Scott Taylor of Taylored Sound in Toronto, who specializes in documentary, commercial and sports production work, has Lectrosonics Digital Hybrid Wireless technology — specifically a dual-channel SRb receiver and two SRc receivers — at the center of his toolkit. The SRc units are paired with a total of four LT belt-pack transmitters (two each on blocks A1 and B1), while the SRb picks up the signal from a pair of SMQV transmitters on block 21.
“Like a lot of people, I started out with a different and cheaper brand, but quickly switched over to Lectrosonics as I began to get more paying jobs,” says Taylor, a 2010 graduate of the Ontario Institute of Audio Recording Technology. “I’m currently doing a lot with SportsNet, TSN and ESPN, such as pre-game interviews and things of that nature. Between those and commercials, I am working about three to six jobs per week in the Toronto area alone.”
Because Taylor splits his time between production sound mixing and audio post, he knows what he wants to hear — and what he doesn’t. “If we’re shooting in an area where I’m not familiar with the RF profile, it’s always easy to roll up, scan, and find clean channels without interference or dropouts,” he explains. “Most of the time, once I get a pair of frequencies on block 21 up, I don’t need to change them. Together with the SMQVs, the SRb gets most of the dialogue. It was actually the first piece of Lectrosonics gear I bought and it’s still going strong. I use the LT/SRc combos as stereo pairs for plant mics and room mics. I just used two LTs on either side of a pipe organ for a virtual convocation ceremony at the University of Toronto.”
On shoots with extreme range needs, Taylor relies on both shark-fin antennas and the fact that the SMQV transmitters can output at up to 250 milliwatts. “One example was an outdoor show where we were shooting on water, boat to boat,” he explains. “So, for a situation like that, I’ll strap the antennas on my kit and push up the output power. It’s a matter of better safe than sorry.” However, his favorite aspect of his entire rig is the slot-mount form factor of the SRb and SRc receivers.
“I run a pretty industry-standard audio bag with a Sound Devices 688 recorder and an SL-6,” he explains. “The SL-6 houses the SR-series receivers and powers them. I can also use two whip antennas in total rather than two on each receiver, and that makes for a cleaner setup. So does the fact that this eliminates extra wires dangling off receivers and other clutter in my bag. But that the receivers can be slot-mounted in the first place makes all this possible and gives me up to six channels that I don’t have to worry about. I’ll add that the frequency separation when I’m doing so has been trouble-free as well. Even with all six channels in use, I’ve not had a crosstalk issue or anything of that nature.”
