USA - The revival of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical Sunset Blvd., directed by Jamie Lloyd, recently debuted at the St. James Theatre on Broadway with Nicole Scherzinger in the lead role.
This follows 16 weeks at the Savoy Theatre in London’s West End district, from September 2023 through this past January, where it won the Olivier Award for Best Sound Design. The winner of that award, Adam Fisher, is now reprising his role in New York, using the Fourier Audio transform.engine, a Dante-connected server designed to run VST3-native software plugins in a live environment.
Paired with a DiGiCo Quantum7T front-of-house console supplied by Masque Sound, this musical is Fisher’s third time using the transform.engine’s ability to let him access any and all plugins he needs in real time, with low latency. “I first used it on Kiss Me, Kate in April of this year in the West End, and then on the regional production of Oliver!, which is about to go into the West End,” says Fisher. “But this is the first time we’ve had the latest v1.2 software with the new Cuelists function, which has been long awaited, and it’s been fantastic.”
He says he’d been looking for the kind of functionality the transform.engine brings with it, after years of using other types of plugin hosts that were either limited to certain brands or didn’t have the processing power needed. The transform.engine has both capabilities. “As soon as it became available for Kiss Me, Kate, I was like, ‘Can we get a couple?’” he says.
“Cuelists and the way that Fourier Audio has implemented them has been really good for us. I can just say that I want that preset in that show cue. I can set up different presets that I know work, and then recall those individual presets at any point, instantly.”
Fisher says the transform.engine has changed the way audio processing can function in theatre because, as he explains, rapid changes in scene tonality and emotion mean the sound has to keep up. “The effects change quite a lot during a show: you go from one song to another and you may want a longer or shorter reverb, or a different kind of hall or chamber,” he says. “And rather than having to change it manually, or change it in a scene, to be able to go straight into that signal chain and change that parameter straight away, as you can with transform.engine, makes life so much easier.”
Fisher further appreciates that he is able to use the entire range of his go-to processing toolbox. These include TC Electronic VSS4 reverbs and their System 6000 Native bundle of plugins, LiquidSonics’ Seventh Heaven reverbs, and McDSP’s FutzBox.
With FOH mix positions generally having very limited space in the theatres, “it’s good to reduce the amount of outboard gear that we have as much as possible,” Fisher adds. “Being able to put it all in one box like the transform.engine is so advantageous. The transform.engine has truly changed the way that I work for the better – much better.”
Like its previous West End debut, the new Broadway run of Sunset Blvd. also benefits from the contributions of associate sound designer Josh Hummel and UK production mixer and programmer Laurie Kirkby.
