Twenty of Robe’s new Forte moving lights are a key feature of a new lighting design by Maxime Chotard for “Mousquetaire de Richelieu” (Richelieu’s Musketeer), one of the flagship shows at Puy du Fou, a historical theme park in Les Epesses in the Pays de la Loire region of Western France. These have now been joined by 22 x Robe Esprites which were chosen as a perfect complement to Robe’s highest-powered LED moving light.
The show, staged in “Le Grand Carrousel” Hall, a 6000 square metre equestrian theatre with seating for 3000, combines sword fights, poetic tirades, equestrian prowess, costumes, moving sets and spectacular special effects that immerse visitors in a crazy swashbuckling mid-17th century tale that unfolds on a massive purpose-built stage. The 74-metre wide by 45 metres deep performance space is equipped with – among other things – the world’s largest stage curtain!
Maxime, who is site-wide head of lighting responsible for the whole park, recently oversaw a substantial lighting upgrade designed to bring a new “visual coherence” to the performance and to enable transition to more energy efficient light sources over the next three years, simultaneously reducing the show’s long-term operating costs and maintenance.
On the creative side, two major issues had become apparent since the last show season ran from June to November 2021 (delayed from the usual April to November season due to Covid) and these needed fixing. The first was that some of the lighting cues lacked impact, and secondly, the huge black stage floor sometimes became an over-dominant big black mass that swallowed up the cast and sets without helping to define the different stage areas and assist in the narrative.
Maxime’s first criteria for adding any new lighting fixtures was that they must be high powered as well as an LED luminaire. Robe’s Forte was launched in 2021 and came onstream at just the right time to become a major part of the new lighting scheme, together with the Esprites which had been launched in 2019.
Since the first performance of “Mousquetaire de Richelieu ” in 2006, the show has undergone numerous technical changes and lighting alterations, without ever being completely redesigned. “With this in mind, and with much more versatile and efficient LED luminaires coming to market, the task of updating the rig became all the more urgent,” explains Maxime. He and his team looked at several options, before choosing Forte and Esprite which were demonstrated on site by Vincent Bouquet from Robe France.
Robe Forte
Le Robe Esprite.
The Forte was chosen for its brightness and intensity, and for its excellent and refined colour mixing system which offers a fantastic full spectrum of hues from the richest saturates to the most finessed pastels plus an authentic range of CT whites, ideal for accentuating natural flesh tones. The zoom and the accurate shuttering were other factors making the fixture ideal to illuminate the expansive stage. The fully sealed dust-proof optical chamber and effects modules also impressed everyone as this significantly reduces the general maintenance needed on the lights, a fact very much appreciated by Puy du Fou where the daily show schedule is relentless!
Products like Forte and Esprite also utilise Robe’s unique and patented Tansferable Engine (TE) LED technology, a hugely flexible concept offering the option of different and interchangeable LED engines – high powered, high CRI, ‘tungsten’, etc., – in the same fixture hardware, which can be quickly changed / ‘transferred’ in 5 to 7 minutes.
All the new fixtures are deployed high up in the sides of the set and along the back to allow the floor to be textured and fully covered with “checkerboard” effects and other impressive gobo treatments. As well as the new Fortes and Esprites, some Robe BMFL Blades installed in a lighting refit in 2017 are still working hard on the show – which continues to be one of the most popular in the park.
Once the 2022 season starts in April, “Mousquetaire de Richelieu” will play five times a day, seven days a week.
For more info about Robe Lighting, you can visit www.robe.cz
British indie rockers alt-J recently unveiled their new tour in support of their latest studio album, The Dream. Creative collective FragmentNine, which has been designing their shows since 2014, was again tasked with the show’s scenography abandoning the ‘volumetric video’ ingenuity of 2017’s Relaxer, which won them a Knight of Illumination award.
Photos : Matt Bishop
This time they adopted a completely different direction, in cooperation with the band’s long-time manager Stephen Taverner, according to FragmentNine (F9) co-founder Jackson Gallagher. What both tours have in common is heavy use of GLP’s own award-winning X4 Bar 20s – this time accompanied by quantities of JDC1 hybrid strobes – but this time in an entirely different application. “X4 Bars are real workhorses these and the JDCs are regular gotos for us,” confirms Gallagher.
Photos : Matt Bishop
However, Taverner had imagined a more delicate and airy performance than the 2017 confection. And so wrapped in over 1,500 square feet of holographic projection fabric, the band performs inside a box that transports them through many different worlds throughout the evening.
This has been implemented by F9’s Gallagher and co-founder Jeremy Lechterman, along with F9 vice-principal Michael Hankowsky, in response to Stephen Taverner’s brief. From a video perspective, once they had sourced the most suitable fabric – Hologauze-50 – they opted for front and rear projection in preference to LED to create the holograms proposed by Taverner.
Photo Matt Bishop
Instead, the role of LED was relegated to a conventional videowall behind the cube, following projection tests at Upstaging, the lighting and video vendors for the tour.
Gallagher notes that since the band is fairly static on stage, containing them within a box creates a slightly edgy sensation. “We endeavoured to create little vignettes through light and video to support the subject matter without being too ‘on the nose’.”
Although there are little over 100 GLP X4 Bar 20 and JDC1 taking on most of the workload, their importance cannot be overstated. Other than a few effects contained within the box, the GLP pieces are entrusted with holding their own to complement the main holographic box. “Although there is a lot less lighting than on the previous tour, the show still has a sizable package capable of high impact,” says Gallagher.
Photo Matt Bishop
In terms of structures, there are two horseshoe-shaped goalposts – one upstage, one downstage – all lined with X4 Bar 20s, run in single-pixel (88-channel) mode – with JDCs on the sides of both goalposts. There is a further grid of JDC1 situated behind the LED wall. “And these really punch through,” comments Jackson Gallagher.
Michael Hankowsky adds that everything is run in single-pixel mode and notes the versatility and additional functionality offered by activating the different plate sections of the JDC1. These are also used as eye candy and as a twinkly effect from the LED wall at the rear. As for the X4 battens, in addition to simply edging the cube, they are being put to more creative use. “In a couple of songs, we take a section and put them into diagonals and use them as FX, whereas for the song ‘Matilda’, we use the Bars for backlight instead of eye candy,” he explains.
Photo Matt Bishop
The core of the control package is again provided by regular collaborators Liteup Events, with co-founder Mark Callaghan repeating his duties as crew chief. The touring lighting operator is Dave Singleton.
Cameo is expanding its product portfolio of IP65-certified LED outdoor wash lights with the release of the new Zenit W600 SMD in RGBW and Daylight versions. Lighting designers, event technicians and rental companies will benefit from their suitability for outdoor applications, as well as their particularly high light output and maximum flexibility.
These new additions to the Zenit Series are designed for use at medium-sized to large indoor and outdoor events, as well as for lighting TV shows. The new outdoor SMD LED wash lights are available in two versions: the Zenit W600 D SMD Daylight, and the Zenit W600 SMD RGBW.
The Zenit W600 SMD RGBW delivers a rich luminous flux of up to 41,000 lm. A total of 504 SMD 4-in-1 LEDs deliver precise, high-resolution colours and colour blends across the entire RGBW spectrum. With its CRI index of 85, the Zenit W600 SMD also ensures natural colour reproduction. When it comes to colour temperature, lighting technicians have an adjustable bandwidth of between 2,700 and 6,500 K at their fingertips. The 12 independently controllable LED segments facilitate the creation of colourful effect images and running lights.
The Daylight model is equipped with 576 SMD white light LEDs, which provide an enormous output of up to 90,000 lm. For this purpose, the boost mode increases light output significantly for short periods. A total of 48 segments can be controlled separately via Pixel Control, which provides lighting designers with enormous potential for creative effects. Based on high-resolution 16-bit technology, four dimmer curves are also available, which allow the dimming characteristics of classic halogen lamps to be simulated if required.
With its robust and design-optimised cast aluminium housing, the Zenit W600 SMD is also recommended for use in fixed installations. The carefully designed cooling concept is based on three temperature-controlled fans. Light operators can use three preset modes dictated by the noise sensitivity of the event, including automated fan control and noiseless convection cooling. The integrated OLED display, which features touch-sensitive control buttons, enables intuitive configuration directly on the device. In addition to wired DMX and RDM control, the ZENIT W600 SMD can also be controlled wirelessly via the integrated 2.4 GHz W-DMX transceiver.
Chilean production services company Real Audio Sistemas combines an experienced team with state-of-the-art equipment and personalised service and support to provide organisers with a highly capable and trusted partner for a wide range of events.
16 « systèmes » composés de la tête principale M46 et du module d’extension des basses B112 complétés par 3 modules M28 comme downfills. Du SPL, et pas qu’un peu.
Central to the Santiago-based company’s mission to provide comprehensive, innovative, and professional solutions to enhance its clients’ projects is an investment in NEXO STM, a modular sound system which has equipped Real Audio Sistemas to cover events of all sizes, up to and including large festivals like La Cumbre Del Rock and Lollapalooza.
Most recently, the STM system was deployed at Festival Maleza which took place on April 22nd at The Hippodrome in Santiago, where Spanish ska-punk legends Ska-P headlined in front of a 37,000-strong crowd.
12 subs S118, disons, un tiers de ce qui a été déployé au pied de la scène principale. On aperçoit aussi des stacks de trois M28, la version musclée du front fill chez Nexo.
Drawing on a single inventory of just four compact, powerful and proportionately-sized STM modules, the team at Real Audio designed a system for the main festival stage comprising left and right FOH hangs of 16 each STM M46 main and B112 Bass Extension Modules deployed side by side, and further supplemented by 3 STM M28 Omni Modules as downfills.
A total of 36 STM S118 Subs were used in a 12-each LCR format in front of the stage, and additional arrays of M28 and B112 cabinets were used for delays, supplemented by further S118 subs. Amplification and processing came from NEXO NXAMP powered controllers, fitted with AES network cards.
Meanwhile it was all NEXO on stage also, with the company’s revolutionary 45N12 arrayable monitors delivering precision directivity and consistency of coverage, along with high SPL before feedback.
“STM gives us the power and flexibility to deliver world class sound at many different events, including large festivals” reports Real Audio Director Claudio Valencia.
“We work in partnership with the sound engineering community here in Chile, providing NEXO-approved training on the system along with high levels of technical and operational support. We always get great feedback on STM from FOH engineers, and artists love the 45N12 monitors.”
Celebrated monitor engineer Pasi Hara came from Helsinki’s uniquely Finnish metal community of the 1990s and 2000s, one he embraced enthusiastically as a guitarist himself. However, he soon discovered that his most salient talents lay in putting the technical pieces of a show together.
He debuted those with Helsinki goth-rockers H.I.M., starting as their FOH and “everything” engineer, later becoming the band’s monitor mixer. And that’s the role he’s settled into since, for numerous artists like Slash/Guns N’ Roses, The Cult, Tower of Power, Beck, Fergie, Fall Out Boy, and Tool, although he’s likely best known for manning System of a Down’s monitors over the past decade.
What being around the serious sonic horsepower that heavy-metal music engenders has taught Hara is that anything he can do to make the monitoring environment for his musicians safer, more comfortable, and more accurate but without sacrificing impact he’ll gladly do. And the KLANG immersive in-ear monitor mixing system has become his primary tool of choice to accomplish just that.
Pasi Hara
“I first heard about the KLANG platform when it popped up on my Facebook feed,” he recalls, speaking from his home in the Los Angeles area, where he moved his family about seven years ago. “I thought, ‘I need to take a look at this.’ So I went to their website, watched the videos, then emailed them, saying, ‘You have my full attention!’”
That immediate and keen interest came about because of how the KLANG:fabrik system could allow Hara to create a virtual and precise replica of any musician’s immediate stage environment in their in-ear monitors, with the KLANG:fabrik’s three-dimensional capability letting him put every instrument on stage in exactly the same place in their IEM mix.
What he could accomplish using KLANG:fabrik was made clear the first time he tried it out in 2014 with Guns ‘N’ Roses guitarist Slash on one of his solo shows in Germany. The band was loud and there was a lot of bleed into lead singer Miles Kennedy’s microphone, and thus into his IEMs.
“By just applying the KLANG to that situation, moving the guitar to the side in Miles’ ears and keeping the vocal in front, the overall volume had gone down 9 to 10 dB and all the bleed was gone,” Hara recalls. “He wasn’t fighting the guitar in his monitor anymore—in the 3D mix, it was behind him and to the side, just like it was on stage—and I didn’t have to do the usual carving out of frequencies for them to coexist. It was amazing and I was sold on KLANG.”
Fabrik recto et verso.
KLANG:fabrik worked just as well for System of a Down, particularly for drummer John Dolmayan. Hara brought the KLANG system into a rehearsal and set up the drum kit virtually to reflect how Dolmayan perceives it from the drum throne: an array of five toms, plus a pair of kicks. “I remember that John sat down behind the kit, went around the toms once, then looked at me and said, ‘What did you do?’ And before I could answer, he said, ‘Don’t touch anything. It’s perfect.’ John’s a very precise drummer and tends to look straight ahead when he plays, so everything in his in-ears is exactly as it is right in front of him.”
System of a Down’s members were all very effusive about the benefits they’ve derived from using the KLANG:fabrik IEM mixing system. “Before KLANG, I had to guess what my band members where playing. Now, I hear every note and it’s life-changing,” Dolmayan personally shares. Shavo Odadjian, the band’s bassist, who directly transitioned to the KLANG platform from using monitor wedges, says, “My stage experience went from 0 to 60 real fast after I started using the KLANG. I can now be anywhere on our stage and hear everything clearly, which is truly a game-changer!” And for vocalist Serj Tankian, it’s all about the third dimension: “The 3D mix creates way more space for isolation of specific instruments delivering more clarity during our performance.” Since then, Hara has used his KLANG:fabrik pair on virtually all of his clients, including Ebi, The Cult, KISS, Slipknot, and Stone Temple Pilots.
La carte DMI-Klang.
More recently, Hara has also expanded his KLANG universe with a new DMI-KLANG card, which he uses with a DiGiCo SD5 console via an Orange Box, or by plugging it directly into one of the DMI slots found on the back of a new Quantum225 or Quantum338 desks.
“During the pandemic, I had a loaner SD12 with a DMI-KLANG card and I tried it out, transferring my files from the KLANG:fabrik. That made an even greater difference, because the latency, which was already very low, was now only a quarter of a millisecond with the DMI-KLANG integrated into the console. Latency is mission-critical, and I always measure it from the microphone to the earpiece, because everything digital that you add in line can cause more delay. But with the DMI-KLANG card, that’s no longer adding much to that equation.”
Une capture écran du soft KLANG:app.
Hara says that the KLANG system’s ability to create fully immersive soundscapes for stage monitoring has been transformative. “Not everyone gets the idea of 3D right away for monitors, because the term gets used so often for so many things,” he says.
“But when I bring out the iPad with the KLANG:app software running on it and show someone what can be done with 3D monitoring, they immediately get it. And it has let me change how I get the sound to the musicians. I don’t have to try to carve out a space for the drummer to hear the click, for instance. And that’s also saving everyone’s hearing. KLANG has literally changed everything in my world for the better.”
Lighting and visual designer Rob Ross of New York and LA based technical production company Rob Ross Design used over 500 Astera Titan Tubes to highlight impressive architectural and industrial areas at Tesla’s new Gigafactory in Austin, Texas … for the automotive giant’s recent facilities launch party, ‘Cyber Rodeo’.
Covering 2,500 acres along the Colorado River and offering over 10 million square feet of factory floor, Gigafactory Texas is a U.S. manufacturing hub for Tesla Model Y and the future home of Cybertruck. Rob and his team were asked onboard by the ‘Cyber Rodeo’ event’s creative director Stefan Beckman and producer Mark Seed and tasked with designing a creative illumination scheme for the vast environmental spaces involved in the event, including interiors and the building exterior. This epic mission saw close collaboration with LD Tom Sutherland and his team from DX7 Design who created lighting for Cyber Rodeo’s three stage and entertainment areas. The enormous main space utilised for the event measured 3800 ft x 1200 ft and stretches the equivalent of seven city blocks!
Looking at photos, videos, walk-throughs, plans, and renders were useful for getting an impression explained Rob, but it wasn’t until he finally stood in the space for real during the first reccie … that he truly felt and understood its scale and enormity!
This was the first trigger for creating an atmosphere for guests to be engaged, impressed, and put in the mood to party by proactive lighting. “We had a free rein to suggest ideas which was great fun!” stated Rob, who immediately thought of utilising the building’s impressive structural metalwork as part of the installation, highlighting its form and impressive architecture as well as utilising it practically to provide lighting positions. Titan Tubes also sprang to mind straight away! This was for the quality and power of the output and – obviously in a space this size – the wireless control and operation.
Rob frequently uses Astera products in designs and projects and loves the versatility of all the Astera products. Get in and set up time for Cyber Rodeo was tight given its size and ambition, also partly due to the factory continuing to be functional throughout the build.
The Titan Tube installation was approximately 1,900 ft long with 568 fixtures deployed across the building, the vast majority magnetically attached to the top parts of the columns which were each 40 ft apart. This ‘perspective design’ illustrated the spectacular size and presence of the building, emphasising its character and potency as a workplace, and additionally gave it a real sense of depth as guests moved around to the various areas.
These included the main stages and assorted ‘exhibition’ areas that were highlighting various Tesla vehicles, old, new, prototype, etc., as well as cutting-edge manufacturing plant like aluminium casting machines – which form part of a vehicle frame from molten aluminium, a technology designed to reduce the amount of welding needed – plus new painting facilities and an array of other amazing industrial robots.
The Titan Tube design allowed the whole area to be beautifully and tastefully lit and enabled some mind-bending effects with chases whizzing manically up and down the building, all helping ramp up the energy, excitement, and hi-tech party atmosphere!
Over 400 of the Titan Tubes were ingeniously rigged to the steel pillars using Androokie magnet kits, with some other fixtures dotted around on the floor and other vantage points, all controlled through Astera ART7 boxes via a grandMA2 lighting console. “This all worked fantastically,” commented Rob.
It would have been near impossible to cable that many fixtures neatly within the timeframe, an exercise that would have been costly and inefficient in person-power, but the Astera units were loosely power cabled for the programming sessions with the cabling running along the floor that was removed on the morning of the show, leaving them completely wireless.
Rob was delighted with the results as were his clients. He admits that he’s been wanting to do something of this scale and profile with Titan Tubes ever since he first used Astera products around 5 years ago. “The light quality is soft and nicely textures spaces, people, and objects. They are small and handleable – extremely mobile, the colour mixing is excellent, and they can be fitted absolutely anywhere,” he concluded.
Rob Ross Designs owns a quantity of Titan Tubes as well as the smaller Helios Tubes and the larger Hyperion, all of which use the same Titan LED engine … however even using all of these they didn’t have anywhere near enough for Cyber Rodeo, so most units were supplied by Wireless Film Lights, with entertainment stage lighting contractor 4Wall pitching in to make up the remaining count.
Rob and his team also supplied around 100 of their own Astera AX5 TriplePARs and 24 x AX3 LightDrop on the truck for last minute deployment. Sure enough, the day before, all of these were utilised to light signage, bars, walkways, toilets, etc., as this part of the factory was transformed from an imposing cyber manufacturing facility into a cool event space for the evening. The Titan Tubes were also programmed into the DX7 Design team’s lighting control consoles allowing them to be incorporated with their stage lighting at specific moments as a series of live acts and guest speakers took to the stage, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Rob’s associate for the project was Aiden Marshall and their assistants were Jai Jing Qi and Dan Schreckengost.
Rob concludes, “We all had a really amazing experience on this project. It was a lot of fun to be challenged to work on such a large space and get to know such amazing new Tesla technology! I particularly enjoyed the teamwork and synergies existing between the different departments, disciplines and everyone involved who worked tirelessly to make it happen, as well as having the opportunity to create these incredible visual elements using such innovative products. A huge thanks to all of the teams and vendors that helped make it happen!”
For more info about Astera, you can visit astera-led.com
What better place to meet together again and learn more about new audio technologies than at InfoComm 2022! Visit us in Las Vegas and join captivating product previews in the RCF demo room.
The focus on the show floor (W 3223) will be a new section dedicated to revolutionary RCF power amplifiers loaded with proprietary DSP, new passive speakers (most notably the Compact A and Compact C series) and new additions to the installed speaker catalog, featuring high-power density for intensive audio applications. Many other new products will be showcased for the first time at Infocomm 2022.
Sharing the same cabinet of the groundbreaking ART 9 Series, the COMPACT A Series is a lightweight and high-performance multi-purpose two-way full-range professional speaker for fixed installation projects. Their sound quality and compactness, combined with an elegant design and accurate finishing, makes it the perfect choice for any environment, from night clubs to corporate spaces.
Compact C Series is composed of two-way point source speakers for near and mid-distance applications, combining a compact wood cabinet with high output for accurate speech and music reproduction. Combining solid birch plywood cabinets with neodymium transducers and a 100° x 50° rotatable constant directivity horn, the speaker can be installed either horizontally or vertically, with optional mounting accessories for wall or ceiling.
Our RCF Team is excited to show you the latest and greatest audio innovations, all lined up across our booth and demo rooms. We look forward to seeing you in Las Vegas!
Booth W 3223 Demo Room W 213 Infocomm, June 4-10, 2022 Las Vegas Convention Center
If you just came across this article, please click here to go back and read the first part, otherwise, let’s get on with the music for the next and final part of our immersion in the wackiest of musicals but also in the most serious of audio installations, with Orbital for the equipment, a few delightful anecdotes from Julius and Xavier, around the world under a bigtop, as well as our listening impressions.
SLU : The venue belongs to Fimalac but it is, in a way, a facility of Stage Entertainment, which doubles the potential they have with Théâtre Mogador…
Xavier Marchand : In a way. Stage has extensive artistic and technical experience in musicals, which allowed them to stage The Producers with a great team to support the director Alexis Michalik, including Julius Tessarech who handles the sound design, considering that it is a French adaptation.
Located under the stage and not easily accessible – hence the single racks and not the double or triple big cabinets – is the space for the two Yamaha stages: the amplifiers for the PA system, plus the Dante distribution with its switches and the ME-U hub at the top of the central rack.
SLU : So you have teamed up with Julius…
Xavier Marchand : Exactly. The technical choices, the implementation, the specialized English vendor – all of that is his responsibility. I support the location scouting, the drawings, the equipment lists, the prediction mapping process, the adaptation to the theater, and the mix.
A close-up view of the ME-U Hub. It handles the 40 Dante signals coming in through the card inserted on the far right, and sends them back with a PoE power supply via the 10 outputs, on the left, to the same number of ME-1 boxes. This hub also communicates via its IP address and allows you to monitor its synchronization, the Dante streams present, as well as the number of connected devices. It is even possible to change the name of the streams.
I had to find the routes, measure everything, and verify the use of certain existing equipment on site. My touring experience made the task easier, especially with the English rental company Orbital, which is used to equipping West End venues without Speakon at the end of the cables because, generally speaking, London musicals have greater resources and stay on the bill longer! We just had to unroll, plug in and go.
SLU : Did Orbital Sound also provide the intercom and video?
Xavier Marchand : Yes, they are the ultimate musical theatre specialists. They have everything you need to turn four walls and a thousand seats into a real Broadway theater. The only problem is that they wire everything to English standards, so you need to bring power adapters for the few things you may have forgotten or to charge your iPhones. For the rest we have amps and other “big” equipment as spares, Orbital also has some in its warehouse or knows where to find what could fail and can act quickly. Finally we have done the same in France. We know where to find what we might need as soon as possible.
The lower opera box that hosts the brass instruments. The third trombone station is on the level from which this photo was taken. Notice the variety of instruments and microphones. Each musician has three different pick-up options, depending on the instrument played and the sound desired. The black and white screen displays the musical director. On the floor against the plexiglass, you can see an Orbital connection box with audio, video, network and power inputs/outputs.
SLU : Have you tried to work with a French company?
Xavier Marchand : Yes of course. S-Group was consulted but they didn’t have the complete video package and especially video – the old fashioned way – with black&white screens with no latency and they would have had to buy the IR cameras, as well as the Allen & Heath ME. It would have been a lot. Orbital’s know-how is also in the details, like the patch boxes with Harting connectors, which have four BNCs, six XLRs, mains and two RJ45s. You can send the monitors in one direction, the camera in the other, add an ambient microphone for the monitoring and provide power to the whole package.
Everything is in separate ground, it runs in AES/EBU with the intercom on the side. It works fast and well, even in case of a glitch. If you ask them for a Mac for QLab, for example, they deliver two in a standard rack, with two screens and two Dante switches. For them, one computer is two computers and it’s the same price. Orbital splits the English musical theater market with Autograph and Sound System. These Companies were built by designers who could not find what they were looking for with the rental companies. If you want something done right, do it yourself (he smiles).
Steps? Not only –Not just that, open on the less visible side to let it sound, it hides a Q-Sub. And there are two staircases.
SLU : Does this musical have to have a particular color or tone to the sound?
Xavier Marchand : A little 60’s for some parts, with some tap dancing, so we don’t need a lot of low end or contour. The 60-120 Hz octave is not very full. We also had to trim the 160 Hz because of the room.
SLU : You had a certain artistic freedom to adapt and edit The Producers in French; how did you manage to find the right mix?
Xavier Marchand : There is a CD of the original version sung by Patrick Brady and Nathan Lane. We listened to it a lot and Julius researched the FX and tone. That’s why we have a rather simple and distant ribbon mics sound capture, not overly manipulated, to stay in the original style and a bit “old school”.
SLU : For the main audio system you supplemented the resident system at the Théâtre de Paris. Why the choice of Yamaha for the console?
Xavier Marchand : Julius had previously used a pair of CL5 consoles to get more outputs on Oliver Twist and we should have had a Rivage on another musical, which didn’t happen. So we went to see the gear with Delphine (Hannotin – ed. Note) – who is, by the way, an excellent resource – and we had a few visits from Yamaha to analyze our requirements and our feedback, because they are starting to make a name for themselves in the theater world. This choice is also based on the “all in the box” aspect, which would be ideal if Les Producteurs goes on tour. The M7 reverbs (actually Y7, M still being exclusive to the 19″ rack version) are very, very good and so are the compressors. One option we had was the Allen & Heath, which is a nice console but a bit too geared towards live music applications, so the programming would have been too complicated.
SLU : What is your background, Xavier?
Xavier Marchand : I’m 33 years old. I graduated from the Lycée Kastler in Talence / Bordeaux in 2006 with a bachelor’s degree in Cinema and Audiovisual Studies. I spent two years working at the CFPTS (the Performing Arts Professional Technical Training Center), as well as in a company, becoming a sound engineer.
Once out of school, I started to work as an assistant system engineer, then I branched out to work as an assistant sound engineer for productions and festivals, with a strong focus on systems. I was trained on K1, K2 and Meyer, since I worked quite a bit with Dushow Bordeaux and other sound companies with a tendancy towards providing more and more complex solutions.
One night in 2014 I saw Cirque du Soleil’s Allegria at the Patinoire de Meriadeck and thought, “I want to do that”. It was tight, very good, and yet they had to downsize it to fit everything into what was, at the time, the only ‘large’ venue in Bordeaux. I applied online to join Cirque du Soleil and was finally able to go in 2016, on a show called Amaluna, under a big top, which toured Europe. I toured for a year and a half in Europe, a year and a half in South America and a final year in North America.
SLU : You wanted to travel and learn?
Xavier Marchand : Learning, of course, and moving around a lot. I had the chance to go through three continents and to dozens of different cities. 950 shows… I have a taste for travel, heights, and rigging. I am a CPQ2-certified rope technician and a rescue rappeller. This allows me to help, to relate and, for example, to design rigs that are easier to hang (he smiles).
SLU : What was your position at Cirque?
Xavier Marchand : I started out as a technician and then as an assistant, which already meant some responsibility for purchasing and documentation. They were looking for someone familiar with the system to learn how to handle sound, but within the constraints of a circus, with its unusual timeline and show size. The big top had 2500 seats, but we were touring with 89 semi trucks! Insane logistics. The set-up took five days. As we were crossing borders, we had to keep the equipment lists perfectly up to date by department and by location.
SLU : Did you get to touch any of the equipment?
Xavier Marchand : Of course everyone goes to the FoH and monitor consoles. There are three people on sound, who rotate roles. When you are hired, you have an average of three months of trial period, at the end of which you have to have learned the show, the front of house, the monitors and how to handle the stage well.
On top of that, you have to train the new guys, go into maintenance and learn how to fix what can be fixed by doing the small, day-to-day repairs, despite the fact that you start with 30% of spares. The show must go on and they make sure that each technician is fully operational on his own when he signs his contract.
The circus teaches you a lot about managing priorities, passing on information, training, administrative follow-up, pure technical aspects, maintenance, and, of course, mixing… and on top of all that, high quality standards. It’s a very comprehensive learning process and it gives you the tools to manage projects in a different way.
SLU : It came to an abrupt halt with Covid…
Xavier Marchand : Yes, with the layoffs and the American-style bankruptcy. It’s a pity because we were going to take Amaluna to Asia and I was probably going to be the head of sound.
SLU : And this is where we get to The Producers and Julius comes into the picture!
Xavier Marchand : We’ve known each other for ten years and when he knew I was back in France at the beginning of 2020, he asked me to come on board. I met the production team and I loved it. Michalik, the show itself, the location and the work to be done which, of course, was delayed for a year because of Covid.
Alexis Michalik during rehearsals.
We had already worked with Julius at the Folies Bergère on another musical, and we established our collaboration very clearly with a true division of responsibilities. He teaches me a lot of tricks and conveys a whole lot, while keeping a firm grasp on the requirements and the consistency in terms of delivering sound to the audience.
He is amazingly perceptive and discriminating, and I’m talking about 2 dB differences in the mix. He’s got a great ear and he’s a good consultant. While I was learning my mix, he went from seat to seat with his iPad to check it over and over again and get the best possible average.
SLU : Is this your first musical?
Xavier Marchand : With live musicians, yes. On the previous one in 2015 with Julius, we were working with a recorded orchestra. Here, we are really working English style with fewer musicians, but still musicians and good! And it was planned from the beginning that I would be at the console.
We are here in the foyer of the Théâtre de Paris to have a quiet chat with Xavier. After a quick change of batteries on the recorder, we welcome Julius Tessarech, the sound designer of Les Producteurs, who joins us.
Julius and Xavier.
SLU : Still staying busy?
Julius Tessarech : Officially I am retired, but in reality, I am still working, but less (he laughs). As long as they still want me… Seriously, it’s a great musical, great team, great director, great theater, and the audience is definitely turning up. I stopped working at the console, I could help out, if necessary, but it’s been a few years since I handed over the reins. It is necessary to leave space for the younger generations of technicians. Working on The Producers was a joy because I was able to help set up the show and then it goes on with its own life.
SLU : A question I often ask: how are your ears?
Julius Tessarech : (smiling) They are like those of a man of my age. I started out a little hard with rock bands, but was soon lucky enough and willing to move on. I sometimes have the conversation “…but that’s enough ?… Yeah, I assure you, it’s OK!” (he laughs)
Julius’ design work in one image: in the foreground the stage-left V10P, on the right the coaxial E5 for opening up the sound for the seats near and under the mezzanine and, at the top of the stairs, an E8 serving as an infill.
SLU : What about the younger generation, then?
Julius Tessarech : I have always opened the door to trainees and beginners, especially back in the days when we didn’t have the tools and requirements of today, it went very fast.
SLU : Xavier ?
Julius Tessarech : I met him in Bordeaux during a festival and I was immediately impressed. The circus has further strengthened his organizational skills, but even when he was in charge of the stage, things ran perfectly.
Xavier ready to get the show rolling. We can only see one of them, but there are two “next” pedals, one of which is a spare. Just in case! There are two Mac minis at FoH, one for the QLab and the chat during the show, and the other for the virtual soundcheck. According to Orbital, this is a main and a backup. QLab is also used to automatically test the 48 outputs, the speakers one by one, the effects, to send the emergency announcements, the few effects of the show and some additional tracks on the closing tune. QLab is controlled by the PM5 scenes in “next”.
I then asked Xavier to come to Paris to handle the wireless and I quickly trained and put him at the console in order to teach him the key to the live mixing, where we fully accompany the artists on stage, and there again, he blew me away. I called him after I started working on this musical and he very quickly handled the list of material for Orbital. They were amazed by his accuracy.
SLU : What about the mix?
Julius Tessarech : The same. He mixes and added a certain number of his own details or positions and it’s normal, it’s his mix. We worked together on the timbre of the voices and the levels and he makes the whole thing come alive. During the preparation phase, he demonstrated a great memory and attention. Without taking notes, the next day I would find the few observations I had made the day before incorporated into the mix.
Working with someone like Xavier is very satisfying, without forgetting that he is in charge of training Pierre (Cottin – ed.) in mixing and that it goes well.
Pierre Cottin
I also want to point out that on the stage, as well as for the musicians, it’s a blast. They play and they play well! It’s a nice show.
SLU : Once the show is up and running, your job is to guarantee its consistency over time?
Julius Tessarech : Sort of. Together with the people who are in charge of the staging and who do the same on their part, I try to keep the quality of the musical the same night after night, without deviating too much in terms of timbre, levels or FX. I am demanding because I have a used eye and ear and, even when I am not on site, I listen to recordings of the shows. I am also fortunate enough to know the musical directors, musicians and almost all the performers on stage, and that’s a good thing. It helps!
SLU : How has the work gotten better since you started out?
Julius Tessarech : Lots of the equipment and the technology has come along way, but especially the consoles. What we have tonight, for example, is quite amazing. Beyond the mixing part, the number of things that are running in it in terms of effects and their quality is stupendous. And we are far from having used all its resources.
The reverb developed by Bricasti for the Rivage series isn’t called M but Y7, but nonetheless, it’s very good!
Take the Bricasti for example, it’s impossible to tell by ear that it’s not a real one. The Dante is very practical and reliable, wireless systems have also made enormous progress in terms of quality and channel density in a very limited spectrum, and finally the speakers, which offer SPL, coverage and response in a very small size.
SLU : So the console is satisfactory.
Julius Tessarech : Yes, and its Theater mode, too. The three screens and the flexibility of using the fader banks is very useful, because Xavier and I were able to work together, and the same goes for training, because you can work at the mixer with four hands. Unless you’re ultra-picky and want to have a Lexicon 480, with what it has on board, there’s plenty to work with. Even the Eventide H3000 emulation sounds great, and when it comes to working on certain groups, the Portico is very useful and efficient.
Xavier Marchand : The algorithms have changed a lot between the CL and the Rivage series. When you drop 3 dB on the channel EQ, it’s very noticeable, but we stayed with Rio and not Rpio; it’s too expensive and Orbital doesn’t provide them. My only criticism is that the time it takes to go from one scene to another is slower than on other consoles, but we’ve adapted.
SLU : How are you able to integrate a set up and a matrix as complex as that of a musical?
Julius Tessarech : That comes with experience. Today, we have computerized prediction and measurement tools that allow us to rough out the work before finalizing it little by little to obtain a sound that satisfies each audience member. To take the example of tuning a piano, it is the combination of the three strings that makes the note.
The central cluster, which is part of the resident installation at the Theatre of Paris.
I learned a lot from Denis Pinchedez, a Dispatch big member and excellent mixer. The first time I pre-mixed the strings of a big symphony for him in a mobile hut, he came to me at the end of the sound check and said: “your violins are a little thin”. I had taken them one by one and I had made the best sound possible, but the sum of the whole effectively produced a weak sound (he laughs). You just need to let them breathe with a low cut!
With the tuning it is the same. It is necessary to fine-tune, even if it means leaving an overly theoretical tuning of the 20 points of the sound reinforcement here, and then work on the matrices in order to achieve the best balance between the orchestra and the voices throughout the room. For example, we need to compensate for the level of the central cluster as soon as we leave its coverage area, since it only amplifies the voices.
The PM5, which should technically be called the CS-R5 surface, is equipped with the DSP-R10 engine, not the most powerful one, as Xavier says, but more than enough to process 144 signals and to output them via 72 mixes, 36 matrices and two stereo outputs!
SLU : Do you end up paying for this complex set of matrixing, effects and buses in latency?
Latency is automatically compensated in the Rivage system.
Xavier Marchand : Yes, we chose to compensate for this automatically on the console. Between Rio and outputs we have 10 milliseconds of latency, but we take advantage of what the stage brings in terms of the direct sound of the performers, and the size of the room. When there are spoken passages, we limit the amplified sound to take advantage of the natural voices, but when the orchestra plays, we raise the level of the singing to rebalance the whole.
Julius Tessarech : We were even able to get back the few dB we were missing on a voice at the very end of a song by matrixing it in the rear ambiences, by putting a little bit of it into the reverb. And it works! (he laughs)
In theater mode the PM5 offers four possible banks of EQs and two different dynamics and an Actor’s Library that stores the settings made, for example, with the understudies of certain roles. This facilitates on-the-fly patching changes (hats, props or different instruments) within the same show or even when changing musicians or performers on stage from one date to another.
Xavier Marchand : We also made sure not to alter the dynamics and equalization of the voices too much. We insert processing in order to properly convey the groups of men, women, music and All, but we leave the natural character and personality of each performer so that they are immediately recognizable.
Another advantage of the theater version of the software is that there are four different processing blocks per channel, which is useful for correcting the effect of a hat that might not always be on the character’s head.
The house lights go down
Right from the pre-show, the charm works and when the first notes of “King of Broadway” ring out, all the work of Julius and Xavier comes to life. The sound is precise, well in phase, the ratio of music to voice is right and the tonal balance is nice, with a successful bass drum/double bass foundation and the sound of just seven musicians, very credible. A walk around the theater proves the value of the time spent by Julius to find the best compromise.
There are better seats than others, but the differences are still acceptable and the presence of a pair of subs in the balcony brings some real bottom end all the way up without degrading the sound on the parterre and the mezzanine. My compliments to Julius. The voices are very well reproduced so that you don’t miss any of Mel Brooks’ and sometimes Alexis Michalik’s jokes.
The adaptation is successful, as is the acting and versatility of the actors. Everything is there. Acting, singing, dancing, tap dancing, the latter well captured by the combination of floor mic, ankle mic and vocal mic. Also good are the sparse sound effects in surround, and they are done with the appropriate SPL.
“Security? Can you come get that SoundLightUp reporter out of here? We can’t take it anymore!”
Our only criticism is that the two loudest opera boxes, where the brass and drums are both located at stage-left and equipped with plexiglass panels spill into the room. Perhaps it would be necessary to ask the musicians to hold back a little on the rare fortissimi, because it is not easy to mix under the mezzanine, where the sound arrives quite “pacified” by the velvet, while taking into account this occasional contribution of energy, which varies from one evening to another.
We can only dream of having a pair of good delays at the FoH to create a sonic cocoon. This would be expensive and take time to properly calibrate what lacks in color, dynamics and SPL in relation to the room, but would provide a real benefit to the sound engineer who would be able to more easily recognize and correct the normal deviations in this kind of show.
We can’t conclude without thanking the people who helped us to gather and condense this amount of information into this two-part feature, with a special mention to Xavier Marchand whose exhaustiveness is equalled only by his competence, but also to Julius Tessarech whose good ideas, technical choices and accuracy reflect years of fieldwork.
Xavier Marchand would like to thank: “Laurent Bentata, Eric Lousteau, Djamil Benali, François Soutenet, Jean-François Leclercq, Bruno Dabard, Delphine Hannotin, Dan Bailey and the Orbital Sound team, the staff of the Théâtre de Paris, the creative teams, the performers, the musicians and the technicians who have allowed us at every stage to put into practice and into action Julius’ brilliant design for the no less brilliant staging of Alexis Michalik”.
Nominated four times at the Molières 2022, Les Producteurs won two of them!
For the current Genesis tour, The Last Domino?, Roland Greil, co-lighting designer with show designer Patrick Woodroffe of Woodroffe Bassett Designs, chose 5 MDG theONE dual haze and fog generators, citing the need for an excellent canvas of haze on which to paint their lighting design for this iconic band’s potentially last tour.
Throughout its history, Genesis has built a reputation for pushing boundaries with its show designs. The visual impact is a crucial, signature part of the band’s shows and a feature that Greil and Woodroffe were keen to maintain. Their show and lighting design incorporated homages to the band’s history, reflecting looks from past tours, whilst simultaneously bringing the visuals into the 21st century to create an unforgettable experience for the audiences.
“It’s very important to have even haze for a show because we rely on it so much to show the beams and the lighting,” says Greil. “theONE has been one of my favourite haze/fog products for years. We’ve used it for Adele, Phil Collins, Rammstein, etc. It is especially good for its haze. There is not really a comparable product out there at all that can create an even haze – or even a real haze – that’s not just a version of smoke or fog.
“theONE is also good from a touring perspective because the combination of having both a fog machine and a haze machine in one means you can basically leave one product at home as you can get two effects from one unit.”
“For example, with Phil Collins, we toured 3 MDG theONEs for our haze set up. We went to all the normal arenas and with those three machines running at a low level, we were able to create a good and even haze in every arena worldwide.
Another very interesting fact post-COVID: “The treatment of atmospherics is especially interesting in our day and age since the arrival of COVID-19 because arenas worldwide have changed their protocols in relation to air extraction and circulation in the buildings, which brings with it its own extra challenges,” explains Greil.
“Now on the Genesis tour, we have 5 theONEs – 2 upstage, 2 downstage each side and 1 front-of-house – to create an even haze around the venue, and we have to drive them hard, running five machines nearly at full for the whole show just to maintain that even haze.
This is because venues now switch the air extraction to double the normal rate to get rid of the potential virus and germs. It’s healthier of course, but it also sucks out everything you pump into those arenas. With any smaller, lesser machines it would be hard to maintain a decent level of haze.”
Genesis The Last Domino? tour resumed in September 2021 in the UK before travelling to the US mid-West and East Coast. The four-times rescheduled London dates finally took place on 24-26 March at The O2.
Credits: Show Director and Creative Director: Patrick Woodroffe / Woodroffe Bassett Design Co Lighting Designer: Roland Greil & Patrick Woodroffe for Woodroffe Bassett Design Lighting Director & Co Designer: Roland Greil Lighting Programmer: Marc Brunkhardt Technical Integration and Design: Jeremy Lloyd/Wonderworks Supplier: Neg Earth
For more information on MDG’s theONE dual haze and fog generator and all MDG fog, low fog and haze products, visit www.mdgfog.com
Drawn to Life, the first collaboration between Cirque du Soleil, Walt Disney Animation Studios and Walt Disney Imagineering, has opened in Disney Springs, Florida where Robert Juliat Dalis 860s take centre stage with an impressive 80 x 45-foot cyclorama.
In Drawn to Life the stage is transformed into a giant animation table where drawings come to life. The art of classic Disney animation is reinterpreted through Cirque du Soleil’s innovative design and costuming, mesmerizing acrobatic performances and dazzling choreography and combined with all-new Disney animation and an original score. Drawn to Life is the new permanent show at Disney Springs, where the previous production from Cirque du Soleil ran for 18 years.
Montreal-based lighting designer Martin Labrecque is using 58 Dalis 860 300W LED asymmetric cyc/wall wash luminaires for the show. The fixtures deliver powerful, smooth coverage and a huge variety of pastel and saturated colours.
“I had used Robert Juliat Dalis LED footlights on an opera, but this was my first time using the Dalis cyclights,” says Labrecque. “I’m quite a fan of Robert Juliat equipment in general and was impressed by the footlights.
But for ‘Drawn to Life’ I had a giant cyc with two or more scenic layers in front of it to light and I had to get all the colours I wanted to use. The Dalis 860s are powerful and bright and the optics so good that I went all in with them. The cyc was the centrepiece of my design, and we built a top-notch rig around it.”
The Dalis 860 units are mounted on top and at the bottom of the cyc illuminating the massive backdrop like a soft box to backlight scenes. Labrecque explains that classic multiplane animation, in which multiple layers of elements were shot on glass to give a three-dimensional look to animated scenes, inspired the lighting techniques.
“There are four or five tracks in front of the cyc so we can layer scenic paintings just like shooting multiplane animation. We can light the paintings from the front so they are opaque or light them via the cyc so they are translucent. And we can change their colour. The Dalis 860s give us the power we need to do all this: Even when we’re using saturated colours on multiple layers in front of the cyc we still have light left.”
An additional Dalis 860 fixture is mounted on a moving truss so it can be positioned wherever needed. “We can do interesting gradients of colour with this light,” Labrecque notes. “In the ‘Dreams of Color’ sequence about the artists who painted the animation cells, we create a gradient of eight or nine colours on the giant cyc.” Drawn to Life opened last November, and Labrecque reports that the Dalis 860s “have been performing perfectly with no issues at all for ten shows a week.”
Robert Juliat is distributed exclusively in North America by ACT Entertainment.
For more details on Robert Juliat’s Dalis 860 cyclorama light and others in the Dalis family, and Robert Juliat’s full portfolio of LED, tungsten and discharge lighting fixtures, visit www.robertjuliat.com
Over the last 5 years, the IS-Series has given integrators the ability to deliver industry-leading audio performance to their clients in a form factor that is simple to use and visually appealing. We’ve introduced two new product additions to the IS-Series which officially launched on May 10th, 2022.
The IS213 is an ultra-compact, high-powered subwoofer intended to be used in ground stack configurations and to fit in compact spaces. The enclosure is loaded with two lightweight, 13” ND13-S Kevlar Neodymium drivers utilizing Adamson’s Advanced Cone Architecture. It is mounted in an ultra-efficient front-loaded enclosure, designed to reproduce clean, musical low frequency information ranging at +/-3 dB from 33 Hz to 100 Hz with a maximum peak SPL of 137 dB (12 dB crest factor pink noise at 1 m, free field).
The IS213
The cabinet construction for the IS213 uses marine grade birch plywood as well as aircraft grade steel and aluminum and is equipped with two front and two back Speakon™ NL4 connectors, or barrier strip connections. The IS213 ships with removable handles for easy handling, while allowing it to fit in tight spaces when the handles are removed, as well as rubber scuff guards on top and bottom that mate with additional IS213s for vertical stacking.
The IS5c is an ultra-compact, lightweight, passive 2-way coaxial loudspeaker, with a 100° conical dispersion pattern. The enclosure contains a 1.4” dome compression driver coaxially combined with a 5” low frequency transducer. The Frequency range at +/-3 dB is 95 Hz to 20 kHz and the maximum peak SPL reaches 123 dB.
The IS5c
The cabinet construction of the IS5c uses marine grade birch plywood as well as aircraft grade aluminum and steel, and is equipped with two Speakon™ NL4 connectors, as well as a 2-point barrier strip. A plate and screw rigging system is placed on top and bottom of the enclosure, with available accessories allowing the enclosure to be deployed seamlessly in a variety of applications.
The IS5c is best suited to supplement larger systems as a fill cabinet, or to handle smaller applications on their own. Target applications include performing arts centers, conference rooms, night clubs, restaurants, and houses of worship.
The level of added flexibility these products offer, bolster the already varied IS-Series product line, giving integrators even more tools to design industry-leading audio solutions. Just as with the rest of the IS-Series product line, both new products can be ordered fully weatherized.
ETC has worked with BAFTA and the redevelopment of its home and headquarters in London. The revamped BAFTA 195 Piccadilly is now officially reopen and will be the central hub for BAFTA’s UK-wide, and global, learning and talent development programme.
photo Rory Mulvey
State of the art facilities and technologically advanced equipment has been used in the redevelopment including ETC products which have been installed in the new theatres within the space.
This includes several lighting fixtures – fos/4 Fresnels, Source Four LED Series 2 profiles and Irideon wash lights. Eos family consoles with network infrastructure including Response Mk2 DMX Gateways are also used to control the lighting, with a stage engineering package involving ETC’s Prodigy P2 hoists and QuickTouch Preset controls.
By improving facilities and doubling the building’s capacity, the redevelopment has enabled BAFTA to dramatically increase its charitable programme. 195 Piccadilly will be a creative centre for film, games and television. A world-leading independent arts charity, BAFTA works throughout the year to find and promote the next generation of talent and to break down the barriers that can make it hard to build careers in the creative industries.
BAFTA’s revamp of its headquarters also brings an expansion of its talent support programme. ETC fully supports BAFTA’s initiatives for encouraging new talent and is equally committed to building up the next generation of lighting professionals with programs that are specifically aimed at students such as the Fred Foster Student Mentorship Program.
ETC Regional Sales Manager for the UK, Jeremy Roberts comments: “BAFTA is such an important organisation for our industry, it was with real pleasure that we were able to support the changes and upgrades to the building. There is a great synergy between the education initiatives of the BAFTA team and the work ETC does in its North Acton training space for aspiring broadcast and film lighting professionals.”
Pauline Campbell, Head of Property at BAFTA added: “We were pleased to work with ETC. In addition to providing cutting-edge technology, their support allowed us to fulfil our charitable remit and provide creatives, new talent, and practitioners with a dedicated global hub for the arts, as well as a lasting legacy in the heart of central London.”
Amadeus has announced a native macOS application version of the HOLOPHONIX immersive sound processor, opening the power of HOLOPHONIX to a completely new audience of music and sound creators.
“As sound spatialization needs keep growing, the success met by the HOLOPHONIX solution led us to imagine other implementations, to support its democratization and its deployment,” explains Gaëtan Byk, CEO of the Amadeus company.
Gaëtan Byk, Amadeus President.
In its original version, the HOLOPHONIX spatialization processor handles a maximum of 128 speakers. It is already used by some of the largest theatrical, musical and museum institutions, in France and other countries and international – e.g. Festival d’Avignon, Cour d’Honneur du Palais des Papes, Festival international d’Art Lyrique d’Aix-en-Provence, Panthéon (Paris), Comédie Française, Théâtre National de Chaillot, Scala (Paris), Centre Dramatique National de Normandie, Beijing Stadium, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Zurich (ETH), Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Lee Seok Young New Media Library (South Korea), etc.
“The HOLOPHONIX Native software is primarily intended for composers, artists, sound engineers, and polymorphic creatives, who wish to produce, compose, and spatialize sound material for a small number of loudspeakers in the studio, live or listening to headphones in binaural,” explains Johan Lescure, Head of HOLOPHONIX Project Development at Amadeus.
HOLOPHONIX Native was designed by Amadeus in collaboration with the STMS (Sciences et Technologies de la Musique et du Son) – currently, the most important international laboratory dedicated to research on music and sound sciences, founded in 1995 and housed within the IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique).
Optimized specifically for macOS 10.15 and subsequent versions and Intel 64/ARM processors, the HOLOPHONIX Native software includes all the spatialization techniques already available within the HOLOPHONIX 128 processor, including High-Order Ambisonics (2D, 3D) Vector-Base Intensity Panning (2D, 3D), Vector-Base Amplitude Panning (2D, 3D), Layer-Base Amplitude Panning, Wave Field Synthesis, Angular 2D, k-Nearest Neighbor, Stereo Panning, Stereo AB, Stereo XY, Native A-Format Ambisonics, Native-B Format Ambisonics, Binaural, Transaural.
“The performance level provided by the new hardware architectures designed by Apple, allows us to consider using HOLOPHONIX Native in live setups, very reliably and with minimal latency, with adapted audio devices,” says Adrien Zanni, Developer at Amadeus.
Thomas, Vincent and Adrien, Gaëtan Byk’s new team, three young wolves in charge of assisting Michel Deluc, Amadeus’ head of acoustic and electronic R&D, but also for Adrien and Vincent, to work on the Native macOS version of HOLOPHONIX.
The software offers an almost unlimited number of spatialization buses and virtual sources. The only limitation is the number of physical output channels, limited to 16. Every parameter of the HOLOPHONIX processor parameter can be controlled via the Open Sound Control (OSC) protocol. In addition, a virtual audio driver called HOLOPHONIX Bridge is available free of charge, allowing inter-application routing without additional latency, and thus a direct connection with almost all DAW like Pro Tools, Nuendo, Ableton Live, Reaper, Logic, QLab, etc.
HOLOPHONIX Native was unveiled at the Integrated Systems Europe international trade fair in Barcelona. The software will be available for download from June 1, 2022 on the website http://holophonix.xyz
The price of the software App will be announced June 1, 2022, but is targeted to be less than €400 ($425 USD) per license. The software App will be available for download starting June 1st, 2022 directly from: http://holophonix.xyz
Iconic multi award-winning composer, producer and “rock star of film music” Hans Zimmer hit the road this spring on a much-anticipated tour. Delayed due to the pandemic, but worth every moment of waiting, as the artist and a host of talented musicians his 19 pieces band and an orchestra delighted fans all over Europe with outstanding performances.
photo Lindsay Cave
An eye-popping lighting design was delivered by John Featherstone from lighting and visual design studio Lightswitch. John and his team pushed for an all Robe moving light rig for the tour which started production rehearsals in Berlin with 250 Robe fixtures onboard ahead of the first European leg, with lighting equipment supplied by German rental specialist, Satis & Fy.
John explained how the design process originally started back in 2019 / 2020 with Hans curating his creative ‘dream team’ which included renowned Broadway set and scenic designer Derek McLane, video designer Peter Nigrini, choreographer Barry Lather, and of course, himself. “Hans is a master at putting collaborators together,” stated John, and in this case, hand-picked a team of experienced practitioners known for their flair and style, all of whom brought their own dynamics from different disciplines to the Zimmer-sphere.
photo Lindsay Cave
The lighting team was rounded out with John’s daughter Hailey Featherstone as lighting director and Chris Herman as programmer. “I was really fortunate to have such a fabulous team working with me, they really embrace collaboration and making this job great and rewarding!” he noted. It was the breadth, richness and detail of the music that inspired the team as a starting point for the lighting design.
Hans had arranged twelve vibrant new suites of his greatest hits to be played throughout the three-hour performance … using over 300 instruments in total with some numbers accompanied by an 8-member dance / chorus troupe choreographed by Barry Lather.
“With this much energy and diversity onstage – from Wonder Woman to the Lion King – I knew I needed THE most versatile lighting fixtures, ones that could morph and change constantly throughout the set,” enthused John, “and Robe’s MegaPointe was my go-to multipurpose fixture!”
photo Lindsay Cave
In creative terms, John’s underlying quest was for the lighting to be ‘musical’ and that also brought him back to Robe fixtures. “Robe makes really elegant luminaires, there is a very organic way about the way they look and move, and the colours are outstanding,” he commented. He wasn’t shy with the MegaPointes, adding 172 to the lighting plot!
He is a huge fan of this fixture and the MegaPointe has been a ‘spectacular workhorse” for many Lightswitch projects, be it a tour or a slick corporate show, and when it comes to needing huge adaptability, John declares that he doesn’t “know a fixture that does it better than the MegaPointe.” For the Zimmer tour, MegaPointes were deployed all over the rig … along the top trusses and populating the three left-and-right side stage verticals, with a few on the downstage edges of the floor.
Six of the overhead trusses moved on a Cyberhoist system enabling John to integrate several ‘automation lighting’ cues into the show, whereby the trussing hardware moved while the lights onboard remained static and on. This offered a contrasting and often subtle element of motion from the light movement itself and worked brilliantly in terms of physically transforming the shape and architecture of the stage space.
photo Lindsay Cave
One of the advantages of lighting a longer show is that you can unlock a whole Pandora’s Box of visual tricks and magic over time, keeping everyone on their toes with little aspects and moments of surprise.
While the stage had an epic film look at times with the overall big, wide screen appearance, when this split horizontally and the top half tracked up, it became stylishly concealed and unobtrusive and framed the rest of the stage, which was a characteristic of Derek McLane’s skillful scenic setting and Peter Nigrini’s thoughtful and textured visuals.
John loves working with Peter as he is very conscious of how a screen functions not just as a visual treatment but also as a lightsource. Sometimes in the set the screen was off completely, while other times it was used subtly for moiring-style effects, and it certainly wasn’t always obvious, even for its physical size. This intelligent approach to content and screen design made the whole setting more intriguing.
Another reason John needed intense fixtures like MegaPointes was to ensure a presence onstage and to work optimally with these substantial video aspects. When the top screen flew out, it effectively became an IMAG surface – like binoculars – for those further down the arena, leaving the stage and the action on it (and not the moved screen) very much the full focus for those sitting nearer.
The upstage screen use was restrained through the first half of the show so there was a conscious emphasis on lighting, and the palpable atmosphere and excitement was ramped up similar to a film as the show had a proper narrative arc. With the first bars of the Wonder Woman medley, the trusses started moving for the first time which brought the house down every night, followed by a gentle increase in screen content as the production started building to a unique and beautifully dramatic sonic and visual crescendo.
“Working with Derek, Peter, and Hans himself who is very involved with the stage presentation … was one of the most enjoyable parts of this project,” related John, who has clearly relished every minute of the process and – ever his own worst critic – is “extremely pleased” with the results. For key lighting the orchestra and band – who covered a substantial area – John turned to another Robe favourite, 24 x BMFL WashBeams and six BMFL WashBeam Follow Spots. Of the latter, four were on an advance truss above the audience out in the house and two were on two of the mid-stage moving trusses for neat and tailored back light.
photo Lindsay Cave
The BMFL FollowSpots, operated via six BaseStations located backstage, were for the principals and soloists. Their main parameters were controlled via the lighting console so the operators could focus on the following, and “they worked exactly as we envisioned,” commented John. For the first time ever, John used Robe’s Tetra range of moving LED battens in a show design, adding a row of 36 x Tetra2s along the whole downstage edge of the stage, plus 32 x Tetra1s rigged above the stage in key positions on various mid stage trusses.
The Tetra2s made excellent footlights he reports and can also be used to create audacious sweeping curtain-of-light effects one moment, then be transformed into a jaw-dropping effects look the next moment applying the flower effect for delicate filigree-style tracing particles of light which John particularly loved from this low-profile front-of-stage position.
“The Tetra range is really impressive,” he commented, adding that he is sure he will be using them again in the future! Talking about Robe more generally, John appreciates specific characteristics that the luminaires bring to a designer: “The colours are beautiful and the colour continuity between different types of fixtures is really important – with Robe they have paid attention to this for some time, they are thinking in a proper grown-up lighting world!”
photo Lindsay Cave
John also appreciated the great family atmosphere on the tour, and especially when his own daughter Hailey was able to clear her busy schedule and join the team as lighting director and operator for the tour. John, Hailey, and Chris Herman from Lightswitch programmed the show and did one month pre-vis in New York before decamping to Europe and production rehearsals before hitting the road.
John also mentions the “outstanding” service they have received from Satis & Fy on this tour as well as commenting that both Robe’s North American and German subsidiaries were instrumental in making several logistical challenges happen like short notice custom gobo deliveries.
The sold-out tour finished its first leg to fantastic reviews, and everyone is hoping for more live shows in 2023.
For more info about Robe Lighting, you can visit www.robe.cz
It may never rain in southern California but it pays to be prepared because when it does, man, it pours. Full Flood Inc. Lighting Designer Noah Mitz and Lighting Director Bryan Klunder opted to use 40 IP65-rated Ayrton Perseo fixtures for Adele’s surprise CBS special, Adele One Night Only, at the landmark Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles last November. The two-hour show no sooner finished than the skies opened up in a dramatic and torrential storm that found crews scrambling to cover non-IP-rated gear.
“It was one of the most intense weather systems that LA had seen in some time,” recalls Harrison Lippman, Co-Founder of Burbank-based Volt Lites, Inc., which was the production lighting vendor for the show with additional support provided by PRG Los Angeles. ACT Entertainment is the exclusive distributor of Ayrton lighting in North America.
“Being equipped with the Perseos demonstrated the value of IP-rated lighting even in LA – it seldom rains here but when it does, it really does,” says Lippman. The Adele special was one of the largest-scale projects that Volt Lites has done for Mitz and his team; the company provided a turnkey lighting package for the show, including new lighting technology and control solutions.
Mitz had originally specified Ayrton Diablo fixtures for the production, which he had often used before. “But with the forecast showing a 100 percent certainty of rain on the scheduled shoot day we reviewed the entire plot and went with Perseo,” he explains. “Even with compressing the schedule and losing our rehearsal day to try to beat the weather, it poured right after the taping wrapped.”
The show followed the release of Adele’s new single, “Easy on Me,” which ended a six-year musical hiatus for the artist, and aired days before the debut of her long-awaited fourth studio album, “30.” To mark her musical return the singer’s team, CBS and Fulwell Productions decided to stage a top secret concert for friends and super-fans at an undisclosed location in LA. A second concert was planned for London.
“She wanted to send a love letter to LA with an iconic LA backdrop and chose a very ambitious production in front of the Griffith Observatory, which is typically open to the public and not an event space,” says Mitz. “There were a lot of conditions to using the building – it’s a special piece of LA iconic architecture. The show was envisioned to start taping in the afternoon so you could see LA in the background; Adele would perform her concert through the dusk and into the night accompanied by a full orchestra and her band, while talking with her guests between songs.” Mitz arrayed the 40 Perseo fixtures in two lines on top of the observatory and on the floor in the off-stage wings. “The bulk of our entire fixture inventory was on the roof and fully exposed to the elements,” he points out.
“The Perseos were our workhorse beam lights from the roof. In addition, some were floor lights positioned left and right at the ends of the stage where they lit the building and helped to fill the corners of the set visually. We also had some lighting the main ironwork doors of the observatory.” In addition to the Perseo’s IP rating, Mitz and Lighting Director Bryan Klunder were “drawn to the fixtures’ size and brightness: they’re a smaller fixture with a lot of output,” Klunder says. “We were very happy with them.”
According to Mitz, “one of the briefs from Adele and the producers was to make the lighting as discreet as possible – as small, streamlined and out of sight as we could make it. Bryan [Klunder] and the art department designed wooden facia cladding for the truss that matched the stonework of the observatory so it blended in and concealed the truss on the roof.” Klunder liked the fact that the Perseo fixtures “didn’t sacrifice brightness for an IP rating. They were our only fixtures on the roof, and I was impressed that they were so bright and aesthetically pleasing.”
Mitz also praised how quickly everything came together. “The Volt Lites’ team was very responsive and a delight to work with, as always,” he says. “Volt was ready to pivot quickly as the weather contracted the entire production schedule and taping timeline.” Mitz’s team was “thrilled with the show,” he reports. “The lighting rig worked effortlessly, and we were delivered a great hand with a beautiful sunset before the rains came. Reactions to the show were really impressive, too. It seems to have really made an impact. There’s not a lot of LA represented outdoors, and people enjoyed seeing Adele perform at an LA landmark.”
Mitz adds that, “It’s safe to say that we’ll consider Perseo for future projects, especially as more shows go outdoors for COVID safety. If it’s the weather or more frequent outdoor venues, IP-rated fixtures are more important than ever before.” “We’re a huge supporter of the Ayrton line,” says Volt Lites’ Lippman. “We’re excited about expanding their product line and are looking for more opportunities to show clients the value of the line, especially the IP-rated fixtures.” In addition to Mitz and Klunder, the Full Flood team consisted of Associate Lighting Director Jeff Behm and Lighting Directors/Programmers Patrick Boozer and Patrick Brazil.
More information on Ayrton Perseo and the full portfolio of innovative Ayrton LED fixtures can be found at www.ayrton.eu
