From the stage, my MD talkback mic can go to the band, to the media team, to both, or out through the mains. Our ProPresenter stage screen always shows me who I'm talking to. When I talk to the media team, a button flashes on their Stream Decks so they know to put their headphones on, and they can talk back to me from mics at their positions.
Two tools do all of it: Bitfocus Companion and the Elgato Stream Deck pedal. Companion works as a software A/B switch, and the pedal is the controller.
All of that cost less than the A/B switch I was thinking about buying for the talkback mic.
On the software side, Companion does the work. It routes mics on our Behringer WING, changes stage screens in ProPresenter and flashes buttons on the Stream Decks. This project is also why we moved to one Companion host with Companion Satellite on our other machines. You might be able to build this without Satellite, but having every button on one host made it much easier.
If you're brand new to Companion, learn the basics first. This build assumes you know how buttons, actions and pages work.
The pedal has three pedals, and each one can do a short press and a long press. That gives you up to six buttons in Companion.
The main mix option is for rehearsal. If I need to talk to someone who isn't wearing headphones, it's a lot nicer than yelling across the room.
I added the long press on the middle pedal after a couple of weeks. Every talkback button changes the stage screen to a worship layout. During the two-minute countdown before service, I wanted to see the countdown video again, so the long press puts the slide preview back.
I made one bus mix for the media team. The only things in it are my talkback mic, the mic at the soundboard, the mic at ProPresenter and the mic in our live stream room.
That bus goes to the headphones plugged into the WING, to the small headphone amp at ProPresenter, and over Dante to an iMac in the live stream room. Sending it over Dante saved me another XLR run and another headphone amp.
To talk to the media team, Companion turns my talkback channel on in that bus. To talk to the band, it turns the channel on in each in-ear mix. On our console the talkback mic is channel 34, the media bus is bus 15, and the band's in-ears are buses 5 through 10 and 12.
For the main mix, Companion doesn't mute the channel, because a mute would also cut it from the bus mixes. It pulls the main fader all the way down instead. The long press brings that fader up to 0 dB.
In ProPresenter, I made four identical stage screen layouts. The only difference is the text and color of one box: band, media, band and media, or mains. Each pedal button switches to its matching layout.
That's only for me. Without it I'd have no idea where my mic was going.
I also use the Companion Buddy feedback tally, a small wireless tally light that connects to Companion over your network. I use it two ways:
I shared my first thoughts on it in this short video. If you want one, here's the tally light. That's an affiliate link, so I get a small kickback at no extra cost to you.
In Companion, go to Surfaces and set a startup page for the pedal. Give it its own page. Otherwise it starts on page one and you'll wonder why nothing triggers.
Our pedal runs off the tracks computer on stage. I installed the Stream Deck software at first and had problems, so I deleted it. As long as Companion or Companion Satellite is on that computer, you don't need the Elgato software for the pedal.
Left pedal is button one, middle is button two, right is button three. If you usually keep a page up button in one of those spots, move it.
I'm not a Companion expert, and this took some trial and error. There may be simpler ways to do it. Here's what works for us. You can download the full Companion page from the link in the video description.
The three talkback buttons work together. The active one is red and on step one. The other two are green and on step two.
Step one of each button:
Release actions keep the button on step one until you press a different button.
Step two sends the button back to step one and then triggers a press and release on itself. Without that, the first press after switching only changes the step, and you have to press it a second time to route the mic.
The talkback to media button and the band and media button also trigger a flashing button on every media team Stream Deck. I put a copy of that button on each Stream Deck's page, and the talkback buttons trigger each copy. Every copy needs its own trigger action, so adding a Stream Deck means adding an action.
The flashing button loops its own colors:
The abort action on the talkback buttons is what stops the loop.
The long press on the right pedal is set to release after 1,000 ms. It sets the talkback fader to 0 dB in the main mix and switches the stage screen to the mains layout. The long press on the middle pedal uses the same 1,000 ms release to switch the stage screen back to the slide preview layout.
It's more finicky. There have been weeks with hiccups, like ProPresenter disconnecting from Companion. A physical A/B switch doesn't do that.
It also does a lot more than an A/B switch can: four destinations, stage screen feedback and an alert for the media team, all from my feet.
Not necessarily, but it's how we did it. One host holds every button, which makes it easy to copy and trigger buttons across all our Stream Decks.
No. Companion or Companion Satellite on the computer is enough. We had problems with the Elgato software installed and removed it.
Muting the channel also cuts it from the bus mixes, so the band and media team wouldn't hear it. Pulling the main fader down only takes it out of the mains.
We put out free templates, checklists, and training for church media teams. Grab the free resources here.
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