The AmericanAirlines Arena is Miami’s top sporting and entertainment venue, hosting everything from family entertainment such as Disney On Ice through to concerts from major international artists including Shakira, Lady Gaga and many more.
However, above all, the American Airlines Arena is home to professional basketball team, The Miami Heat, currently one of the highest-ranking teams in the NBA.
The facility is now also home to an Eclipse digital mixing console from Innovason following a recent AV upgrade which has moved everything into the digital domain.
The Miami Heat’s director of broadcast services, David Vickery, explained their decision to purchase an Eclipse.
“We already had an Sy48 that we were looking to upgrade with new cards and so on, but then we visited InfoComm and saw the new Eclipse. Kevin Madden gave us a demo, and after that, there was no going back!”
The console is used for corporate events held at the AA Arena, but its primary function is to handle all of the audio during the Miami Heat games including all of the performance elements pre- and post-game, and of course at half-time and during time-outs.
“An American NBA basketball game is a big production, you know!” said Vickery.
“It really was time for an upgrade to keep in step with our newly refurbished and outfitted video control room, which is state-of-the-art HD. Now that the Eclipse is in place, we can say the same of our digital audio control room too.”
Jorge Arronte, arena sound & matrix manager, agrees. “The signal path is entirely digital throughout, and the audio performance of the board is excellent,” he said. “I’m also really pleased with the FX card – having all of those extra EQs is great.”
“In fact, we have actually eliminated a lot of outboard gear as a result, including a whole load of processers that were dedicated exclusively to the basket mics. Now everything just comes straight into the Eclipse where we have all the processing we need, and more.”
“It keeps things clean and simple, it sounds good, and suddenly we have a lot more space in the control room!”
“I also think the SmartPanel is fantastic,” continued Arronte. “It gives you double the desk you thought you had, and you can configure it any way you want. We have used it to add outputs (amongst other things), which the operating engineer has really appreciated.”
“He has two people talking into his ear at any one time, and they usually both want something different! The SmartPanel has enabled him to configure what the needs to keep everyone happy, and it’s all at his fingertips – he doesn’t have to flip through banks of faders or scroll through pages – it’s all right there, and he loves that!”
“We’re planning on working a lot more within the corporate events market in the future, and the M.A.R.S. facility will enable us to record those events at the push of a button.”
“Previously, the only way we could achieve this was to hire an additional technician and equipment just to manage the recording, which of course is a significant extra expense for the client. Now we can make that service much more accessible to the customer as it’s incredibly easy to do and won’t cost us a dime.”
“However, it might make all the difference to the client as they will be able to walk away with a recording of their show in an easy-to-manipulate, high quality digital format.”
“Everyone wins.”
