Designing the sound system for The Oldest Boy posed its own set of challenges; the first of which was the design of the stage itself. "The stage is a really beautiful, wooden formal circle in the middle of the theatre, and in designing the sound I wanted to be able to create layers from the centre out," says West. "We placed an enormous amount of speakers in the theatre to accomplish this, which gave us the added ability of being able to move the majority of the sounds around the room with ease. It was all about radiating the sound from the center out, and the system Masque Sound provided allowed us to achieve our goal."
In order to create the sound he was looking for, Masque Sound provided West with a large Meyer Sound speaker package, including UPA-1P loudspeakers for the mains, a variety of UPMs for fills, UPJ-1Ps for the centre ring and USW-1P subwoofers. "It's about the clarity at the top end," says West. "With musicians loudly playing these pure tone bells and bowls to fill up the room, it is important to rely on a fast speaker that boasts a lot of top end. To get the dynamic range we needed in the show, the Meyer rig was the only way to go for us. There was no question as to what we wanted to use, and we were very happy that Masque Sound was able to provide it."
In terms of consoles, West was looking for an efficient board with as much flexibility as possible, which he found in the Yamaha DM1k. For microphones, West employed a selection DPA 4021s and 4022s, as well as a DPA 4061, which is worn on the head of the musician playing the traditional Tibetan nylon stringed instrument.
(Jim Evans)
