36 Person Conference Panel

[pete10uk]

Hi All

Been asked to provide a 36 person panel system for temporary use in a large board room, initial thoughts are 36 x goose mics on bases but the customer isn't sure if they want PTT, PTM or ON/Off buttons so something changeable would be ideal.

How would you all address this?

There is budget for the project.

[sandall]

You need to hire-in a proper "conference system", with the chairperson controlling who can speak. Lots of systems around (or at least there were - it's been a while). Talk to your local AV hire firms. Don't even think of having a load of independently-controlled mics - they will all end up live🙁.

[sunray]

I've been out of the loop on this sort of thing for 20 years. Then I'd have used 5 Gentner AP800's (8 mic I/P's, 4 line level I/P's. 12 line level O/P's and 2 programmable echo cancelling references each) automatic mixers, each mic can be set independantly for it's priority and there are loads of programmable logic I/P's for additional manual control. I believe a later version was XAP12. I assume there are more modern units available.

We did a boardroom table with 44 mics, IIRC correctly: 3 had highest priority and the rest; 2nd priority last on, overall max of 3 open feeding into about a dozen ceiling speakers and video conference (8 channel ISDN) & teleconferencing and the buildings AV control room to route to (30 to 40) other systems within the building.

 

AMX touch screens provided all the manual override facilities.

Edited June 6 by sunray

[sunray]

1 hour ago, sandall said:

You need to hire-in a proper "conference system", with the chairperson controlling who can speak. Lots of systems around (or at least there were - it's been a while). Talk to your local AV hire firms. Don't even think of having a load of independently-controlled mics - they will all end up live🙁.

local control is fine providing it's not locked and subsequent other mics release it. Or only stays on for a timed period (possibly after button released).

[sleah]

12 hours ago, sandall said:

Don't even think of having a load of independently-controlled mics - they will all end up live🙁.

Or the opposite. AKA Zoom call - "Turn your mic on we can't hear you!".

[sunray]

1 hour ago, sleah said:

Or the opposite. AKA Zoom call - "Turn your mic on we can't hear you!".

AKA ten people trying to shout over each other to say "You're muted." which turns into a garbled mess due to the digital delay and chopping.

[the kid]

I think what is the goal. 

Logitec have a pretty good system with their rally system.  the mic pods are pretty dam good, I cant recall the people to pods but they have some ideas on the website about configuration.   It is a room system rather than mic per person.  I guess it depends if your going for recording for typing back, or  as a system to plug in to video conference. 

https://www.logitech.com/en-us/room-configurator.html   of course you can see what it looks like if you give all your info over. But as a system we install it for several companies and use it ourselves in its most basic form. 

Edited June 7 by the kid