Los Angeles, CA (January 7, 2025) — Dropout TV is the latest and boldest incarnation of College Humor, the comedic YouTube channel that rose to viral heights beginning in 1999. Now a full-fledged streaming service via iOS, Android, the web, and smart TVs, many of its shows gather people under a madcap situational premise, then sit back as unscripted hijinks ensue. This has yielded such wins as Dimension 20 (comedy meets tabletop fantasy gaming), Make Some Noise (contestants act out absurd prompts), and Smartypants, a parody of the sitcom format in which comedians ponder “life’s most outrageous questions.” Behind the audio cart is Mingge Lin. Lin finds the features of Lectrosonics’ D2 family of fully digital DSQD and DSR4 receivers, DBSM transmitters, and DPR-A plug-on transmitters — particularly the groundbreaking HDM high-density RF mode — a perfect fit for the anything-can-happen workflow of his mixing world.
Like many notable Lectrosonics users, Lin’s ears were first trained by music. “I graduated from Musicians Institute in downtown Hollywood,” he recalls, “which is a good pipeline to your first gigs in music performance or production. But I also had taken classes and met people at NYFA, the L.A. campus of the New York Film Academy.” This led to audio opportunities for Lin because in film school, everyone wants to direct.
“I began to get calls to do sound for student projects there,” he says. “I started with some pretty basic, cheap equipment, but it went well, and I was able to upgrade my gear fairly quickly. I remember when I bought my first Lectrosonics product, a used UCR411, on eBay. I felt like I had really moved up in the world! Today, I have a pair of the DSQD digital receivers, which are four channels in a half-rack, so I have eight channels of digital in total. I have about a dozen transmitters, and seven of those are the new digital ones: belt packs and plug-ons. The rest are from the Digital Hybrid line everyone knows very well, but the DSQD can still pick them up.”
Nonetheless, Lin found that going all-digital solved a certain problem. “Dropout shows usually have large casts, with everyone bantering and talking over each other,” explains Lin. “For a recent one I can’t name yet because we just finished shooting, it was in a huge building with different scenes going on in each room at the same time. I used as many as 20 wireless mics at once, in a large room or set. Even several boom operators aren’t going to be able to chase all that chaos around. Add a crunched RF block and you have your work cut out for you.”
Enter the HDM high density transmission mode, which is possible only with an end-to-end digital signal chain. Through a combination of an ultra-narrow carrier, sophisticated filtering, and lower output power, it packs more usable wireless channels into a given band of spectrum than any analog or hybrid system would allow. “The transmitters go down to two milliwatts of output power, which lets the filters squeeze each channel into maybe 100 kHz of bandwidth. I know two milliwatts sounds crazy low, but the signal is still clear and sounds great.”
“I have five DSQD units on this shoot for the talent, all going into my main recorder via Dante,” he continues. “For closer capture, my sound utility is roving with two DSR4 units and a Sound Devices recorder in a bag. There’s also a backup system in play. A two-channel mix from the recorder goes into an IFB-T4 transmitter that’s also in the bag. It’s sending the mix back to me in case I have any trouble with my main iso channels. So, my utility person is basically my recon scout!”
The lower power requirement of all-digital wireless economizes on transmitter battery life as well as RF spectrum. “This is good on Dropout’s shows,” says Lin, “because interrupting cast members to change a battery means you might not get the spontaneity or the humor of that moment back. That would defeat the whole improv purpose. But in high density mode, we can pretty much go all day.”
When the story takes Lin away from the soundstage, the D2 system’s range is up to the task of outdoor work. “We shot a road-trip movie in the desert around Joshua Tree, California,” says Lin. “It included car stuff and the kinds of wide shots where people walk away until they’re a tiny speck on the screen. Under all those conditions, we never had a problem.”
Lin also praises the smoothness of operation he finds in Lectrosonics. “I was a last-minute addition to a new show called Very Important People, I think because someone got Covid,” he tells. “The concept is that an extreme makeover turns people into characters — something outrageous like a space alien. Then, they do an improvised interview in character. So, we have two units: one for the makeup room and one for the interview set, which is where I am. I showed up and did a scan with Wireless Designer [Lectrosonics’ frequency coordination and system control software], and the fact that the previous mixer used Lectrosonics helped also. Cast members go straight from the makeup chair to the main stage, and when they do, their transmitters just get passed from the makeup room receiver to my DSQD without any dropouts or glitches. It’s a beautiful thing.”
About Lectrosonics
Well respected within the film, broadcast, and theatre technical communities since 1971, Lectrosonics wireless microphone systems and audio processing products are used daily in mission-critical applications by audio engineers familiar with the company’s dedication to quality, customer service, and innovation. Lectrosonics received an Academy Scientific and Technical Award for its Digital Hybrid Wireless® technology and is a US manufacturer based in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. Visit the company online at www.lectrosonics.com.
