I am proposing a member vote for $500 for equipment to better support hybrid main meetings. Last week I brought in my personal USB mixer and was able to get very good results. People in person as well as online were finally able to hear well.
The vote is for a USB mixer for the Hive and for one or two more wireless microphones. We have to corded microphones but the cords are awkward and a tripping hazard.
The final cost is likely to be well under $500 but I need to do further research.
If you have questions or want to understand the technical details, contact me by replying to this email or on Slack.
The budget was set high because I had not fully researched the wireless mikes and I wanted to leave some headroom in the budget. Also I was trying to get this out at the last minute last night.
I still want to do a little looking locally but I would expect to keep it close to this price range.
I’m also curious as to the ability to connect up the apple tv system that was at 2929 to internal speakers. That hookup allowed streaming a playlist from your phone.
Somewhere we have an onkyo receiver and the pieces to connect. Would this system stand alone or can it share connections with other pieces that we have?
To Kevin’s question " I’m curious if this equipment is useful for more than just meetings? Can it be of benefit to live streaming or recording?"
The short answer is yes. Hybrid meetings are basically live streaming with a local set of speakers for the in house audience. Recording is one of the typical uses for mixers.
To Dave Velzy’s question “I’m also curious as to the ability to connect up the apple tv system that was at 2929 to internal speakers. That hookup allowed streaming a playlist from your phone.
Somewhere we have an onkyo receiver and the pieces to connect. Would this system stand alone or can it share connections with other pieces that we have?”
The answer:
The great set of speakers and amplifier that Drew Kirkman donated to us has bluetooth input. That should more or less do what you want.
I am really thankful to have the speaker system and the microphones Drew donated. This would never have happened without them.
The goal of getting this is so that anyone can just turn it on and use it. However, it works better if someone can keep an eye on volume levels so that microphones can be turned up for quiet people so that they can be heard. I’ve also had to do a little more tweaking so that people online can hear reasonably well. Once this is set we can probably just leave it.
My other goal is to get a system in the meeting room so that smaller groups can successfully have hybrid or online meetings. We already have a very good conference speakerphone for this. We just need the proper network connections for the meeting room. That should only need a little more work.
I vote yes. However, to Kevin’s question about whether this could be also used for live streaming, I would urge (maybe beg) that this be a “permanent” installation that is walk-up ready on meeting nights. Having the system be multipurpose places too large and onerous of a burden on the sucker who offers to get the system up and ready for a meeting when it has been torn down for some other purpose.