How To Set Up A Mic Tally Light

How To Set Up A Mic Tally Light

Key Concepts

  1. This article covers how to create a Mic Tally light for one microphone that is tied to that microphone being turned on and off. This would be applicable for a LED light mounted on a mic arm or some sort of tally indicator for a single microphone that isn't tied into a mic mute group.
  2. If you want to set up an on air light that's tied to a group of mics in a studio and monitor muting (like a light you'd mount outside a door to warn people in the hallway that the mics are on in the studio, we have a separate article for that. Search for "on-air light."
  3. You will be using WheatNet-IP Navigator. 
  4. While you are editing the logic settings, this microphone cannot be routed to a fader or any other destination, so go into the crosspoint grid now and unroute it before you begin.
  5. A source like a microphone can be routed to multiple destinations. The logic will always get tied to the first destination that gets locked. (For example, when you turn a fader on, it will lock that fader's destination. If the microphone you are working on is being used as a Talkback Microphone and is routed to the TkBk Mic destination on the console, either do not lock the Talkback Mic destination or create an alias for the mic and route the alias to the TkBk Mic destination for best results.

How To Set Up A Mic Tally Light

Alert
While you are editing the logic settings, this microphone cannot be routed to a fader or any other destination, so go into the Navigator crosspoint grid now and unroute it from any destinations.
  1. Edit the microphone source. You can either get here by right-clicking on the source in the crosspoint grid and choosing Modify Signal...

    ...or by going to the blade's source tab, highlighting the mic and clicking Edit.

    Either way you will end up at the edit window. Click on the LIO Info tab.
  2. Click the Add button.

  3. The LIO editing window will appear.

    Highlight the pin you want to use and set the Direction to Output. Set the Function to On Tally. Click Apply. Then Click Finish.
  4. You have completed editing the source. Route the microphone back to the console fader and any other necessary destinations. When the fader turns on, the desired relay will latch on until the fader turns off.
How do I decide which pin to use? That decision is up to you. You can set this relay up on any blade you wish, so we recommend using the blade that is closest to where you want to hook things up. Let's look at that LIO Editing Window again.

While Navigator will default to the blade that the source you are editing lives, you can click the + sign to expand the logic ports on all the other blades in the system. So even though this microphone is in one studio, if your station was wired with all of the on-air lights terminating in the rack room down the hall, you can set up the logic to use the relay on a blade in that room instead.

You'll notice LIO 1 and LIO 2. LIO 1 is the RJ-45 jack on the blade marked Logic Port 1. LIO 2 is the RJ-45 marked Logic Port 2.
Pin 1 is ground. Pins 2-7 are Logic I/O 1-6. (ie LIO 1 is pin 2 connecting to ground on pin 1). This wiring chart will help you.



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