Wavetool puts Australian techs in the mix
Published: ASIA
AUSTRALIA: Wavemark Ltd’s large-scale remote radio monitoring tool has been used extensively by Australian sound designer Michael Waters and his crew during recent productions, including We Will Rock You and Mr Fair Lady. ‘Michael Waters approached us and requested a seven-day trial,’ stated Timo Liski, part of the Wavetool development team. ‘He made a purchase within 24 hours!’
Wavetool is an audio input and wireless monitoring tool that aims to facilitate the large-scale deployment and managing of radio systems for engineers, essentially forming a portable front of house setup for RF engineers.
‘I already own a copy of Wavetools myself and currently have it deployed on We Will Rock You for the Australian Tour,’ confirmed Andrew Poppleton, Mr Water’s production engineer and associate for numerous shows. ‘For many years I have looked for a program like Wavetool. Currently it is the only one I have found that has iPad monitoring, isn’t hardware specific, and is reliable enough to deploy in mission critical situations. The magic of the system is the option of dual sound cards, a Madi sound card for inputs and a quality sound card for monitoring. This was a massive selling point for me.’
Alison Bremner is also an engineer for Mr Waters and works at the Sydney Opera House. ‘The GUI is easy to use and an intuitive one,’ she states of the Wavetool interface. ‘Having used Madi listen boxes for the last few years and them mostly being a rotary knob, it's nice to have a solid visual on all channels in front of your eyes and be able to click and select either a hard solo or individual solo for mic checks. The snap crackle pop feature is a fantastic use of an instant visual on a mic breakage/noise or connector issue if you're monitoring on a different channel. Finally, being able to use the same program to monitor individual receiver information such as battery meters and audio makes this a great tool. It allows for one program to be opened instead of having to skip back and forth between several.’