Supplied to the theatre by sound, lighting and video specialists DuShow, the Roland M-48 Personal Mixers are used by the orchestra in the pit and enable each musician to control exactly what they want to listen to during their performances. All musicians, plus the musical director, have their own M-48 with each individual monitor mix set by the musician to their exact preferences with volume, pan, 3-band EQ and built-in reverb per group all instantly adjustable by convenient encoder knobs.
In charge of the daily production of The Fearless Vampire Killers, this was the first time that the theatre audio manager Bertrand Billon had used the Roland M-48's. Commenting on Strebel's choice, Billon said, "I had heard about, but never used or saw them (the M-48's) before but I have to say this product was very exciting. The local ambient mic, the inboard reverb, and the possibility to really customize the mixes per musician made them ideal for the show."
A Stagetec Aurus console at FOH feeds a mix of direct outputs, Aux's and groups to a Roland S-MADI REAC Bridge. The signal is then sent to two Roland S-4000D Splitter/Power Distributors and then to the M-48's in the pit. The S-MADI REAC Bridge is a bi-directional signal converter between REAC (Roland Ethernet Audio Communication) and MADI. This bridge enables up to 40x40 channels of digital audio transmission between digital audio mixers/systems that are equipped with the universally accepted MADI protocol to any REAC-based devices such as the M-48. Both BNC and Optical I/O ports are included along with support for 56/64Ch mode.
The M-48 enables control of up to 40 audio channels via 16 stereo groups and 38 of these channels are used for this production. Channel assignment on the M-48 for up to 16 stereo groups is set using a simple matrix. Describing the setup, Billon commented: "We use almost all the channels - 38 in total - to give each musician the best opportunity to split their own instruments as the drummer wants separate drums mics, the percussionist also, separated guitars for guitarist, and so on. This means more work for us during rehearsals, but then it's a real pleasure not to hear about musicians mixes issues.
"As our shows goes for one year, that's exactly the kind of enhancement we are very happy to achieve. Another big saving in terms of design is that in this particular type of musical setup, we usually have to take care of the output channels counts that we have to share between FOH, stage monitors and pit monitor at a very early stage. Since this system allows us to build a custom matrix out of 40 channels, and then again to mix 16 channels out of those matrixes, we are free to achieve the best distribution setup with a free mind.'
Roland M-48's are also being used in productions of The Commitments, Charlie & The Chocolate Factory, Miss Saigon and Made in Dagenham in London's West End.
(Jim Evans)
