New Concert Hall - What would you do?

Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 4:36 pm

Another thought, not immediately important but nonetheless...

Make sure whoever plans the audio wiring does it thoughtfully. One of my favourite venues to record in is generally fabulous all around except for one thing: the mic cable run, from the winches to the recording booth/control room, is estimated at 300m!

Very few microphones suitable for hanging on a winch can drive that length of cable *properly* without some sacrifice in audio quality.

The logic behind the wiring makes sense from a flexibility point of view. The cable travels up to the roof above the stage (where the winch is), then to a patch point in the bio box at the back of the hall, from where it is patched to the recording control room beside the stage. I have often considered getting up in the roof and seeing if I can take a feed directly from the winch. Or setting up in the bio box, and taking the signal from the patch point...

Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 5:58 pm

Simmosonic wrote:

Another thought, not immediately important but nonetheless...

Make sure whoever plans the audio wiring does it thoughtfully. One of my favourite venues to record in is generally fabulous all around except for one thing: the mic cable run, from the winches to the recording booth/control room, is estimated at 300m!

Very few microphones suitable for hanging on a winch can drive that length of cable *properly* without some sacrifice in audio quality.

The logic behind the wiring makes sense from a flexibility point of view. The cable travels up to the roof above the stage (where the winch is), then to a patch point in the bio box at the back of the hall, from where it is patched to the recording control room beside the stage. I have often considered getting up in the roof and seeing if I can take a feed directly from the winch. Or setting up in the bio box, and taking the signal from the patch point...

OR....

Putting Microphone Preamps in the line????? Wink

Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2007 7:00 pm

Thomas W. Bethel wrote:

Putting Microphone Preamps in the line????? Wink

Which is what lead me to the long, costly and momentarily rewarding process of designing a custom cable driver/preamp combo for the Royer SF12 many moons ago! But that story has been told here too many times...

Actually, there are more and more remote controlled preamps hitting the market that also solve this problem.

The Sydney Opera House has an interesting system. They have small racks on wheels, and each houses a 24 input mic preamp, followed by 24 channels of AD conversion, followed by an optical converter outputting all mic signals via MADI. The preamps, converters and optical converters are all part of the Euphonix system, and all functions are remotely controlled via Ethernet connection (CAT5 or similar). Optical and Ethernet wiring runs throughout the venue, so they can simply wheel one (or more) of these racks to where the performance is happening, and connect it to a Euphonix console. Because the primary section of the Euphonix control surface is relatively small, they can bring one of those with them too.

A nice system...

Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 7:43 am

Okay...so the kickoff meeting occurred last night. Here's what I gathered while there.

1 - The organizers/board of directors have consulted with and have retained the volunteer services of the marketing director of the Clarice Smith Center for the Performing Arts (University of MD- VERY nice facility - http://claricesmithcenter.umd.edu/2007/c/facilities/venues/dekelboum).

2 - The proposed budget for the facility is $55M USD

3 - The arts center at CNU (Newport News) is considered a similar/target venue

4 - Provided that the county supervisors approve the use of the land, the land has already been allocated and potentially provided which includes direct rail access nearby, large area for parking and new developments of homes/businesses/restaurants as part of a planned community.

5 - There will be 3 different spaces; Black Box theater (seating roughly 150), Proscenium Theater (seating roughly 700) and concert hall (seating roughly 1500). Each space will be use specific and an acoustician will be consulted during all phases of construction. I've offered to handle initial consultation with the acousticians and will be contacting the folks you recommended. The board is seeking quotes - I'll have to explain that the acoustician needs to be an integral part to the whole process and can't just submit one initial quote. I'll let the pros handle how they want to deliver the quotes though.

6 - The organization seems to be organized - they are incorporated, have retained legal council, submitted for 501(c)3 (tax exempt) status and have retained leadership and assistance from executives of one of the area's largest land developers and builders who will consequently be developing the land and the neighborhood associated with the arts center.

7 - (Perhaps a bit out of order) They have developed a business plan as well as goals, vision and a reasonable timeline.

I've decided to be a "volunteer" with this process but not to be on the board. Not to seem greedy, but if this thing takes off, I would exclude myself from business if I were a member of the board.

So far though, I'm a little more optimistic than I was a few days ago.

Cheers -

J.

Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 2:15 pm

Great News - however it is ESSENTIAL that the acoustician be an integral part of the design team, rather than only being consulted when someone considers it necessary. I can assure you from experience as an acoustician on several similar projects that being involved early and as part of the design team results in a much better end result and is usually more cost effective that trying to fix things, or get money for essential items after budgets have been set.

Good luck

Larry Elliott

Posted: Wed Oct 17, 2007 4:52 pm

Cucco wrote:

Okay...so the kickoff meeting occurred last night. Here's what I gathered while there.

This all sounds very positive. Definitely push for what Larry says and have the acoustician an integral part of the design/construction process.

Also, think carefully about that "direct rail access nearby" feature. One of my favourite recording venues in Sydney is flawed by an underground railway line passing beneath it. Despite spending huge amounts of money in isolated construction, it is still audible in recordings. Another studio one of my clients recently built has a railway line passing behind it, with similar problems.

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