There have been many experiences we have all missed over the last "lost" year of the production industry. The absence of crowds, the silent stages, countless hours online over Zoom calls, but in early February, I was summoned to a Zoom call which promised a return to production and an opportunity to experiment with some relatively new technology.
The call I received was from Chautauqua Institution and the artistic directors for the Institution’s resident opera and theater companies. Both companies were unsure how the various COVID restrictions were going to affect their impending summer seasons, but they both knew that they had to perform outdoors for COVID compliance. After many discussions with the administrative team for the Institution, an outdoor space was chosen for the temporary venue, and I was asked to design the sound system.
Before we get any further, I should explain what Chautauqua Institution is… Founded as a summer training retreat for Sunday School teachers in the late 19th century, the Institution has evolved into a multifaceted community with event spaces for lectures, recreation, religious gatherings, and performing arts, many of which happen during a core nine-week summer season. Both the Chautauqua Theater Company and the Chautauqua Opera Company have dedicated indoor spaces for their productions, which, as previously mentioned, were deemed unusable for this season's very specific needs.
Considering that the Performance Pavilion on Pratt (as it was to be named) was ostensibly a one-off for this single season, I viewed the design as an opportunity to not only make an excellent sound system but one where I could field test some new technology in immersive audio. After much research in these systems as well as consulting various vendors and manufacturers, our team settled on d&b audiotechnik’s Soundscape technology, to be provided by Specialized Audio-Visual Inc. (SAVI) of Clifton Park, NY.
The decision to use d&b Soundscape partially came from some practical limitations. Some other immersive audio products require a more rigid speaker system architecture, and as it was quickly determined that we could not fly the speakers due to weight limitations on the tent’s rigging points, which made some solutions impossible to implement. At the same time, Soundscape proved far more malleable in its design capabilities allowing us to reap many of the benefits with fewer speaker arrays. Once we settled on this approach, I reached out to Michael Eisenberg and Mark Rush from d&b to get me and our team up to speed on Soundscape.
At this early point, the sound team consisted of Meghan Roche, Chautauqua Theater Company’s Sound Fellow, who would design all three plays in the tent, while I would design all three opera productions in the space. Once Meghan was on board, I arranged with Mark a day’s training at the d&b training facility in Signal Hill, CA. This day was crucial in both of us getting up to speed on both the creation of a Soundscape system, but also how we could bend it to our wills for the needs of our productions. The process to get Soundscape working, we learned, is rather front-end loaded, requiring many iterations of ArrayCalc (d&b’s prediction software) files shared between Mark, Shawn Duncan (from SAVI), and myself to determine the precise speaker deployment needed to achieve the effects we were looking for.
The speaker deployment that we landed on is a modest system, consisting of a Main Left/Right system of six T10 loudspeakers on top of a single Y-SUB. Our surrounds are eight E8 loudspeakers deployed around the tent for spatial effects, and a pair of Y10P for lawn delay speakers. These were all driven by a series of eight D12 amplifiers.
System control and processing were done using d&b’s R1 software. As we wanted a compact front-of-house area, we decided on using a Yamaha QL1 console, with an RIO 3224 for band inputs, and Shure Axient Wireless for our actors.
All of our audio components are networked together using Dante, allowing us to streamline our signal flow… In short, our Dante inputs (either microphone inputs or QLab coming from our playback computer) would hit the console and then route to inputs of the DS100 through either direct outs or fixed mix outputs, and once it hit there, the DS100 would do its magic and place the sounds to whichever speakers we desired.
Soundscape has two main software components, En-Scene and En-Space. En-Scene is the paradigm of Object-Based Mixing, while En-Space is a spatial reverb emulator. My initial instinct was that Meghan would use more of the En-Scene functionality for theater, while I would rely more heavily on the En-Space functionality for opera.
In a straight play, there would be little use for reverb changes, but one could have many uses for sound effects to travel around the space. Conversely in opera, the instruments and vocalists would remain relatively static, positionally but would need some reverberant enhancement to an otherwise anechoic outdoor environment. Admittedly, as our production season progressed, we broke from this paradigm and would use both En-Scene and En-Space in plays and operas.
To leverage these two main functions of Soundscape, we would use Figure 53’s QLab, which has some native functionality for Soundscape built into it. Within QLab’s “Network” cues, there’s a dropdown menu that allows for direct control of a DS100, which once ticked and assigned (you have to assign your DS100’s IP address into the target!), opens up control of the spatialization functionality. Admittedly, the currently supported functionality between QLab and Soundscape is limited, so you have to open up a second instance of network cues without the native DS100 targeting so you can send raw OSC commands to the DS100.
Once we completed all of these steps (which, once you get the hang of it is far quicker than reading this article), Meghan and I were both able to very quickly drop in cues adjusting both the reverb and the spatialization of the space in very tight tech periods. For example, in an Opera production of Humperdink’s Hansel and Gretel, I was able to quickly make a magical character’s offstage singing reverberant and swirl around the back of the audience’s heads. Between six full productions, Meghan and I have dozens of examples like this, because once we were able to wrap our heads around this functionality, it became almost second nature to implement.
In addition to the more “special effect” qualities En-Scene and En-Space allow, it was how they made outdoor opera sound much more natural, which is what I’ll take away from this summer. By being able to place the instruments and the singers specifically within the performative volume, we were able to make both the direct acoustic sound and the reinforcement blend in a manner that would make the PA melt away to the ear.
While the PA would melt away to the ear, the En-Space reverbs (we settled on the “Modern Medium Hall” setting) would still provide our Opera singers some feedback as if they were in a traditional enclosed concert hall, thus adding to their comfort through the process.
For me, just having the opportunity to finally use Soundscape in the field was a win enough, but the feedback we have been receiving from patrons, administrators, and colleagues alike has been nothing but spectacular. Also realizing that once the initial hump of system design and the building is done, being able to ply Soundscape to your will in a theatrical tech-rehearsal process is remarkably intuitive and quick. The long and short of it is I can’t wait for my next opportunity to utilize d&b’s Soundscape technology.
*I would be remiss to not mention the rest of the team who helped make this summer happen, Chautauqua’s director of production Joe Futral, our venue sound team Colin Braeger and Graham Rygell, our venue TD JP Woodey, and all the administration who placed their trust in me to do this, Chautauqua’s VP for Performing and Visual Arts Deborah Sunya-Moore, Chautauqua Opera’s General and Artistic Director Steven Osgood, and Chautauqua Theater Company’s Artistic Director Andrew Borba.
