TM7-Dante Visualizes more than the Sound of Football at the Dallas Cowboys’ Stadium
The AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, is the home turf of the Dallas Cowboys, but it also hosts a very wide variety of other events that all have one thing in common: There is audio involved that needs to be measured to ensure consistency across all productions.
At the heart of the audio infrastructure at AT&T Stadium, Audio Engineer in Charge, Gary French, chose an SSL System-T S500 console that is connected to a TM7-Dante hardware meter. “We use the TM7 every day, on every event, as our primary output metering for the SSL System-T S500, and it’s working great for us,” comments Gary French.
“I do mixing in a lot of environments from studio, film, TV and theater, to now live. I always use my ears for the mix, but also rely on ‘flying by visual meters’ to make sure my levels are correct for the media and venue.”
And it is important to stress that the AT&T Stadium is much more than ‘just’ the home of the Dallas Cowboys. For instance, Gary French shared his schedule for just a single week: “We’re heavily into some National NFL Zoom conferences this week, as well as a High School Band competition and preparing for a three-day Dell conference. On Saturday, we have ‘Military Folds of Honor Gala’ simultaneous with a ‘Rally Day’ event outside on one of our Plaza venues. And on Sunday, of course, we have Dallas Cowboys vs NY Giants.”
Well, that is some seriously diversified audio running through the SSL/TM7 set-up. And it just keeps on rolling in a similar fashion throughout the rest of the year: “Then we start prep and rehearsals with Dolly Parton for our Thanksgiving Day game halftime show. The next week has a Thursday Night Football game on Prime Network, followed by the Saturday Big-12 Playoff game, featuring Nelly and the combined college bands for the halftime show. Another Cowboys game eight days later, and then the Texas High School Football State Finals move in for 12 games in four days. Finally, we have back-to-back Cotton Bowl and Cowboys games during the New Year’s weekend.”
With such a schedule and that kind of variety in event types and audio streams, we can surely see how a TM7 meter can help audio crew stay on point when it comes to delivering the right audio levels for live and/or broadcast and/or recording.
As Gary French wraps it up: “There is never a dull moment at AT&T Stadium, and that little RTW meter keeps me consistent!”