“Live From Sculler’s,” a live music program airing on Boston’s WGBH(FM), is using a LightViper fiber optical snake system from FiberPlex Technologies in its remote broadcasts from the club.
Sam Kopper, executive producer of the program and live sound veteran, said, “Fiber that’s not a whole lot bigger than a few strands of spaghetti is a beautiful thing.” He compares it to the 40-pair, 500-pound copper snakes he used to wrestle at each event.
Kopper, who also runs LocoMote Media, uses the LightViper to run the sound from the stagebox in the club to a Yamaha M7CL digital mixer in is mobile studio aboard the Gypsy Dancer, a converted school bus. From there it goes to WGBH via a Tieline Bridge-IT IP codec.
He notes in a release that besides removing weight and bulkiness, fiber snakes eliminate grounding issues that come with copper, especially long copper runs that are often strung across streets and through an electronics rabbit warren, adding buzzes, hisses and crackles along the way. He said, “Now in the world of fiber optics and digital signals being carried by light instead of copper electricity, you have almost a hundred percent transparency.”
Kopper is also optimistic on bringing live music back to radio or porting it to the Internet. “I’m on a bandwagon to bring it back.”
