Boca Christian
Audio Setup Guide

Warnings:

  1. Audio equipment has quirks and can break. Always setup ahead of time so you can test everything before "showtime".
  2. Do not assume that any audio hookup/connection in an auditorium is a working one. These go bad and sound guys just stop using them. They know they don't work but you don't.
  3. There are details you just can't learn by just looking at the hardware. You need patience and guidance to learn this stuff.

Terms:

  JACK - female part of a connection
  PLUG - male part of a connection
  CHANNEL - a term used to describe an audio path (e.g. left channel, right channel, "channel 4 is used for mics"...)
XLR - Heavy duty connector system used in sound systems. Has plugs and jacks that are 3/4" in diameter with 3 pins or holes that actually do the wire to wire connection.
XLR Microphone - Heavy Duty mic used in professional audio systems. Mics used in consumer recording systems don't use XLR technology. They typically use 1/8" or 1/4" plugs.
RCA Jack - female part of a connector that is about 1/4" in diameter with a 1/8" hole in the center

RCA Plug - male part of a connector with a 1/8" metal plug surrounded by a circle of metal with space between the plug and the circle

RCA Cable - cable with RCA Plugs(s) at both ends
1/4" Plug - male part of a metal connector 1 and 1/4" long with one or two black bands on the metal plug
1/4" to RCA DONGLE - short cable with a 1/4" plug at one end and two RCA jacks at the other

Overview:

Most consumer audio devices these days use RCA jacks for input and output. The cables used to hook them up have RCA plug(s)* at both ends of the cable so you can hook devices to each other (like a CD player to a tape recorder). The BRCS mobile audio kit that you are using is designed to fit RCA type devices into an auditorium sound system. It does this by using cables and electronics to convert RCA type systems to those used in auditoriums and other large sound systems. The procedure starts by plugging into the auditorium sound system and working back to the RCA type audio device.

Procedure:

  1. Find a Microphone connection in the wall or floor of the room you are using.
  2. Plug the end of the long mic cable into the wall/floor connection (only one end will fit).
  3. Unwind the cable to the audio playback device you are using.
  4. If you are using an XLR Microphone, plug the cable into the Mic and skip the rest of this procedure.
  5. Plug the mic cable into the Whirlwind Direct box (there is only one place it will fit).
  6. Plug the short 1/4" to RCA dongle into the Whirlwind Direct box using the 1/4" end of the cable. It must go into the 1/4" jacks labeled "In" (the left one when looking at it from the top).
    Click picture for larger view
  7. Use an RCA cable to connect your audio device "Output" jacks to the RCA jacks on the 1/4" to RCA DONGLE coming out of the Whirlwind Direct Box.
    Click picture for larger view
  8. Tell the sound person you are ready to test it out
  9. Turn on your audio device and play the CD, tape, Video, whatever.

 

* Stereo audio has a left and right channel so stereo devices have two jacks. Mono audio has only one channel. If you have a mismatch between to things where one is mono and the other is stereo, there are two strategies:

  1. Use a Y cable that takes both stereo channels and combines them into a single mono one
  2. Use the left (usually white or black) channel of the stereo device to hook up to the one channel of the mono device