How To Map The Logic on a Microphone to a Talent Station

Before You Begin

IP Address Must Be Correct

Have you set the IP address on the talent station to a valid address on your WheatNet-IP Network? They will all come set to the same default IP address, so if you plug in 8 talent stations and connect them at once, you're not going to get very far. Power them up one at a time and set them to a static IP that does not conflict with other devices on your WNIP network.

You can do this from the front panel of the Talent Station. Press and hold the INPUT button for about five seconds until you see the menu on the display. Turn the volume knob until you see Network. Push and release the knob to enter the sub-menu. Turn the knob until you see IP Addr, then press and release the knob to edit the IP address. Then you can set the Netmask (most networks use 255.255.255.0, press and release the knob to edit as necessary). Then you can set the Gateway, which should be .1 of your subnet. Example: you set your talent station to 192.168.87.25, so the gateway will be 192.168.87.1. Once you've set everything you can turn to Top of Menu and then you can Exit Menu. Proceed with setting IPs for every talent station you need to set up.

Tip: If you know you will be adding more talent stations in the future, avoid using the factory default settings of 192.168.87.219 so you won't run into conflicts when you're setting up new gear.

The Talent Station Needs To Know Its Host

The processor that is built into the Talent Station still is programmed to talk to the blade it was tested with at the factory. You must use the Talent Station (either TS-4 or TS-22 as applicable) Setup GUI to connect to the talent station to update it to reflect your IP address and blade number. See Chapter 4 of the TS-4 manual (or TS-22 manual) for instructions on how to do this. Once you have connected to the talent station, entered the IP address of the host blade, and clicked Apply, then the Talent Station will be able to communicate with the host blade.

Which blade should be your host blade? This is the blade where the system will place the destination for the headphone jack (or on the TS-22, headphone jack and speaker). Put it somewhere that makes sense, like the console blade for the studio or the mic blade for the studio.

Tip: The talent stations will identify their headphone destinations as TS4HDPN or TS22HDPN. That's fine for one talent station, but when you have 4 or 5 in a studio, which talent station is for which person? While you are connected with the setup GUI, go to the Miscellaneous tab and change the device prefix from TS4 or TS22 to something that identifies the position. You only have 4 characters, but you can use things like Host, Gst1, Gst2, etc to tell them apart. Change the text, hit apply, then reboot the talent station. Then when you add it as a Peripheral Device, it will add itself as that prefix and when you are looking at it in Navigator you can tell the talent stations apart.

The Talent Station Must Be Added As Peripheral Device

Have you added the talent station as a Peripheral Device in Navigator? This is the step that creates the destination that feeds audio to the headphone jack on the talent station. 

Here's how to add the talent station as a Peripheral Device:

- Click on the Devices tab in Navigator

Then up above, click the Peripheral Devices tab.

Now click the Add button at the right.

Give your device a name, enter the IP address, and choose the host blade you are using for that device from the drop-down. Leave the default TCP Port at 60021. Click Ok.

If the talent station is connected to the network, you will see a green dot on the Peripheral Devices page showing that it is communicating, and you will see the Talent Station in the system tree hanging off its host blade.

In the crosspoint grid, a destination for the talent station headphones will appear.

The other thing that happens when you add a Talent Station as a Peripheral Device is it will add dedicated logic settings for the talent station to the host blade, and these are the functions that we will map to the microphone.

Map The Button Functions To The Microphone

Before you begin this process, you must unroute the microphone from any destination (ie fader) that it is connected to. If the mic is routed somewhere, the LIO Info tab in Navigator will be greyed out.

On the crosspoint grid, right click on the microphone source and choose Modify Signal.

You will see the Edit Window. Click on the LIO Info tab. Click Add.

Look at the tree on the left and locate your Host Blade. Click the + sign to expand the tree for that blade.

Now, find the submenu for the talent station. Click its + sign to expand the tree for the talent station. It will look similar to this (this screenshot was taken from a very old Navigator)

Click where it says Remote On. You will see that on the right it lights up the Input Direction and function of Remote On. Click Apply.

Now click on Remote Off. Same deal, it light sup the direction and function. Click Apply.

Repeat with Cough. Apply.

Repeat with Talkback. Apply.

Repeat with On Tally. Apply.

Repeat with Off Tally. Apply.

Repeat with Studio Tally 1. Apply. (if you are using a different tally number in this room for your on air light, use that tally number instead)

Now click Close. Click Finish.

You're done. Now you can route the microphone back to the fader and the talent station will have bi-directional control.

If you've done any amount of logic work in WNIP, you will notice that this will be the only time when you don't have to hit Close and then add again to add each function. It goes very fast.

Now you can move on to the next talent station to program. Have fun!

• Related Articles

• Understanding Logic in Wheatnet-IP

  How to set up on air lights? Machine starts and stops? Tally lights? We'll explain how here. There are three rules that guide all logic in the WheatNet-IP system: 1. A WNIP source needs to connect to a WNIP destination. Think of the crosspoint grid ...

• Understanding How Destinations Take Control of LIO Logic

  When you assign LIOs or SLIOs to a source, the control of that logic is determined by the first destination to lock the source. A destination locks when a console fader turns on or when you right-click a destination in Navigator and select Lock ...

• Wheatstone TS-22 Talent Station Manual

  This is the manual for the Wheatstone TS-22 Talent Station. Download here

• Wheatstone TS-4 Talent Station Manual

  This is the manual for the Wheatstone TS-4 Talent Station Download here

• Wide Orbit WheatNet-IP Logic Setup

  These instruction sets apply to WideOrbit Automation for Radio versions 2.x to 3.7.x. Newer versions are likely similar. WideOrbit can address SLIO’s on blades via the Wheatnet ACI. For this setup you will need WO automation for Radio Device Server ...