Broadway Sound Master Class 2013

Earlier this month, I attended the Broadway Sound Master Class (BSMC) thanks to a sponsorship from D&B Audio.  The speakers this year were fantastic.  There were so many big names in sound presenting; it was great to hear what they are passionate about. If you’re curious, you can read about the schedule and presenters here.

Each class also attends a Broadway show.  This year, BSMC saw Pippin directed by Diane Paulus, sound design by Jonathan Deans and Garth Helm.  After the show, Jonathan Deans answered questions about the sound design.  Mix Engineer Steve Henshaw and Music Director Charlie Alterman also answered questions about mixing the show, the music, and the pit orchestra.  One of the topics Jonathan spoke earlier in the day was about keeping true to the performers choices throughout the sound design.  He loves that every performance will be different, and wants to embrace those differences instead of containing them.  For example, he avoids turning compression on for the actors and musicians, and instead asks the Mix Engineer to make “compression” choices live on the faders.  Knowing that, I was blown away listening to the show and realizing how much intricate work Steve Henshaw was handling at any given moment.

Tony Meola had a similar view; his goal is too put as little as possible between the performer and audience.  He had talked at length about this philosophy when he was teaching a masterclass here at UC Irvine, at it makes a lot of sense to me.  Every bit of processing in the audio chain has its own soundprint or character.  I think this contributes to our ability to tell the difference between direct and reinforced sound.  The more we can make the system disappear, the more we can enhance a direct emotional connection between the performer and audience.

John Taylor has been researching binaural recordings.  He added that sound systems deprive the audience important binaural information.  Think about listening to a live orchestra; it’s possible to locate sections or soloists on the stage just by listening.  Now think about hearing that orchestra on a recording through the proscenium main speakers; it’s much harder even if you’re lucky enough to be sitting in the center.  Instead of having 50 or more sound sources, all that information has to be squished into two channels of audio.  John has been experimenting with using a binaural recording setup as a way to archive an audience’s experience.  He played us demos of a mono recording, a binaural recording, and a binaural recording synced to video.  I found the binaural video to be extremely realistic.  Binaural playback only works with headphones, and there are some calibration choices to consider, but it would be an excellent way to share the show with someone who wasn’t there.

Throughout the conference, there was scheduled downtime to either wander the vendor floor or meet other people in the room.  It was a really smart setup, and I had a wonderful time meeting people from all over.  Many people were from NY or universities, but there was also a sizable European contingency as well; I met sound designers and engineers who worked in their respective National Theaters in Norway, Sweden, and Germany.  It was fascinating to have a conversation about European vs. American theater.

Overall, I had an amazing time. There was so much to take in over two days, and it was great to be around so many other people who also love theater and sound. It’s a terrific conference, and I hope I can make it back again soon.

Constellation in After Troy

A musical number where I mixed the level of early reflections in this scene with the intensity of the music and vocals to make the scene feel like a musical.

My thesis show was After Troy, a large-scale play with musical numbers staged in UC-Irvine’s Claire Trevor Theatre.  The theatre is a 285- seat proscenium space with an unoccupied reverberation time of about 1 second.  This show presented me with many sound design challenges; primarily, a play performed in this space is very difficult to understand without vocal amplification and secondly, the show has several songs that portray madness or have a religious, sacred feeling that I wanted to heighten and enhance. Last year I used Constellation in my design for Waiting for Godot, primarily for reverberation effects, and fell in love with the flexibility of the system and the ability to have total control over the quality of the sound. For After Troy, I decided to use Constellation primarily for voice lift for the play’s dialogue but also to heighten certain moments with highly exaggerated reverberation effects.

To implement both needs, I used microphones over the stage and house and a system of speakers in the house. Steve Ellison helped me with this design and met with me to go over optimum microphone and speaker placement. He also came down to UCI to calibrate the system and help me get started. It was an invaluable learning experience to begin making Constellation cues with this system in place and the high level of understanding Steve left me with. During tech, I was able to further EQ the system to fit the show’s needs and adjust both early reflection cues and long reverberation cues to the emotional content of scenes, creating some truly beautiful moments. Overall, I created about 30 cues in CueStation that were triggered by sending MIDI commands to Matrix3 via QLab.

After Troy relied heavily on sound, with underscoring or ambience under almost the entire show and musical numbers sung by the entire cast. The director made the choice to amplify these songs using handheld microphones; he wanted this to be an obvious visual and aural convention that when you see an actor holding a microphone to their mouth that this was a musical number and that the actor’s voice was amplified. Therefore, I found myself using Constellation for three modes of operation: voice lift for dialogue, enhancing the background singers during songs using microphones, and special reverberation effects.

I think that using Constellation not only helped enhance the experience of the show for the audience but also helped the actors. In one instance, I created a cue that simulated the acoustics of a church for a poem sung in a religious style; this added a magical, holy atmosphere to the song that not only assisted the performance of the actress vocally but also emotionally as a character in the moment. I felt this was also true for songs of madness where the actors walked from the house to the stage; here I created cues with multiple reflections that made the music and vocals swim in dense reverberation throughout the space. Engulfing both the actor and the audience in this thick sound set the atmosphere for their insanity.

I found the use of Constellation to contribute greatly to the success of After Troy. The flexibility it allowed me was perfect for this show’s process where we were still adjusting staging and developing new cueing ideas during tech; I was able to provide a myriad of options in the moment that I otherwise could not have.

I am so grateful for the opportunity to have used Constellation in another show, for the support Meyer showed me, and the generous amount of time Steve spent helping me. I enjoyed the process of helping to design the system as much as I enjoyed creating the VRAS cues.

^Patricia

Groundplan of the Claire Trevor Theatre

The preshow scene of the show during the audience’s entrance which used early reflections for subtle vocal reinforcement.

The male warriors disguised as women at the top of the show – a scene using early reflections for subtle vocal reinforcement.

One of the first songs where the warriors abuse and taunt the women of Troy – a scene where I mixed the level of early reflections to balance with the reinforced vocals of the song.

The one to be sacrificed to the gods is chosen – a scene using early reflections for subtle vocal reinforcement.

Hecuba performs a burial ritual for her children – a scene with a long reverberation effect to match the spiritual music and atmosphere.

Las Vegas and a tour of LOVE by Cirque du Soleil - 2013

This past weekend, UCI Sound traveled together to Las Vegas to see Cirque du Soleil's Love. Most of us had never seen this show, but the department had visited several times over the past few years to meet with Jason Pritchard (Head of Audio) and Richard Dennison (Company Manager) for a look behind the scenes. From the extensive and highly-insightful tour from Jason to the spectacular show, we were all blown away at the quality of Cirque's work on and off the stage. We took a moment to note our individual reactions:

Matt:

This was my first Cirque du Soleil show, so I entered without any expectations short of the glowing review I'd received from my peers. The show was, of course, a supernatural feat of theater, but I want to give special thanks to Jason for giving an incredibly comprehensive and informative tour, while being receptive and articulate with any questions we had. It's inspiring for me not only to see an operation as large as Love, but also to see the creative use of infrastructure to make it happen—bravo!

I learned so much about collaboration, gestural theater design, system design, etc. from watching Love. Jason's explanation of the system, in particular, was very clear—the fact that the time smear from the line array system is trumped by the clarity of the seat-mounted delay fills is very cool to me, and certainly something I will take advantage of in my own designs in the future. Overall an awesome experience—many thanks and I can't wait to come back and see another Cirque show!

Stephen:

Recently, I've been thinking a lot about redundant show systems:  How much of your gear do you duplicate?  Where do you combine your main and backup systems?  Should the main system and the backup system communicate with each other?  On the backstage tour of Love, Jason was kind enough to explain the backup systems they use, and how careful they need to be when changing out any piece of gear. When you're running a non-stop show like Love, 2 times a day, 6 days a week, it's crucial that the infrastructure stays up and running smoothly.  As such, the audio team has made it a priority to reduce risk at all links in the chain: computers, audio interfaces, control surfaces, backups of backups, etc.  It was great to see how thoroughly they've designed their setup, and it gave me a lot of ideas to try out as I put together a show computer rack of my own.

It was immediately obvious how much Jason and Richard loved their jobs and cared deeply about the show.  Their attention to detail, passion, and outreach sets a terrific example for theater artists everywhere; I aspire to being as enthusiastic and committed as they are.


Patricia:

My first year at UCI we did a themed entertainment class trip to Vegas and were lucky enough to tour Love. I remember being completely overwhelmed when Jason described the system for each piece of the "pie" of the theatre, and also confused about how each component was used and how it all came together. This time around I was able to not only hear the different systems being used throughout the show, but had a greater understanding of their purpose having integrated similar if not identical concepts into my shows since. Jason was very generous with his time with us and I was again impressed by his ability to talk about the history of show, where the state of audio for the show is now, and where it might go in the next few years.

Josh:

Seeing Love was one of the greatest theatrical experiences of my life. I think often as theatre artists, we find ourselves critiquing the shows we watch. I am glad to say that every time I go to a Cirque show I am captivated by the show and I forget I’m in a theatre. I become immersed in the world that has been painstakingly created. It is a world that seems to have no limits or bounds.  There is a certain magic to Cirque shows that reminds me of why I chose life as a theatre artist.  Love was amazing and I am so thankful for the opportunity to learn from such great artists.
 

            I would like to thank Jason Pritchard and Richard for providing us with such an amazing opportunity. It was great to see that all of the principles, techniques, and equipment we are learning applied on a massive scale. UCI has afforded us the opportunity to work directly with the exact same tools and techniques used in the show.  Jason’s tour was wonderful. I specifically enjoyed his thorough explanation of the massive system and his willingness to teach us about the show.  I loved that despite all of the technology in the show, the creative team stayed true to The Beatles music. Love was an amazing experience. Thanks to all involved.

Brian:

I am extremely grateful to have spent time with Jason and Richard discussing the ins and outs of the magic behind Love.  This was a once in a lifetime opportunity.  I was blown away by the level of collaboration required and the number of hours spent in creating such a massive show.  It was great to have Jason walk us through his process. I was able to live vicariously through his tour, almost as if I were present during the creation of the sound system design and implementation. This day reignited within me a sense of passion for large-scale, state-of-the-art sound design. Love was one of the most brilliant productions I have ever seen in my life. There was so much to take in on so many levels, and I look forward to watching the show again as soon humanly possible. Thanks again to Jason and Richard for taking time out of their busy schedules to inspire me, and to the brilliant sound team for creating such a masterpiece.

Mark:

Wow...where to start? It was another incredibly exciting, kid-in-a-candy-shop moment for anyone who loves sound.  Love was my fist Cirque show, and this was the first time I have ever experienced a show of this scale from behind the scenes. Jason was amazingly willing to take whatever time it took to provide carefully detailed answers to all our questions while on the tour.  My heart jumped with excitement watching the preshow checks for all the technical functions supporting this huge production.  I have not felt that magnitude of excitement about a given theater production in many years.  There was something about the sheer scale of the production; watching the stage oscillating, hundreds of lights flashing, and the thousands of speakers booming. Jason’s passion for the show was absolutely infectious. His love for sound, combined with the one-of-a-kind way that the sound was crafted/specialized for this production, was truly inspiring. The 90 min show was overwhelming in the best possible way from the very first a capella vocal—which stood out for its ability to heighten the emotion of the moment—using the most perfect reverb tail known to man. The other stand-out moment from the show was completely unrelated to sound: the spectacularly unexpected introduction to Lucie in the sky with diamonds nearly knocked me off my seat.  Before I saw the show, many people had told me that the sound was one of the best things they had ever heard. My gut reaction was not  to get my hopes up, but I was in no way disappointed; instead I was blown away.

All 6 MFA's in the LOVE lobby before the tour.

After the tour l-to-r: Mike Hooker (UCI head of sound), Stephen Swift (MFA3), Patricia Cardona (MFA3), Josh Fehrmann (MFA2), Matt Glenn (MFA2), Jason Pritchard (LOVE - head of audio), Mark Caspary (MFA1), Brian Svoboda (MFA1).

In the the LOVE theatre before the show.

Sometimes you're in tech when you really just want to be on the French Riviera.

Click this link. Resize your browser window. Smile!  That is all.

Meyer Sound Mixing Seminar with Tony Meola

At the end of March we had the honor of hosting a seminar taught by Tony Meola, with additional instruction and technical support from Meyer Sound's Steve Bush, Richard Bugg and Gavin Canaan. The seminar focused on advanced techniques for musical mixing and designing systems for musicals. We hosted the course in the Claire Trevor theatre, a 285-seat proscenium space on the UCI campus, and used the Claire's rep speaker system as our primary source.

The Claire rep system includes two 8-cabinet M1D arrays framing the proscenium, as well as an arrayed pair of UPQ-1Ps as a center cluster. In addition, we added three UPM-1Ps in the catwalk to use as delay fills and six MM-4XPs for front fills. SIM3 served as our analysis platform, and we kept a few UP-Juniors, UPJ-1Ps, and UP-4XPs as backups for playback or if we wanted to integrate them into our system. Meyer's D-Mitri system, in combination with a 32- and a 16-fader Cue Console, served as the primary mixing console and matrix. UCI's Galileo 616s and 408s were used for loudspeaker processing.

Day 1 of the seminar was spent listening to and tuning this system. Tony's techniques brought a fresh perspective on the tuning workflow, and it was a good reminder that everyone has a slightly different approach when it comes to tuning a complex system. In a couple of instances, it was necessary to reconfigure the patching between the system and SIM so that SIM could compare the microphone feeds with an appropriate junction in this signal chain. It was a fascinating process to participate in.

Day 2: The class walks the room evaluating the system tuning.

Day 2: Tony Meola describes his approach to musical sound systems.

Day 2 was focused primarily on mixing. As mixing material, Tony was kind enough to procure a stemmed version of the original cast recording of "Defying Gravity" from Stephen Schwartz. We split up into groups of two, one person mixing vocals and the other mixing the orchestra. Afterward, Tony would give us notes we we'd get another go. After a quick lunch break, we resumed our mixing—but this time, we were going solo (with a little help from Tony). Again, we'd receive notes, but this time the notes came from our peers.

It was a tremendous opportunity for all involved. Our reactions were so personal that we thought it would be fitting for each of us to write about our individual experiences:

Mixing “Defying Gravity” with Tony critiquing us was such a rush, even if it may not look like it from the photos—apparently when we are both panicked it translates into blank expressions but I promise it was terrifyingly fun. It was an interesting experience mixing a song with another person and it was an excellent lesson in making sure to not only critically listen to how I was mixing but how my mix consequently affected Stephen’s mix, and how we could work better together.

Day 2: Stephen Swift and Patricia Cardona mix "Defying Gravity" from Wicked.

I also had fun during our load-in day, Richard taught me how to update the firmware on the D-Mitri and get it configured for the seminar. I also learned how to network the CueConsole modules into the D-Mitri frames and Richard taught me lots of useful features of CueStation 5.5.1 while we were setting up.  I could have easily spent the whole day with him learning more about good practices and tips/tricks to use when using D-Mitri in a live setting, since most of our experiences using D-Mitri at UCI have been primarily for playback. All of the different aspects this class touched on from SIM3 to D-Mitri to mixing a song with Tony actually mixing alongside you was an amazing, humbling experience that I will never forget.

-Patricia

Day 1: Richard Bugg and Patricia Cardona setting up D-Mitri.

This was such a unique experience for me and my colleagues.  It's not every day that you attend a seminar put together by a world-class sound designer and a supported by a world-class sound company.   Tony generously shared a sizable chunk of his creative and technical process, inviting us to dig deeper into our personal connection to the musical and technical aspects of mixing on a Broadway level.  These few days were a great blend of intensity and fun.  I appreciated Tony taking time out of his New York schedule and the Meyer Sound team for supporting us so heavily as they often do.

-Brian

Day 3: Tony Meola gives mixing notes to Brian Svoboda & Mark Caspary.

I am so thankful for such an amazing opportunity. The seminar was fantastic. It was unlike any we have had here at UCI. We learned an incredible amount in the three days with Tony and Meyer Sound.  Tony spoke about the importance of collaboration in theatre. That collaboration was apparent in the way he worked with us. It was a thrill to watch Tony optimize a Broadway size system from the ground up. Working with Steve Bush, Richard Bugg, and Gavin Canaan from Meyer was icing on the cake. I mastered some new Galileo tips and tricks thanks to Steve Bush. (hint: modifier keys).  I am especially appreciative of Steve Bush’s uncanny ability to explain the science of sound in a way that just makes sense. The seminar was amazing and I am so thankful for Tony, Meyer Sound, Steve, Richard, Gavin, Mike, Vinnie, and B.C for providing us with this amazing opportunity. Thank you all. 

- Josh

Day 3: Marking up our scripts for "Defying Gravity" from Wicked.

This seminar was thrilling, not only to practice under the eyes and ears of Tony but also to learn from and problem solve with Steve, Richard, and Gavin. It was humbling to experience the musical connection that a mixer has to the performance. I come from a music performance and studio engineering background, and to hear the console referred to as a kind of "instrument" is very vindicating. And I must mention the valuable tricks that I picked up regarding SIM—our mid-seminar reconfiguration of SIM/D-Mitri was a quite helpful.

Very rarely has mixing been such a directly collaborative effort for me. Of course the mixer is constantly collaborating with the performers, but I have never had a chance to play "mixer four-hands". It was an awesome lesson, not only in critical listening but in subtle psychology—gestures that I would make would affect Josh's arc and vice-versa. I have an increased amount of respect for those who can master that dance.

I have to thank Tony, Steve, Richard, and Gavin for trusting us enough (artistically and technically) to say to us "here ya go...show us what you've got". Tony: the ability to mix the tracks from Wicked was emotionally thrilling, and your guidance has refocused the way I think about dynamics in music for theater. Team Meyer: every time you let me sit in the hot seat with one of your systems I come out a better listener and designer.

It's the best way to learn, and you all rock at teaching it!

- Matt

Day 3: Matt Glenn & Josh Fehrmann mix "Defying Gravity" from Wicked. 

Having Tony Meola come to UCI was an amazing experience. The insight he was able to give on mixing, and his method of thinking about sound was really interesting, and gave us a new perspective. The amount of experience and detail of descriptions was intense, like for example the difficulty of hiding lavalieres in film grade wigs versus theater grade wigs. Being able to mix wicked, even for an empty stage, was definitely the highlight for me, and getting critiqued by my peers and Tony Meola was pretty exciting too! I’m glad UCI was able to make this sort of thing available for students here. 


-Elliot

Day 2: Josh Fehrmann drives SIM3 for part of system tuning.

My recent experience with Tony Meola and the crew from Meyer sound was a graduate student sound designers dream. Ever since Wicked came out I was stunned by the quality of the sound design. I have seen the musical twice during its first run in Chicago and we had the CD.  My whole family loved the musical! As a high schooler I dreamed of mixing that show or a show of similar quality and musicality. To hear the individual tracks of Wicked was stunning. To hear individual tracks of Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth singing and to be able to mix the show while being given guidance was the finest example of a master class that I could imagine.  A master class with Tony was a fantasy come true for me as well all the other graduate sound designers and I believe even for the sound design faculty. It was also a great learning experience to watch the way Tony tuned our space and the Meyer specialists work their systems and handle gear. There was a great deal of very useful shared verbal information that will clearly shape the way I approach my work in the future.

-Mark

Day 2: "Where are you sourcing the image now?"

Although it’s been a few weeks since the seminar happened, I still find myself back in the moment: in the hot seat, performing on the CueConsole mixer.  Mixing is such a thrill; shaping a piece is such an intimate connection to music, very akin to playing a musical instrument live.  I never had imagined myself mixing a Broadway cast recording in front of a renowned sound designer like Tony Meloa, and it was a wonderfully humbling unique experience.  It reaffirmed, yet again, why I had applied to grad school.  Three years ago I didn’t really know what to expect; I had hoped I would be part of a group that is curious, experiments, shares knowledge, and tackles interesting projects together.  These seminars—that Meyer Sound so generously makes available—are times when I think we’re pushed to our best working together.

Day 2: The class experiments with delay and level shading.

I’d like to thank Mike, Vinnie, BC, Helen, Steve, Gavin, Richard, and of course Tony for making this mixing seminar possible.  From the insight into Tony’s philosophical approach to sound design, to the rush I felt when Patricia & I hit our collective groove mixing Defying Gravity together... these moments will be forever inspiring. –Stephen

Day 3: Meyer Sound Mixing Seminar at UC Irvine Class Photo — March, 2013

Day 3: Post seminar family dinner.