# Telex headset modifications



## CanYouHearMeNow (Feb 9, 2011)

This is probably extremely frowned upon... BUT I tend to be the Head Sound Engineer at most events that I work. With that job, it is extremely difficult to judge how well you are doing if you have a headset on talking to the rest of the crew. This means that I usually am out of communication with the rest of the crew and when someone needs to tell me something, the person on the light board has to get my attention and I have to dig around to get the Telex headset on.

My question would be if there would be ANY way that I could utilize a channel on my board (Midas Venice 320) so that I can have my monitoring headphones on and do the following:

•Be able to hear what I am mixing through the headphones
•Be able to have the communication come through on one channel but have that only come through my headphones when I turn the fader up
•Be able to use a talkback Mic to communicate through the intercom system

If there is any way to do this I would be extremely interested OR if there is any other way that a sound engineer can more easily communicate with the rest of the crew I would be willing to try that too.

Thanks everybody for your help!


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## rochem (Feb 9, 2011)

Actually, you have it all wrong. Most sound engineers would applaud the way you're doing it, as mixing a show while on comms is generally frowned upon much more than what you're doing. So bravo!

I don't know specifically how to answer your question, but from what I've seen working and seeing tours come through, the most common way to get around this is to have a large flasher (Clear-Com: Partyline, Digital Matrix, IP and Wireless Intercoms) somewhere nearby, and a push-to-talk handset (Clear-Com: Partyline, Digital Matrix, IP and Wireless Intercoms) that you can pick up to quickly communicate. To get your attention, the SM can just use the Call feature to flash the light, then you can pick up the handset and quickly talk. It even comes with a wall hanger so you can hang up the phone for easy access.


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## CanYouHearMeNow (Feb 9, 2011)

Thats actually not to bad! I have seen pro theatre shows and concerts where they had a phone nearby and was always somewhat curious about it. I would still be someone interested in connecting it with the mixer though. Like most high school theatres probably are, come show time the booth is a mess of mic lines everywhere for all the mics. (My booth could've been designed slightly larger to accomodate everyone who thinks they belong in the booth)

I will look into all that, but an ideal system for me would be to have nothing additional in my way. I know there would be a risk running it through the board where I could accidentally communicate through to the house, but I feel confident that I could have enough hoops to jump through that I wouldn't do that.

And thanks for the links! You made it much easier to find it all!


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## Chris15 (Feb 9, 2011)

Yes it is possible to do what you want. But what you will need to be able to execute that will vary depending on exactly what comms system you have. Are you able to enlighten us?


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## CanYouHearMeNow (Feb 9, 2011)

Chris15 said:


> Yes it is possible to do what you want. But what you will need to be able to execute that will vary depending on exactly what comms system you have. Are you able to enlighten us?



We have 5 Telex BP-1002 Telex Audiocom BP-1002: Single-Channel Beltpack which are connected to identical headsets (I am not sure of the model) and they all end up daisy chaining to a PS-2001L Power Supply Telex Audiocom PS-2001L: Dual-Channel Power Supply. Only one channel is used on the PS. It gets split with a 3 way XLR splitter to send one to SR to the SM, one to SL for the ASM, and the other starts the chain for the booth which hits, Spot Left, Sound, Spot Center, Lights, and Spot Right.


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## Call911 (Feb 9, 2011)

CanYouHearMeNow said:


> We have 5 Telex BP-1002 Telex Audiocom BP-1002: Single-Channel Beltpack which are connected to identical headsets (I am not sure of the model) and they all end up daisy chaining to a PS-2001L Power Supply Telex Audiocom PS-2001L: Dual-Channel Power Supply. Only one channel is used on the PS. It gets split with a 3 way XLR splitter to send one to SR to the SM, one to SL for the ASM, and the other starts the chain for the booth which hits, Spot Left, Sound, Spot Center, Lights, and Spot Right.


 
Do you have a "Master Station" hiding a rack somewhere. It would look like this
Telex Audiocom MS-2002: Dual-Channel User/Main Station with 4.0 amp Power Supply

If you get us the Master Station model number I can help you out more.

I know my Telex system is hooked into our patchbay. We can patch the audio from either channel anywhere we want. This is useful, as we patch the Ch 1 out (which is used by stage crew) to the green room. This allows actors waiting downstairs to hear the stage manager for places, and to hear random cues throughout the show.

It's pretty easy to do, just need to tap into one of the Telex ports on the back of the Master Station.


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## CanYouHearMeNow (Feb 9, 2011)

Call911 said:


> Do you have a "Master Station" hiding a rack somewhere. It would look like this
> Telex Audiocom MS-2002: Dual-Channel User/Main Station with 4.0 amp Power Supply
> 
> If you get us the Master Station model number I can help you out more.
> ...



There actually is no "Master Station". I wish there were as that would make so many things simpler, but the system only has the individual body packs and the power supply.


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## Call911 (Feb 9, 2011)

CanYouHearMeNow said:


> There actually is no "Master Station". I wish there were as that would make so many things simpler, but the system only has the individual body packs and the power supply.


 

Well then... that makes it a bit harder.


My only thoughts is wiring the headset jack on the beltpack into a line-in on your mixer. Pins 3 is the headphone high, pin 4 is headphone low. You might have some luck there, but I've never tried it so I'm not 100% sure. 

You would need a XLR-4-M wired to an XLR-3-F. Then just put the proper pins where they go, and see if it works. You can get the parts at Full Compass for a few bucks.


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## Chris15 (Feb 9, 2011)

Erm generally you have a Master Station OR a power supply and the OP's indicated he has a PSU...

The right way of doing this is to get a hybrid, a la: Telex Audiocom DSI 2008: Digital System Interface/System-to-System Adapter

I would heavily caution against any cabling arrangement that connects beltpack earpiece drive to a console's input...


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## Call911 (Feb 9, 2011)

Chris15 said:


> Erm generally you have a Master Station OR a power supply and the OP's indicated he has a PSU...
> 
> The right way of doing this is to get a hybrid, a la: Telex Audiocom DSI 2008: Digital System Interface/System-to-System Adapter
> 
> I would heavily caution against any cabling arrangement that connects beltpack earpiece drive to a console's input...


 

Back in the day Master Stations and Power Supplys were seperate. The venue I work at has a 3RU PowerSupply by telex which a big switch that says "ON/OFF" and another that says "COMBINE/ISOLATE". The Master Station is another 1RU that has the speaker, mic, PA buttons, MIC KILL buttons, etc. But they are definitely separate with some of the older systems. 


And what's the worst that could happen by plugging a beltpack into the mixer? Technically it's just another audio source. Sure it's not exactly the "right" way to do it, but down and dirty wouldn't it work?


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## Stookeybrd (Feb 9, 2011)

Chris15 said:


> Erm generally you have a Master Station OR a power supply and the OP's indicated he has a PSU...
> 
> The right way of doing this is to get a hybrid, a la: Telex Audiocom DSI 2008: Digital System Interface/System-to-System Adapter
> 
> I would heavily caution against any cabling arrangement that connects beltpack earpiece drive to a console's input...


 Seconded.

The only way to do this 100% safely is to build an isolator. Best Audio has my favorite. Or just buy one from Masque for $85.


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## Dillon (Feb 9, 2011)

Don't mess around with com on your console -- the show and communications should be two completely separate systems. You don't want ANY chance of accidentally punching com traffic into the mix, or speaking on your talkback mic when it has any chance of being mis-patched.

The Clearcom HS-6 is the best solution to your situation.


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## TheGuruat12 (Feb 9, 2011)

Call911 said:


> You would need a XLR-4-M wired to an XLR-3-F. Then just put the proper pins where they go, and see if it works. You can get the parts at Full Compass for a few bucks.


 
I've done it before, it takes some careful adjusting of the gain on the board, but it is much easier to solder (and safer for you mixer) a 1/4" plug instead of an XLR3 plug.


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## CanYouHearMeNow (Feb 10, 2011)

TheGuruat12 said:


> I've done it before, it takes some careful adjusting of the gain on the board, but it is much easier to solder (and safer for you mixer) a 1/4" plug instead of an XLR3 plug.


 
How would I solder from the beltpack of the Com to a 1/4" line?


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## Footer (Feb 10, 2011)

For awhile Mackie was actually putting a beltpack right into their SR40 consoles that you could do exactly this with. That was at least 5 years ago, so they might not do it anymore. Mackie - SR48•8 / SR56•8

So, if you wanted to trade in your Midas for an SR40, there ya go. Overall though, either go with a featherweight headset such as the PH-88 or go the phone/blazon route.


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## Chris15 (Feb 10, 2011)

There's what I'll dub a hybrid solution I've seen used before that mixes the good and the bad. Add an extra mixer that takes the headphone feed off your board and the comms and combines them. (In this instance it also had an aviom pod connected too). The pun may have been intentional...
Then you get the comms but can't accidentally put them into the house.
Strictly speaking you should implement that with a hybrid, but on Clearcom (yes I know we're talking Telex at the moment), you just pull the quick and dirty audio PL into a line in...
As to getting your voice back into the comms, well a handset would work ok...

As to an earlier question of why not just wire earphone connections to mixer, you wouldn't wire the output of your power amps to a channel input would you? So why should you wire the phones driver amp output to a console input?


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## TheGuruat12 (Feb 11, 2011)

Some of the Allen & Heaths come with that comm built in, too. Just plug in the extra XLR and you get comm through your phones and your mic is the talkback.


Chris15 said:


> As to an earlier question of why not just wire earphone connections to mixer, you wouldn't wire the output of your power amps to a channel input would you? So why should you wire the phones driver amp output to a console input?


 
Correct me if I'm mistaken, but when you connect an mp3 player into your console, isn't that the same concept? If the gain is set correctly on the channel input, and the volume on the beltpack is not adjusted too high, there shouldn't be any problem. Another reason to run this signal into the line-level inputs through a 1/4" plug.

To connect the beltpack to a 1/4" is simple. Just use some two-strand wire (speaker wire should work fine and is cheap) going from a 1/4" mono (unbalanced) plug to pins 3 and 4 on the XLR4 female plug. The tip of the 1/4" needs to go to pin 4, and the sleeve needs to go to pin 3.


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## Chris15 (Feb 12, 2011)

TheGuruat12 said:


> Correct me if I'm mistaken, but when you connect an mp3 player into your console, isn't that the same concept?


 
Yes, but no...
There is a subtle but significant difference between a headphone output and the output of a beltpack. Headset earpieces are significantly higher impedance than consumer headphones. Like 1500 ohms versus 8 -32. What this means is that the beltpack is designed with this output impedance in mind. So it makes that output prefectly capable of driving a relatively high impedance input such as that of a console into overload much easier than doing so with a consumer device.

Unless of course I have my theory completely wrong...


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## TheGuruat12 (Feb 12, 2011)

I suppose that makes sense, but wouldn't it still work if the output of the beltpack is adjusted correctly? You may not have too much headroom, and it would be easy to overload the input channel if you accidentally hit the beltpack, but wouldn't it still work?

You said that it would simply overload the channel _easier_, but that doesn't mean that it WILL overload, does it?


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## mstaylor (Feb 21, 2011)

I don't see any space advantage to running it through the board. I can see using a channel from the snake for com, the only thing you would have extra would be the light, sits on top of the board, the handset that can sit on the back of the board or on the side, and a belt pack. 
If your booth is that cramped, start kicking people out. If it is that disorganized, figure a better system.


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## rochem (Feb 22, 2011)

CanYouHearMeNow said:


> (My booth could've been designed slightly larger to accomodate everyone who thinks they belong in the booth)


 

mstaylor said:


> If your booth is that cramped, start kicking people out. If it is that disorganized, figure a better system.


 
Or better yet, move the board out of the booth and into the house! But that's a whole other can of worms.


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