Talkback

[badboy]

hello everybody,

Im building a studio for the first time. Im asking what should I buy in order to have a talkback from the booth to the control room and vice versa? my budget is up to $300. My goal is simple, I want to have communication between the talent in the booth and the engineer in the control room. Whats the best and cheapest way to go about this?

 

[Agent47]

Your 'talkback' from the booth will come from the mic that the vocalist/player is using, so they won't need a dedicated talkback. If for various reasons their mic won't be open all the time, then just stick a cheap dynamic mic in there which you can fade up when needed for incoming TB.

As for sending your control room TB to the booth, I'd invest in something like the Samson C-control, which has it's own TB button/mic built-in, which costs around £80 in the UK, so probably the same price in US$ once you take into account the rip-off-Britain factor. Alternatively, and much more expensive, you have the Mackie Big Knob, which I think also has it's own TB button/mic. Probably costs around 300.

Send the C-control's TB output into a channel on your mixer, and then route it to the aux that you're using for your foldback going to the booth. Don't forget a decent headphone amp in the booth for the talent.

So if I were building a booth, I'd use the C-control (ok, I already have one) because it's cheap and does the job. I can't vouch for it['s use as a TB, because I don't use that facility, but it should be ok as it's other features are sound.

 

[mikeh]

Many studios have a cheap mic set up by the board - patched into a channel which they can fade in and out when needed (no specific need for a Big Knob etc.)

There should rarely be a time when the vocal mic in the vocal booth can't serve as the talk back.