Detroit Opera Radio Broadcasts
Timeline
May 2022 - May 2025
Sly Pup Productions has provided live stereo broadcast audio mixes for Detroit Opera since 2022. Our live mixes are heard on Detroit classical & jazz music station 90.9 WRCJ, and feature live pre-show commentary from the station’s hosts. Through the 2022 to 2025 seasons we have worked on both traditionally-presented and innovative performances including The Valkyries, Cosi fan tutti, X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, and Cage’s Europeras 3 & 4.
Navigating our tech within the historic Detroit Opera House was initially a challenge, but we were in good hands working with the guidance of house IATSE engineers Chris and Henry. Every show we built a control room in a 4th floor classroom. The cable path to the pit was around 400 feet, so we employed fiber-optics to transport redundant Dante audio, remote preamp control, and a reference video feed between the pit to our mixing position. Both the pit and control room systems were powered with UPSes to ensure the continuity of the broadcast and multitrack recording.
“[The mixes] sound amazing. It’s like listening to The Met broadcasts...”
In the pit and the house, depending on the complexity of the show, we used 20 to 40 channels of high quality Scheops, DPA, Microtech Gefell, and Sennheiser microphones to capture the performers. A carefully placed array of PCCs was used across the lip of the stage for natural-sounding vocal pickup, and occasionally we added mics offstage for ensembles and others built into the scenic elements for anything that needed a boost upstage.
Multitrack recording was also requested for most performances, and we used a combination of our Sound Devices 970 Dante hardware recorder and Dante Virtual Soundcard to guarantee a successful delivery for every show.
Unfortunately, by Fall 2025 our work at Detroit Opera concluded due to budget restrictions. These performances were some of the most invigorating shows we’ve collaborated with, and we hope that we can resume this work in the future.
