[BC] It wasn't the President this time.

[Scott Fybush]

gRAdy Moates wrote:
>> Every mic has a listener or two. . .
> 
>     . . .and every mike is ALWAYS ON (unless it has a little 
> slide switch on it that you can slide to the "OFF" position.  
> 
>     Mikes are connected to preamps that have pre-fader outputs, 
> and that audio can be tapped off and fed into punch blocks, 
> and sent all over a station.  I know of owners who did this 
> so they could keep tabs on employees' doings.  They could listen 
> in on at least one mike in every studio.  

And in the case of a modern router-based digital audio system like the 
Wheatstone I work with at WXXI here in Rochester, the audio from any 
mike in any studio in the building can (at least in theory) be brought 
up at any time on any fader on any console in the building, with no user 
feedback to indicate that the mike is live. It's a VERY good reason to 
be even more mindful of the "always on" rule of thumb!

(In practice, most of the inputs on most of the boards are limited in 
software to a very small selection of the hundreds of available input 
sources...but even so...)

s