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Project Type
Concert (Arena/Theater, primary venue capacity under 20,000)
Project Name
Base31 Contact Distribution Ltd.
Originally built as the No. 31 Bombing & Gunnery School, the site trained thousands of Allied airmen under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan. Base31 is now the repurposing and rejuvenation of a WWII Canadian Air force training base in Picton, Ontario, Canada. A historic 750 acres with multiple renovated buildings presenting concerts, public art, food experiences, tours, and play areas with community involvement as a key aspect.
For the third summer season, The Drill Hall massive main building has been transformed evolving into a groundbreaking performance space focusing on audio, lighting and production infrastructures . Again, hosting over 60 of Canada’s top artists covering a wide assortment of music styles and configurations. Jamie Howieson is the audio designer.
Design Criteria
The starting point is appreciating that the country's top level sound engineers using the system will expect a best-in-class system with seamless operation and flexibility to accommodate whatever consoles or other technology the inbound artist's crew require. Absolute reliability and instant connectivity were the non-negotiable criteria. From a technical objective the goal was to maintain a linear frequency response at a considerably high level without introducing distortion.
As well as a total system for the main space that seats 1600 patrons there was program distribution to the adjacent Drill Hall patio. The complex audio and comms network was designed with the mandate that numerous other venues on the base would require connectivity and regional control and that also required flexibility and a high degree of fault tolerance.
Project Description
Over the three year period all aspects of audio, lighting, and production were developed for a room that previously was not used as a performance space. The main pa system was 7 Yorkville Sound PSA28's per side, with an additional 5 for side fill, center cluster of PS12 and 4 X PS12 and 10 PSA18S subs. Comprehensive NST system processing to offer any guest console flexible connectivity in many formats to any sub section of the complete system.
Challenges and Solutions
The design of the dsp control system took on a major roll due to two major criteria. The target for the audio quality had to be 'excellent' not just 'really good' so it had to be absolutely noise-free with the highest sampling rates and lowest attainable noise floor, and above all sound musical. The I/O connectivity had to support every type of digital audio platform far beyond just analogue, AES and establish any type of format conversion with Sample Rate Conversion.
The other challenge was to achieve loud flawless performance sound in what used to be a drill hall and airplane hanger. Acoustic treatment was the initial priority and system electronics was second. Special consideration was given towards a highly advanced approach to the subwoofer portion of the system. To achieve precise SPL uniformity throughout the audience area a steerable sub array needed to be created using advanced approaches requiring precise delay and equalization via the system dsp. NST Audio processing made in the UK was the only solution that matched all the requirements. Another important goal accomplished was there could be no subwoofers on the floor.
Photo credit: Jamie Howieson
Equipment
The clever FOH design offered guest artist consoles 1 AES and Analog Left+Right inputs from three consoles - A, B, and C. AES and Analog Sub Aux Input as well as AES and Analog front fill input. Accomplished using 4 NST Audio units, eight AES outputs fed two NST D48X units – one for the mains left & right and the second unit to feed the side arrays. One NST DM88 was used to control the proprietary sub array and the other DM88 fed front fills, centre cluster as well as signal distribution to the media and the patio.
All system control was required to be 'invisible' to the guest mixing engineer to provide a distraction-free space with no computer monitors allowing them to ‘mix with their ears and not their eyes’ - currently a big problem in FOH methodology since the advent of digital consoles.
Team
List the key members of the creative team, technicians, vendors, manufacturers and other significant staff.
Jamie Howieson – Base 31 Audio Designer Acoustician and FOH Audio Engineer
Jeff Berryman – Associate Audio Designer
Russ Wilson -BASE 31 Production manager
Brandon Coons - Technical Support Manager - Contact Distribution Ltd - Canadian NST distributor
Dan Cartman – NST Audio – Founder/Managing Director
Waring Hayes – General Manager/Technical Support