ATK Versacom Supports Top Acts At Grammy Awards

At the 50th Annual Grammy Awards ATK Versacom, a leading provider of full service intercom rentals, deployed a wide range of Riedel intercom equipment backstage. Three Artist Digital Matrix frames, nearly 30 Artist control panels and a selection of Performer Digital Partyline gear formed the backbone of the event.
This year’s special 50th Anniversary spectacular hosted live performances from Beyoncé, Tina Turner and the Foo Fighters.
John Arenas, General Manager/Partner at Versacom, served as the lead intercom design engineer on the project. He placed one Artist 128 frame on the main floor, one Artist 64 frame at the broadcast production truck and one 32 port Artist frame at the FOH, linking them via fiber to form a single decentralized matrix. Individual intercom stations were then connected to the nearest node using standard coax cabling, thus eliminating the need for long home runs to a single mainframe. Arenas also took advantage of Riedel’s ability to bring two separate channels of intercom to any panel on a single CAT5 or coax cable. Users at these two-channel stations had auxiliary loudspeakers attached to their panels allowing different intercom sources to be heard from separate speakers.
Performer Digital Partyline equipment, including both C3 digital beltpacks and C44 System Interfaces, was used to implement ISO functionality at cameras lacking standard 4-wire intercom connections. Because the C44s connect digitally to the Artist matrix, no 2/4-wire converters were required. This greatly simplified set-up and helped make a more reliable system, in addition to offering crystal clear audio to the camera operators.
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