Tampere theatre gets smart with zactrack
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The building housing this 800-capacity stage was completed in 1985, its 20m width making it the second largest stage in Finland. The Theatre’s repertory programme presents Finnish plays, world literature classics and a diverse and vibrant range of musicals.
In 2020, they invested in L-Acoustics L-ISA immersive audio technology which brought the requirement for a leading-edge tracking product that would work for both audio and lightin,g explained Pauli Molnar, sales manager from zactrack’s Finnish distributor, Intersonic based in Espoo.
In the initial months of using L-ISA, it soon became apparent that accurate, good quality tracking was essential to take full advantage of its dynamics, directionality, and creative potential - without embroiling sound designers and engineers in substantial amounts of programming time.
Controlling the sound inputs manually, especially for some of the large-scale musicals staged at TTT, was not a practical option, but getting the right tracking system onboard was a viable solution, so they started looking at options.
The theatre’s head of sound Jarkko Tuohimaa and lighting technical manager Sami Rautaneva worked closely together with TTT’s sound designer Kalle Nytorp and lighting designer Eero Auvinen in assessing different systems with their respective departments, choosing zactrack for its suitability to both audio and lighting tracking.
When tracking audio, a zactrack transmitter (tracker) can be taken from its recharging cradle, linked via an OSC stream to a dedicated sound processor, assigned to an object (in the L-ISA Controller) and have the correct input parameter IDs added, so the object follows the tracker attached to the actor. This quick and straightforward set up was a major reason for choosing zactrack.
The system was installed by the theatre’s technical team, a process that was fast and straightforward. Four zactrack pucks were positioned around the stage and self-calibrated – which took a few minutes – the address IDs were then assigned and tweaked, and they were good to go.
For lighting, the smoothness and precision of the tracking is vital. The zactrack system can predict accurately how an actor or dancer will move in a certain direction at a certain speed and moves the corresponding lighting fixture/s accordingly.
Pauli Molna concludes, “The fact that zactrack can simultaneously make lighting AND sound departments happy in a venue space is just fantastic.”
The first three major production at Tampere Workers’ Theatre using the new zactrack system were all musical spectaculars Matilda, Come from Away and Momentum.
