MTSU Students power Bonnaroo 2024 broadcast with Focusrite RedNet
Students from Middle Tenessee State University deployed three Focusrite RedNet D64R 64-channel MADI bridges and a Focusrite RedNet PCIeNX ultra-low latency, high-channel-count PCIe Dante® interface to handle broadcast production for the Bonnaroo “This Tent” and “That Tent” stages, airing dozens of performances nationally on Hulu’s streaming platform.
The Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival is a four-day celebration held annually at Great Stage Park, a sprawling 700-acre farm in Manchester, Tennessee. Kicking off on the second Thursday of June, the festival features multiple stages showcasing live music across a wide range of genres. Performances begin on Wednesday evening for early arrivals and continue through the weekend, with music starting around noon each day and some stages keeping the energy alive until sunrise. This year’s festival, held from June 13-16, boasted a star-studded lineup, including artists like Post Malone, Megan Thee Stallion, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Fred Again, Cage the Elephant, and Gary Clark Jr.
On site were key faculty members from Middle Tennessee State University’s College of Media and Entertainment: Michael Fleming, Professor of Audio Production in the Department of Recording Industry, and Robert Gordon, Associate Professor of Video and Film Production, who’s also serving as the interim chair of the Department of Media Arts. As part of MTSU’s commitment to giving students hands-on experience in the world of audio and video production, Michael and Robert have been working with Bonnaroo since 2015. What started as a simple archival project has evolved into a significant role in the festival’s broadcast production, providing students with real-world, behind-the-scenes exposure that’s second to none.
This summer, the student crew took charge of both the streamed broadcast coverage and the live video feeds to the IMAG screens for the on-site audience at two of Bonnaroo’s main stages, This Tent and That Tent. Managing the demands of capturing and streaming dozens of performances across two stages simultaneously required a dedicated crew of 26 students—13 focused on audio and 13 on video. They used "The Truck", the university’s nearly $2 million mobile production lab, along with a separate flypack. Impressively, the MTSU team’s work on video and audio production for these stages accounted for 50% of the content aired across Bonnaroo’s two Hulu streaming channels.
“We did 53 acts over four days, and 23 of those aired on Hulu,” stated Michael Fleming. “In order to achieve high channel counts and efficient signal flow, I ended up employing two key products from Focusrite – three RedNet D64R 64-channel MADI bridges (two of them at This Tent and one at That Tent) and a Focusrite RedNet PCIeNX ultra-low latency, high-channel-count PCIe Dante® interface.”
Michael elaborates on his setup at Bonnaroo: “Our broadcast truck audio system is built around a Calrec Brio36 console and Calrec's Hydra2 fiber network for stage boxes and signal transport. We use a Dante network to extend the onboard matrix intercom into the field through fiber-linked switches, and we also use Dante to get audio in and out of the console for multi-track recording and playback when needed. We received a combination of analog, AES and MADI feeds from the PA companies at Bonnaroo. In particular, we converted those MADI streams to Dante using Focusrite’s D64R units, where asynchronous sample rate conversion allowed us to isolate our clock domains and convert 96 kHz stage splits to 48 kHz for production mixing Those 48k signals flowed into our Dante network and ultimately reached the console through Calrec’s modular Dante-Hydra2 interface card.”
“At our second stage,” Michael continues, “both video and audio were switched in a flypack without any Calrec-specific audio equipment, so we used a compact Yamaha DM3-D console for stem mixing and a laptop-based DAW for the recording. The DM3-D is Dante-enabled, but its digital IO capability falls short of the total number of stage inputs we anticipated in addition to our audience mics and front of house feeds. We knew that we needed a high-density interface to be able to route and select what’s hitting the console and multi-track DAW at the same time. The best available solution in this circumstance was the Focusrite RedNet PCIeNX, which provided 128 bi-directional I/O channels. We certainly didn’t use all of that, but the Focusrite interface gave us the stability and capacity as an audio device to interface with Reaper and the Yamaha console and our MADI to Dante interface devices. The system transported the audio exactly the way it should, with low latency and perfect quality. When you’re juggling multi-artist, multi-stage, live stream performances, you have one shot to get it right, and the Focusrite gear delivered.”
Reflecting on this year’s Bonnaroo Festival, Michael emphasized that it provides invaluable real-world experience for the university on multiple levels. “Our media arts and audio production programs benefit tremendously from this annual collaboration that immerses us in high-level remote production and live broadcasting. As a result, our students are learning the intricacies of live and post-produced TV production for music performances, while working and becoming familiar with professional gear like Focusrite RedNet products that they will find in similar OB trucks and studios when they graduate and begin their work in the industry.”
