Theatre Sound

Thanks for posting the link - a very interesting piece.  


Although I have no doubt you are right, this^ still amazes me.  I completely see the sense of something like Gypsy or Bend It Like Beckham hiring everything; however, how can it be financially efficient for long runners like Les Mis or Phantom to do the same?  I guess they must have some very competitive deals and presumably it gives a very flat financial profile because the costs are continuous.  

Now that I'm musing on the subject, I'm curious about how often big elements of the sound systems on such shows are replaced?  For example, how often does the sound desk on Les Mis get upgraded to a new one (not a replacement because the other one is faulty or just old, but when do they change the desk for one with new features so that they can use those new features)?  Is it every five years, ten?

Presumably, despite being hired, everything that a long-running show gets is completely new?  Do they run them to the end of life (e.g. for things like mic packs) or do they get swapped out regularly and then the used ones get hired out again to lower budget productions?

You hire instead of buying for a few reasons. Mainly, it is so that should equipment fail then the replacement is already paid for along with people to install and set it up. Autograph Sound, the hire company refereed to in the article, are the most expensive because they keep a back up of every single piece of equipment they have out on a show. So they have at least 15 £250,000 mixing desks in the West End, and another 15 in a warehouse should something go wrong. In fact, they have staff on call until after Act 2 starts on their West End shows, so if something fails in Act 1 it can be replaced for Act 2, at no extra cost to the show. The other is that technology moves quickly and so by hiring you aren't left with equipment that is outdated. Les Mis had a few days off back in... 2013 I think, which was to put in a whole new sound system and put in the new orchestra. If you buy something today, a few years from now it may be useless. But big thing replacement is quite rare, as the set up time takes a long time and shows don't want to loose money with dark time. That said, most will need redoing after 6 years or so. Billy Elliott got a full redesign only a few years ago as the set up was life expired. And as you noticed, it shifts a load of expenditure from "set up cost" to "weekly running cost", which is far more tempting to an investor.

As far as radio mics go, the packs will last years (although you always have spares on site as failures are frequent) but the cable with the actually little mic in it (the thing you can see stuck in the hairline or mounted off the ear) has a very short life span. To make it so small they end up being very fragile and susceptible to moisture, heat, dust etc. So the little mic bit on big West End shows will do 6 weeks on a lead, then be put onto an ensemble member until they sound so dull that the Sound No. 1 feels it is detrimental to the show, then they get binned. So life span is about 3-6 months if they don't break from being stood on or dropped in a cup of tea. And that little bit can cost up to £450, and a lot of the cast on Les Mis where two in case their is a failure, so that is almost £1000 just sat on an actor's head. 

And no, not everything is new, but equipment is fully checked and serviced before going out again (well most of the time...). This includes stuff like repainting speakers so they look fresh as a daisy. But a sound designer for a big West End show may well want the latest toys that the hire company then has to buy brand new specially, which puts the hire cost up but is brand new gear. I talked to somone involved in Aladdin a month ago and it has some pricey toys on it that haven't been used in a long running West End show before, so again that £1.8 million figure is at the top end for sound equipment for a West End show.  

Thanks for the really comprehensive and interesting replies. I'm always fascinated by the tech side of theatre, so I hope we get more threads/posts like yours over time.

I always thought those were infrared boxes used to prevent someone from illegal filming.

Sensors are very sensitive to infrared and although cameras have filters to block it many cameras - especially low-end cameras - don't have particularly effective ones. (With many cheap cameras or phone cameras you can do near-infrared photography by putting a filter that blocks visible light over the lens and shooting in the remaining IR.) The idea of aiming a flood of near-IR into the faces of the audiences is that to the camera it's like having the sun in frame, and either the sensor will be overwhelmed or the camera will expose for the light and drastically underexpose the scene.

(Doesn't have much to do with sound, except for the sound of someone saying "I spent three hours watching a camera instead of the show and this is what I get?")

What you describe as "pattern of LED red lights" are in fact infrared lights. Infrared light is invisible to the human eye, but not to cameras. If you watch a show in such a theatre, you will only see what's happening on stage and "ignore" the infrared light. A camera, however, will recode both the stage action and the infrared lights and in the recording you will only see the overlap of both.

from this patent: www.google.com/patents/US6559883



or, have a look at this: student.societyforscience.org/article/fighting-theater-pirates

Okay so a sound desk costs £250k. So these are very niche items, so are all sound desks the same, or are they made bespoke for each individual show.

What does a sound desk operator actually do?

No, they are sort of off the self, but the software allows a lot of personalisation. The DiGiCo SD7T is used for pretty much all big West End musicals these days. The T stands for theatre, as the software has some useful features for theatre, but there is a more generic version which is just the SD7, which is used by bands like Coldplay and was used to mix the sound of the Olympic ceremonies etc. 

As far as the job itself, on a big show you will have several sound operators working as team (often listed as Sound No. 1, Sound No. 2 and so on). One of them will mix the show (alternating a lot as it is a stressful job and it means that cover is available for holidays and illness). Mixing the show means setting the levels of microphones and triggering sound effects. The sound effects are the easy bit, you have a button to press for each queue and you just press it when you need to. The mics are much harder. Basically, having lots of mics live will sound really messy, thin and unpleasant. This means that you only put the microphones live you need, which means putting up faders (volume control for each sound source) for each bit. Perhaps this video will explain it better:  Every so often he presses a little button which changes what microphones are being controlled by which faders. Make sure you have annotations turned on. The other sound operators will look after stuff back stage, as the radio microphones are prone to failure through sweat, being jerk around in dance number, slipping under wigs etc. Mixing a show requires intense levels of concentration, as one slip up and you can clip a crucial line (or the cast member may fluff their line and then you have to be in the zone to figure out what the cast are going to do about it) or wreck someone else's big number. And you have to have a good memory as well, as you have to remember how each performer sings this line or that, but also how each understudy does it (as they may need to be made louder or quieter by moving the fader at the right point). They you have a cast member who is a little ill or hungover, and you have to compensate for that too. It is certainly a challenge. 

In such a case, this happens



Edit: Apparently, Kerry was so p*ssed by the behaviour of a couple of girls in the front row who were talking, cheering, screaming, whooping, taking pictures and so on that she said to someone off-stage that she wanted to throw pins at them - without realising that her mic was still turned on.

Happened at a Hairspray cast change. Rachael Wooding saidhat was f***ing brilliant." as she came off stage from a number.

The personalisation will be a file that is on a usb stick, referred to as the 'show file'. You can load it onto the replacement desk and hey presto...!