"The entire band is on different height risers so the audience hears different instruments directly, depending where they are sitting in the auditorium. The dress circle audience for example, are right in front of the trumpets. Getting the music right is a big part of Rat Pack; it has to be slick, so balancing the band is very important.
"The Adelphi is a typical West End theatre, vertically there are three audience positions and I have placed a left/right d&b audiotechnik Q1 loudspeaker array hung at each level: stalls, dress circle and gallery. There are also Q subwoofers in the stalls, and flown Q subwoofers up at the gallery level. I'm not doing much in the way of level from the subs, just enough to give the audience some kick and bass guitar, and for some tonality in the lead vocals."
It is what's fed to each level that proves critical. "Every layer has different mixes. Using a Digico SD8 in the house, I have eight stored groups in the matrix to feed separate mixes to each area; primarily trumpet, sax, trombone, the band for example keys and drums, and the vocals, all are on L/R feeds. I also have a row of six d&b E0 loudspeakers at each level right at the back for delay-fill; that's a separate feed to each set so I can bring up the delay at any of the three levels of the auditorium."
(Jim Evans)
