STEPHENVILLE, TEXAS — I’ve worked in the broadcast industry for more than 24 years for various groups of stations here in Texas. Twelve years under 377 Broadcasting, 11 years under Cherry Creek Radio and now a year under VilleCom LLC. I also do quite a bit of contract engineering work for other groups around my area.
In the summer of 2016, I inherited a console installation project for Tarleton State University in Stephenville. A former engineer had specified the system, which included four Logitek JetStream Mini units, two Logitek Mosaic-12 consoles and one Logitek Pilot-6 console. After Tarleton bought the system, it sat in a closet for almost a year.
This was the first time I have installed Logitek or had the experience of installing a console that had RJ-45 inputs for all of the audio cards. I’m used to Autogram boards, so this was the first installation I have done without picking up a soldering iron! I didn’t even have to heat it up. I was all ready to solder a bunch of connections, and punch down cables on 66 blocks, and found out we didn’t need them at all. We ordered a bunch of pre-connectorized Cat-5 cable adapters, so this installation was basically “plug and go.”
Our installation covered two full air studios for KTRL(FM) and KXTR(LP) and a shared production room. The Mosaics went into the air studios and the Pilot was installed in the production room. When I started the physical wiring, I realized that we didn’t need any of the old cabling, so the first thing we did was pull it all out and clean up the studios. All of the old 66 blocks and cables filled half a dumpster!
With the dongle adapters and Cat-5 cables, everything went together in a hurry and aesthetically, it looks beautiful. Including the tear-out and rebuild, it only took me about 2-1/2 days per on-air studio and only a few hours for the production room to get everything done.
After I finished all of the wiring, John Davis, Logitek’s customer support manager, came in over the internet and helped me configure everything. In setting things up, I realized that since the equipment had been in a closet for a year or more, we’d missed out on some software upgrades. I ended up calling Logitek on a weekend; they logged into my system and did all of the upgrades on the spot. I also learned a great deal about just what these consoles will do.
I told Logitek what I wanted the boards to do; they suggested things I wasn’t aware were possible. After our collaboration we had all kinds of new features, a lot more than we’d expected.
It’s cool that the Logitek system has the profanity delay built in; that saves a couple thousand dollars right there. We also have onboard mic processors, so we were able to remove the old outboard processors and free up some rack space. We went from a 5-foot rack to a 3.5-foot unit. All of the features we needed were right in the Logitek system.
With the ease of installation and the great initial and continued customer support I have received from Logitek, they have definitely earned another customer with me. These were the easiest consoles I’ve had the pleasure of installing. If you haven’t considered a networked console system, it’s time to consider moving into the future and Logitek is on the top of their game in this category.
For information, contact Frank Grundstein at Logitek Electronic Systems in Texas at (713) 664-4470 or visit www.logitekaudio.com.
