WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.000 Wait! That's my car! 00:00:04.000 --> 00:00:08.000 Wait, what am I doing? 00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:13.000 Whether it's calling my order number, my court reservation, or my license plate number, 00:00:13.000 --> 00:00:18.000 I can never understand what they're saying over the PA system. 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:24.000 Surely in a world where headphones can be wireless and we can cancel out background noise on a zoom call like magic, 00:00:24.000 --> 00:00:29.000 it can't be that hard to build a building speaker setup that's actually clear. 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:34.000 Oh, yes, it can. But we can do it, right? I mean, of course. 00:00:34.000 --> 00:00:38.000 But first we have to segue. To our sponsor. 00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:44.000 When we first checked out this space, the echo in here was absolutely mind-blowing. 00:00:44.000 --> 00:00:48.000 But as you can hear, it's quite a lot better now. 00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:51.000 We've talked before about how we've sound-treated our studio, our lab, 00:00:51.000 --> 00:00:55.000 and even our workshop to keep reverb and other unpleasantness out of our recordings. 00:00:55.000 --> 00:01:00.000 And we started with a pretty similar approach here at our Badminton Gym Slash Land Gaming Center, 00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:06.000 which, by the way, huge update! We heard back from the city we're actually going to be able to do whale land! Let's go! 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:10.000 Starting with the ceilings, we switched away from our usual cellulose-based spray on foam 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:13.000 and went with a fiberglass spray on acoustic treatment. 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:17.000 It does still add a little bit of insulation, which is always a good thing, 00:01:17.000 --> 00:01:21.000 but the most important factors were the fact that it goes on a little thinner. 00:01:21.000 --> 00:01:26.000 It's a little easier to paint, so we didn't end up with that ugly color from the lab again. 00:01:26.000 --> 00:01:33.000 And, maybe most importantly, it is less susceptible to damage and mold in the event that moisture seeps into it. 00:01:33.000 --> 00:01:40.000 This stuff is great because its porosity and uneven surface act to absorb and scatter any incoming sound waves, 00:01:40.000 --> 00:01:44.000 significantly reducing reflections between the floor and the ceiling. 00:01:44.000 --> 00:01:50.000 But, unfortunately, we couldn't spray that material all the way down the walls 00:01:50.000 --> 00:01:55.000 and expect it to hold up to flying birdies, bags, and bodies, 00:01:55.000 --> 00:02:00.000 or even just people getting bored and picking the foam off the walls while they wait for their next match. 00:02:00.000 --> 00:02:04.000 Fortunately, the solution was right under our noses, or rather our backs. 00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:09.000 We already had our eye on these gym mats to provide a sturdy but comfortable backrest 00:02:09.000 --> 00:02:13.000 for folks who are sitting on our customized, storage-friendly benches. 00:02:13.000 --> 00:02:18.000 And as it turns out, they do a pretty solid job of attenuating many of the problem frequencies 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:21.000 that like to bounce around forever in a space like this. 00:02:21.000 --> 00:02:24.000 So, two birdies, one stone, and all of that. 00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:28.000 The multi-layer sprung floor and foam and vinyl topper that we installed 00:02:28.000 --> 00:02:32.000 also contribute to echo reduction, but not as much as the other factors. 00:02:32.000 --> 00:02:36.000 To demonstrate how effective this ended up being, instead of using my lab microphone, 00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:40.000 we're going to switch over to the iPhone 16 Plus that Jordan's holding over there. 00:02:40.000 --> 00:02:45.000 Back when we started, you wouldn't have been able to make out a bloody word that I was saying from back here. 00:02:45.000 --> 00:02:50.000 But now, it's downright usable. Not great, but usable. 00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:55.000 We're starting off in a much better place, but before we can start blasting amplified sound 00:02:55.000 --> 00:02:58.000 into our big concrete cavern, we need to make some careful considerations 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:04.000 to make sure that every visitor can hear about the limited-time offer on left-handed badminton rackets 00:03:04.000 --> 00:03:08.000 while also keeping the system intuitive and customizable for staff. 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:13.000 Now, there's a lot of options out there, but for a variety of reasons, 00:03:13.000 --> 00:03:17.000 a lot of them won't work for us. For starters, there's the traditional PA. 00:03:17.000 --> 00:03:20.000 These are affordable, super easy to set up. 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:24.000 I mean, all you need is a hammer microphone, a cable, a mixer, 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:28.000 and it doesn't need to be a fancy one like this, and a powered speaker. 00:03:28.000 --> 00:03:35.000 And boom, you're off to the races. In fact, it's pretty intelligible all the way from this end of the facility to the other. 00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:40.000 The only problem is, in order to make it so that Jordan can hear what Dan's saying, 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:44.000 go ahead, Dan. Hey, Jordan, how you doing? 00:03:44.000 --> 00:03:47.000 You're basically blasting my ears off. 00:03:47.000 --> 00:03:50.000 It's not balanced. Can you hear this okay, Jordan? 00:03:50.000 --> 00:03:54.000 Yes. Yes, we can hear you. I mean, I think Jordan can barely hear this. 00:03:54.000 --> 00:04:01.000 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you, Dan. Obviously, we could relocate this entire setup pretty easily for better balance, 00:04:01.000 --> 00:04:05.000 or we could wire up the entire facility with audio cable 00:04:05.000 --> 00:04:10.000 and have it all come back to a central location, but that's going to cost us some flexibility, 00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:13.000 because the best place for, let's say, a tournament draw desk 00:04:13.000 --> 00:04:18.000 or for a land knock are not necessarily going to be the same places. 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:22.000 We needed more flexibility. Another option was a constant voltage system. 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:26.000 They're commonly 70 volts in North America and 100 volts in Europe, 00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:32.000 but the voltage isn't important. What's important is you have a bunch of in-ceiling speakers that'll look kind of like this 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:36.000 and they'll run background music, the occasional announcement, that sort of thing. 00:04:36.000 --> 00:04:41.000 This is typically what you'll find in doctor's offices, classrooms, restaurants, and the like. 00:04:41.000 --> 00:04:45.000 These systems can cover long distances with very thin, inexpensive wire, 00:04:45.000 --> 00:04:50.000 thanks to their high voltage, but are not known to have great sound quality, 00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:54.000 certainly not worthy of crab rave. And besides, what is this, the Stone Age? 00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:59.000 Why wouldn't we use Ethernet? With Ethernet, we can have high-fidelity audio. 00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:02.000 We don't have to run snakes and low-voltage audio cables. 00:05:02.000 --> 00:05:05.000 We can just use standard network cabling, 00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:08.000 and that means we can put speakers all over the place, 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:12.000 keeping each individual speaker relatively quiet, improving clarity. 00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:15.000 Also, theoretically, because it's Ethernet, 00:05:15.000 --> 00:05:18.000 we can use switching to kind of tap into it from anywhere 00:05:18.000 --> 00:05:21.000 and have modularity and configurability, 00:05:21.000 --> 00:05:25.000 so you can address one side of the building, the other side of the building, or the whole freaking building. 00:05:25.000 --> 00:05:31.000 There's only one small problem. Everyone and their dog has their own platform and protocols 00:05:31.000 --> 00:05:34.000 that are various degrees of proprietary. 00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:37.000 What we thought, until then, found Dante, 00:05:37.000 --> 00:05:41.000 which is built on previous AOE and AOIP tech. 00:05:41.000 --> 00:05:44.000 Some of the key benefits of Dante are it's an uncompressed high-quality audio. 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:47.000 It's easy to install and expand. It scales really well. 00:05:47.000 --> 00:05:51.000 It's got wide manufacturer support. There's about 350 companies that are licensed right now, 00:05:51.000 --> 00:05:54.000 and typically it's only supported by higher-end audio gear. 00:05:54.000 --> 00:05:58.000 Ah, I knew there was going to be a catch. Yeah, you pay the Dante tax. 00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:01.000 But Dante Controller lets you configure the routing, 00:06:01.000 --> 00:06:04.000 so you wanted modularity and ease of use. 00:06:04.000 --> 00:06:10.000 Yeah, ease of use was pretty big. We want it to be something that any random staffer can use. 00:06:10.000 --> 00:06:13.000 I don't want to be here when there's a little problem 00:06:13.000 --> 00:06:17.000 or to change the levels or anything like that. Especially because it could be at a LAN at three in the morning. 00:06:17.000 --> 00:06:21.000 Exactly. Can we configure it for like one-button presets? 00:06:21.000 --> 00:06:24.000 I'll show you what I've done. Good, Lord, I thought you said this was simple. 00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:29.000 We ended up going with Q-Sys mostly because of the end of it is simple, 00:06:29.000 --> 00:06:32.000 but setting it up in the configuration is what makes it complicated. 00:06:32.000 --> 00:06:35.000 I've always said you need complexity to make things simple. 00:06:35.000 --> 00:06:39.000 To get the one-button and to get it easy for staff and to get it configurable, 00:06:39.000 --> 00:06:44.000 we have to have this mess of nodes and flows and things like that, 00:06:44.000 --> 00:06:49.000 especially as we've got loads of endpoints. We have about 30 speakers, we have wireless microphones, 00:06:49.000 --> 00:06:52.000 and maybe we do want to do a traditional PA when we do LANs. 00:06:52.000 --> 00:06:55.000 Cool, but theoretically it works? 00:06:55.000 --> 00:07:01.000 It does. It's in production right now. They've been using it for the afternoon badminton sessions. 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:05.000 Okay. Oh, wow. So it's working then? 00:07:05.000 --> 00:07:08.000 Yes. Both mics work at the same time. 00:07:08.000 --> 00:07:13.000 Maybe a little loud here. Wow, that's cool. And I've made it so that the volume of the mics is adjustable. 00:07:13.000 --> 00:07:16.000 So it balances the level. So it keeps everything consistent. 00:07:16.000 --> 00:07:20.000 So Linus can scream and nervous LAN participants who have just won something 00:07:20.000 --> 00:07:24.000 and get to talk to their idol. It's all a very consistent level. 00:07:24.000 --> 00:07:27.000 Show me how we can cordon off a section and turn it off. 00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:34.000 Right here I've got these volume ramps. And so by toggling off, you know, the courts or the bathrooms or something like that, 00:07:34.000 --> 00:07:39.000 it'll take a section of speakers and dim them down to nothing or bring them back up. 00:07:39.000 --> 00:07:42.000 And the other thing is I didn't want a traditional mute button 00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:45.000 because say you're playing music in the background, you unmute it, 00:07:45.000 --> 00:07:49.000 the whole courts get blasted. So it's even got a ramp uptime as well. 00:07:49.000 --> 00:07:52.000 So when you unmute it, it comes up nice and softly and slowly 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:55.000 and then ramps up to where it needs to be. It's great. 00:07:55.000 --> 00:08:00.000 Okay. In the long term, could we have like a little, I don't know, a stream deck or something 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:03.000 where you could like toggle on different sections of the building? 00:08:03.000 --> 00:08:07.000 Exactly. Right now I have it set for the courts to be toggleable 00:08:07.000 --> 00:08:10.000 and we could eventually do that for any zone that we want. 00:08:10.000 --> 00:08:13.000 Jim, the lounge upstairs, everything like that. 00:08:13.000 --> 00:08:16.000 Eventually what we'll have is a little iPad that they can carry around 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:20.000 and pick what zones they want or if they want to switch over to LAN mode, 00:08:20.000 --> 00:08:23.000 it'll kind of be a button and that'll adjust a whole bunch of things. 00:08:23.000 --> 00:08:26.000 But as it stands right now, I just have a very basic interface. 00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:30.000 Oh yeah, basic. Yeah, no, this is not like the user interface. 00:08:30.000 --> 00:08:34.000 This is the user interface that I've made right now. 00:08:34.000 --> 00:08:38.000 I didn't spend a lot of time on it. And as you can see, it's only like three buttons. 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:41.000 So we can toggle if the court is enabled. 00:08:41.000 --> 00:08:44.000 And then we can also limit the volume of the background music. 00:08:44.000 --> 00:08:47.000 When you're playing badminton and things like that, it can be a nice background level. 00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:50.000 And then we have background music death, 00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:53.000 which basically takes the entire courts up to their maximum volume 00:08:53.000 --> 00:08:56.000 that I think is a pretty damn loud. 00:08:56.000 --> 00:08:59.000 Can we hear it? Sure, let's do it. You want some crab rave? 00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:02.000 Yeah, let's do it. While Dan's getting them going, now's as good a time as any 00:09:02.000 --> 00:09:07.000 to show you the speakers that we ended up using. They're from SoundTube and they are power over Ethernet, 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:10.000 meaning that all we need to have is a PoE switch. 00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:15.000 And boom, you can have an amplified speaker anywhere you can run an Ethernet cable. 00:09:15.000 --> 00:09:19.000 So on this side of the court, we've actually got, I think it's nine of them. 00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:24.000 Go ahead, Dan. Realistically, we'd love to add a little bit more acoustic dampening 00:09:24.000 --> 00:09:29.000 to the ends of the building. And there are still some things that Dan can tune within the software 00:09:29.000 --> 00:09:33.000 to help compensate for the echoeyness of the space. 00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:40.000 But you can see as I move around, this is actually pretty usable. 00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:42.000 Crank it up, Dan. Let's go. 00:09:46.000 --> 00:09:51.000 You can definitely tell when you're closer to one of the speakers. 00:09:51.000 --> 00:09:56.000 But there's so many that you're pretty much always close to one. 00:09:56.000 --> 00:10:01.000 Another thing that I've implemented as well is automatic ducking. 00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:04.000 So I can talk into the microphone and do my announcements, 00:10:04.000 --> 00:10:06.000 and then when I stop... 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:12.000 Hey! Now that's pretty cool. 00:10:12.000 --> 00:10:16.000 It's also time-bound as well, so it's not down and up and down and up. 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:23.000 Freaking loud. Like, what the heck? 00:10:23.000 --> 00:10:26.000 To kind of prevent it from getting super loud. Yeah. 00:10:26.000 --> 00:10:30.000 You know, I hook up my phone. I set it to 100% volume. 00:10:30.000 --> 00:10:33.000 It doesn't destroy the whole speakers and everything like that. 00:10:33.000 --> 00:10:36.000 I've got a leveling system for the phone input as well. 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:39.000 So if you're playing it super quiet out in the lobby, 00:10:39.000 --> 00:10:43.000 it's all going to be a consistent volume. Wait, we can just like connect our phone to it? 00:10:43.000 --> 00:10:47.000 I have it Bluetooth to my laptop right now. The adapter I have is Bluetooth. 00:10:47.000 --> 00:10:50.000 These are sure beta-58 wireless mics, 00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:57.000 and the thing is that they're... the receiver's stuffed under a door in the kind of court area right at the front. 00:10:57.000 --> 00:11:01.000 They reach all the way to the back on both courts, and you don't have to think about it. 00:11:01.000 --> 00:11:04.000 Then when we come in to do LANs, we can be on site, 00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:08.000 we can do more weird things. This is just the most basic setup. 00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:12.000 Super easy to do. Thanks Q-Sys, I guess. 00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:16.000 Oh, did they hook us up with software? No, it's just... 00:11:16.000 --> 00:11:20.000 No, it's perpetual licenses. We did have to pay for a whole bunch of licenses, 00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:26.000 like a Dante channel upgrade. Right now, I think we have 16 transmit flows. 00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:29.000 So I have 16 zones, including both bathrooms, 00:11:29.000 --> 00:11:33.000 and each side of the speakers are on different zones. 00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:37.000 We've got four along the left, four along the right, four for the hanging speakers, 00:11:37.000 --> 00:11:42.000 and then court concession in both bathrooms. So is this the kind of installation that Dante is for? 00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:45.000 Well, typically, you use Dante to bring audio back and forth 00:11:45.000 --> 00:11:48.000 between the stage, the mixer, position, and speakers, 00:11:48.000 --> 00:11:52.000 but in this setup, we're doing things a little bit different. There's no mixer at all. 00:11:52.000 --> 00:11:57.000 Right, because we're using Q-Sys. Exactly. So Q-Sys is a network-manageable audio-video and control program. 00:11:57.000 --> 00:12:01.000 Right, so we just don't need a mixer. Exactly. It does it all in the box. 00:12:01.000 --> 00:12:05.000 Tell me this, though. Does Dante have any special requirements from your network equipment? 00:12:05.000 --> 00:12:08.000 Like, can I just plug it into anything? Yeah, not from the switching side. 00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:12.000 It does have extremely specific, like, transmit protocols 00:12:12.000 --> 00:12:16.000 that need to be followed, often requiring an entire separate network to be run 00:12:16.000 --> 00:12:19.000 so that it doesn't go over your normal local traffic. 00:12:19.000 --> 00:12:23.000 Is it a latency issue? Latency issue and a traffic issue as well. 00:12:23.000 --> 00:12:26.000 You need very specific packet switching. Okay, but our Unify stuff does it? 00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:29.000 It does now, up until extremely recently, 00:12:29.000 --> 00:12:34.000 Unify was one of the only companies that you could not use Dante with. 00:12:34.000 --> 00:12:38.000 Oh, and yet? And yet. They have released some Alpha version right now 00:12:38.000 --> 00:12:41.000 which supports Q-Sys, Dante, Crestron, 00:12:41.000 --> 00:12:46.000 all of those sort of switching protocols. And you can actually see our RGB switches here. 00:12:46.000 --> 00:12:50.000 The ones in this greeny yellow are a specific Dante VLAN that we have set up. 00:12:50.000 --> 00:12:54.000 RGB network switches. Who knew it would actually be very practical? 00:12:54.000 --> 00:12:58.000 It's actually quite useful. So this is a completely separate VLAN 00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:01.000 which basically carries all of our audio traffic. 00:13:01.000 --> 00:13:04.000 Theoretically, all we need to do to plug one of these guys in 00:13:04.000 --> 00:13:08.000 is just slap it in here to any PoE port 00:13:08.000 --> 00:13:12.000 and then it'll activate and if it's on the right VLAN 00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:15.000 then now you've got two analog inputs. 00:13:15.000 --> 00:13:19.000 Yep, there you go. Wow. So that's actually a camera. 00:13:19.000 --> 00:13:23.000 So it's not gonna work. I am watching you. 00:13:23.000 --> 00:13:27.000 Stop it. These dongles. I couldn't help noticing we have a lot of them we're not using right now. 00:13:27.000 --> 00:13:30.000 What is the plan for these? These are all for the LAN eventually. 00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:33.000 For example, this is one that we're using downstairs for the microphone. 00:13:33.000 --> 00:13:37.000 So this is a stereo XLR in. This one here is a stereo XLR out. 00:13:37.000 --> 00:13:40.000 So we could have a traditional backline on a stage or something like that 00:13:40.000 --> 00:13:44.000 and then feed the entire system directly into some big speakers. 00:13:44.000 --> 00:13:47.000 The nice thing about Dante in particular in these 00:13:47.000 --> 00:13:50.000 is I can preconfigure them in whatever port I want 00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:54.000 and then all I do is I plug them into the network and they self-assemble. 00:13:54.000 --> 00:13:57.000 That is so cool. They're all addressed and they have controls on them too. 00:13:57.000 --> 00:14:01.000 So when Chase is just rolling out LAN equipment 00:14:01.000 --> 00:14:04.000 all he needs to know is this goes there 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:07.000 and boom, it's ready to go. Exactly. 00:14:07.000 --> 00:14:10.000 Super sick. This one here is USB-C. 00:14:10.000 --> 00:14:13.000 Oh, so it's blue. It goes in and out. It's two-way communication. 00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:16.000 So this is, I believe, a dual stereo pair. 00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:20.000 The one that we have downstairs is Bluetooth and there's a whole bunch of different ins and outs 00:14:20.000 --> 00:14:24.000 because Dante is kind of just a standard 00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:27.000 and then companies can put it in whatever they want. 00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:30.000 It's pretty neat. How much did it cost? 00:14:30.000 --> 00:14:33.000 So this entire setup with all of these adapters 00:14:33.000 --> 00:14:36.000 and about 30 speakers was about 20 grand, I believe. 00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:41.000 That is great. Guys, you have no idea the kinds of quotes 00:14:41.000 --> 00:14:46.000 that I got from like audio contractors and obviously we spent more than $20,000 total 00:14:46.000 --> 00:14:49.000 when we consider the time that our infrastructure team 00:14:49.000 --> 00:14:52.000 and Dan spent implementing this. 00:14:52.000 --> 00:14:55.000 I think we're still out ahead, though. Absolutely. 00:14:55.000 --> 00:14:59.000 And all we had to do was run Ethernet cable and the adaptability pays for itself. 00:14:59.000 --> 00:15:02.000 Yeah. It can be changed anytime we want. 00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:05.000 It can be in any port in this building. That is so cool. 00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:10.000 You just need PoE. Like we could add a PA to the office up here. 00:15:10.000 --> 00:15:14.000 All we'd have to do is make sure that that port is running to a PoE switch and then boom. 00:15:14.000 --> 00:15:17.000 And this one is. So now we have a microphone in Jim's office. 00:15:18.000 --> 00:15:21.000 It's as easy as that. It's so cool. I know. 00:15:21.000 --> 00:15:24.000 I mean, we may have to switch a VLAN around, but that's mostly for security, right? 00:15:26.000 --> 00:15:29.000 That's really cool. Like this cool segue to our sponsor. 00:15:29.000 --> 00:15:32.000 If you guys enjoyed this video, why not check out the last time 00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:37.000 that Dan and the team and I were frantically working on this place. 00:15:37.000 --> 00:15:41.000 But hey, it's almost done, right? It feels so together, right? 00:15:41.000 --> 00:15:45.000 Like look at this. We got like access control and all the doors and everything. 00:15:45.000 --> 00:15:48.000 Does that work yet? Yes. Everything's in.