A key proponent of the LCS Series solution was resident sound designer Peter McBoyle, a 12-year veteran of the Festival. "Having just one system for all playback, mixing, signal processing, and output matrixing has proven enormously helpful," he claims. "Before, all mics for the musical were mixed separately on the analogue FOH console and then sent into the Matrix3 units. Now it's so much simpler dealing with one seamlessly integrated system."
The new CueConsole control package at Festival Theatre is linked via computer network to eight Matrix3 processors housed in three separate locations. High-resolution digital audio signals shuttle among the processors over fiber optic links, allowing the eight processors to function as if they resided in the same rack. The Matrix3 system is deployed for integrated and computer-controlled sound effects playback, signal processing and output matrixing.
The CueConsole system is connected to more than 50 Meyer Sound loudspeakers, including 18 MM-4 miniature wide-range loudspeakers for front-fill, foldback and stage effects, and five self-powered UPA-1P compact wide-coverage loudspeakers: three overhead centre, and two added at stage left and right for Oklahoma!. Also used are legacy loudspeakers that have served reliably for more than a decade: UPA-1C loudspeakers for main left/right "proscenium" systems, UPM-1 and UPM-2 reinforcement loudspeakers for over-balcony delays and the balcony rail, and USW-1 subwoofers for low end.
(Jim Evans)
