedback threshold. Properly set up, they work wonders. If it's theatre - musical or otherwise - the standard approach is to mix line by line. Only the person who's currently speaking has their mic open; all others on stage are lower or off. It's second nature to those of us working in theatre but for anyone from a rock 'n' roll background, it seems like very hard work. (And it is!) Careful programming of DCA assignments helps enormously. It's an essential technique to keep background noise low but with the added benefit of avoiding any risk of feedback.
  14. I see no particular advantage of either A or B over the other. It depends a bit on whether you might need to deploy a single rack separately and whether you want to use the 1/2 rack unit blanking panel to front mount the BNC connections. I always use RF1 mode - it's far more robust than RF2 and although it doesn't play nicely with wifi, I'd much rather suffer slow wifi than mic dropouts. Be wary of just randomly turning up the antennae gain - too strong an RF signal is just as bad as too weak but the symptoms are less obvious. It may not be an issue for you, but I find the built in power distro in the AD8 really useful as it makes the rack wiring much neater and removes the need for a separate mains power distro in there.
  15. A strong transmission on any frequency can be problematic as it can overload the first stage of the receiver circuitry, preventing it from picking up the wanted signal. When you plug in the (shielded) BNC cable to the remote antennae, you're preventing pickup of unwanted nearby signals; the antenna connector can no longer act as an antenna once something is plugged in to it.
  16. Putting the receivers & transmitters in the same rack is generally fine. As you say, it's the location of the antennae that's important.
  17. Wireless mic receivers and IEM transmitters can live together in the same rack but you must remote their respective antennae so that they're well separated. Anything that transmits on any frequency needs to be kept away from any receiver antennae. Some people are lucky and get away with it but I've seen more than once on here that people have complained of problems with their L6 kit that turned out to be caused by improper location of IEM transmitter antennae.
  18. Yeah I wish that too. I've seen plenty of compact cameras in which you can set the battery type too. I imagine it would only need to be a firmware update rather than any hardware changes. Having said that though, I just use the rechargeables for one show and then recharge them again so whatever the meter says is pretty irrelevant. 3-4 hours use in one go is easy but I wouldn't want to risk them for another 3-4 hours without recharging. I did at one point completely run down a set and note down what the mater said every hour but probably can't lay my hands on that data now!
  19. You could probably rig something up but you'd have to build it yourself. The mics need a polarising voltage which you can't get from a mixing desk.
  20. First things first. The Line 6 channel numbers are in no way related to WiFi channel numbers. This is a very common source of confusion. Each Line 6 "channel" uses either four (RF1) or two (RF2) different frequencies spread around the 2.4G band whereas the WiFi channel numbers refer to a reasonably logical set of frequencies evenly spaced across the band. What you've read about lower power modes in WiFi channels 12 & 13 is also irrelevant to Line 6 equipment. 5GHz is much more "line of sight" than 2.4G so wouldn't be a good choice for radio mics as they will inevitably be blocked by multiple bodies during use. I too have seen lots of comments from people struggling to use L6 systems effectively. For those who I've been able to help, it's always been user error; I suspect in many other cases it is too. Radio mics (of any type) are never plug & play - you always need a reasonable understanding of RF to get the best performance out of them. I regularly use up to 10 V75 systems together without issue, even in the presence of powerful WiFi access points. (I should note that that's in the UK; the ambient RF environment will doubtless be different in different countries.)
  21. It's not recommended practice but I've heard of people daisy chaining each antenna in the opposite direction to the other i.e. Antenna 1 -> RX1 A -> RX2 A -> RX3 A -> RX4 A -> RX5 A Antenna 2 -> RX5 B -> RX4 B -> RX3 B -> RX2 B -> RX1 B That way, you don't end up with one at the end of the chain that'll struggle. As with all things, if you go against the manufacturers' recommendation and things don't work reliably, don't complain ;)
  22. Reception problems are usually related to other RF sources too close to the receiver antennae. If you can't move any potential sources of interference* away from the location of the receivers, then yes, the paddles, located up in the air away from anything else should help. It's always good practice to locate the antennae as close to the stage area as possible rather than using them to avoid running longer cables but I know practicalities don't always allow this. *Mobiles, bluetooth devices, computers, WiFi access points, IEM transmitters, wireless comms packs, wireless video transmitters, microwave ovens etc.
  23. Can you post back your experience if you get some?
  24. Are these any good? I don't have a headset in front of me right now to measure but these ones list the maximum size capsules they'll work with. And they're cheap enough to have a punt even if they don't fit!
  25. Lots of metal will only possibly be an issue near the antennae themselves if it's blocking line of sight to the transmitters. If the antennae are remote away from the rack, then metal near the rack shouldn't make any difference. One or two red bars is normal in my experience and shouldn't cause any issues. Can you change the channel of the one that's showing five to get a better result? There may be a powerful wifi (or other) transmitter nearby that's on one of the frequencies used by that mic channel. You've got five other channels to try so one of them is bound to work better. Bluetooth devices and microwaves are also sources of interference - is anyone streaming audio over Bluetooth nearby? Any RF transmitter on any frequency near to the antennae can cause problems so it's worth really carefully looking out for anything that transmits anything. Do you have a wifi analyser app on your phone? It's always useful to see if there are any really strong signals nearby that might cause problems. If you have the option to move any wifi up to the 5GHz band, that will help no end. A proper RF spectrum analyser is more useful as that will show non-wifi transmissions as well but I guess you may not have one of those. Note that the channel scan function in the receivers is pretty useless in my opinion - it only scans for the frequency scheme used by the RF2 mode so is no help when using RF1. It also confuses many users as it shows 14 channels but they bear no relation whatsoever to the 14 wifi channels!
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