Stagedge Clears up the Noise by Turning to Riedel to IMPROVE AUDIO QUALITY
SOLUTION BRIEF
Creating superb audience experiences starts with strong partner relationships. A few weeks ago, we announced our latest technology partnership with Riedel Communications, a leading provider of live production tools in the media, sports, and entertainment industries.
This partnership is a true better-together story and exemplifies a collaboration that proves commitment to delivering cutting-edge technology to a broader audience. Together, we are setting new standards for innovation through this partnership.
Initially, when we had our first discovery call to talk about how we would promote this partnership we brought in two SME’s (Subject Matter Experts) from Stagedge to discuss the challenges they faced before implementing Riedel into our tech stack. We also talked about the products they used to address and solve those challenges. And, ultimately, what the benefits have been (thus far) since the implementation.
Last week, we tapped into SME, Corey Yacco, Project Manager, and discovered how Stagedge was able to Alleviate the "Spaghetti" and Improve the Distribution and Quality of Audio/Video Signals Around the Event Space.
This week we hear from Sr. Project Manager/Audio Dept. Head, Steven (Shep) Shepard.
CHALLENGE:
Headquartered in Tewksbury, MA, Stagedge is one of Boston's premier full-service production companies dedicated to conceiving, creating, and executing immersive brand experiences through live, virtual, and hybrid events for enterprises around the world. As a company at the forefront of innovation that prides itself on leveraging industry-leading technology and techniques, dealing with inherently noisy, older communication systems is not part of its business model. “Signal cables were prone to induced current noise from power cables, headphone amplifiers were noisy and had low fidelity, cross talk was common, and speech clarity was affected,” says Steven (Shep) Shepard, Audio Department Head at Stagedge. “Furthermore, listeners tended to listen at louder levels to understand what was being said because the higher frequencies that weren’t reproduced are key in understanding what’s being said especially in certain languages. This caused fatigue and in some cases hearing damage.”
As a company at the forefront of innovation that prides itself on leveraging industry-leading technology and techniques, dealing with inherently noisy, older communication systems is not part of its business model.
“In our industry, time is money and too much time (and resources) was being wasted trying to clear up cable noise,” emphasized Shepard. “Many of the techniques used to remove noise in analog com systems don’t work because of system power embedded in the signal. Users had difficulty hearing what was being said, often missing cues.” Because of this problem, users would complain of fatigue and in some cases hearing loss/damage. In addition, audio engineers were frequently having to remove their headsets to determine if the noise was in their mix or in the com. As a result, users would tend to wear as little com as possible.
SOLUTION:
Cue Riedel! “As a forward-thinking company that takes great pride in implementing only the best technology, we made the switch to Riedel communication systems,” enthusiastically noted Shepard. “This included the Performer Series packs, desktop and rack-mounted panels, Bolero packs, and Riedel headsets.” For Stagedge, they quickly discovered that the Riedel systems are inherently much quieter because of digital signals and higher fidelity audio amplifiers. “Their headsets are better at reproducing full-range speech, so commands are heard better at lower volumes,” mentioned Shepard.
As a forward-thinking company that takes pride in implementing only the best technology, we switched to Riedel communication systems.
RESULT:
Hands down, users are impressed with how quiet the systems are. Audio engineers find huge benefits from the lack of system noise while mixing. “Users are able to understand even the quietest spoken commands much better than with analog systems,” continued Shepard. “The fuller bandwidth amplifiers allow greatly improved speech understanding. Users tend to wear com more often now and report that it is so quiet and comfortable they forget they are wearing it.”
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Check out this video of what a typical in-house training day on the Riedel products looks like.
Read the full technology partnership press release on Business Wire
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Stagedge: Creating Immersive Experiences for nearly 50 years is proud to be one of Boston's leading corporate event production companies dedicated to conceiving, creating, and executing immersive brand experiences through live, virtual & hybrid events, domestically, and worldwide.