System Sound, Melbourne-based specialists in audio for musical theatre and musical events, have been working on developing systems for remote control of audio, based entirely on off-the-shelf technologies and commonly available components. Much of this work has been done by Julian Spink, who in addition to being one of System Sound's supervisors and an associate sound designer, works on developing advanced engineering solutions for the company.
System's first brush with radio remote control was for the Australian season of Rent in 1998. The specification called for a proprietary (and expensive) system based around a modified Zenith pad computer connected to a server/ receiver system via 3Mbps wireless LAN cards. Spink's principal recollection of this system is its sluggish response, a factor that convinced him that wireless remote technology was not yet ready for a real-time production environment.
Some time later, Spink became interested in a wireless remote system put together by BSS for a trade show to demonstrate their Soundbench device control software. He noted the specifications of that system and filed the information away for possible future use. The opportunity arose in 2001, during the system design process for Mamma Mia! at Melbourne's Princess Theatre. A request was made for remote control of XTA's AudioCore PC-based software. In the Mamma Mia! system, the main front of house L-Acoustics V-dosc arrays are driven by XTA DP266 speaker controllers and all fills are controlled by DP200 equalizer/speaker processors. Remote control of the XTA controllers permits fine-tuning of the sound from seats throughout the theatre.
Spink decided to base the system on the one proven by BSS. He purchased a (not very cheap) Fujitsu Stylistic 3400s Tablet computer, equipping it with a D-Link 802.11b (WiFi) 10Mbps wireless LAN card, which fitted into the unit's PCMCIA slot. The base station, running the AudioCore software, was a Toshiba Satellite notebook, connected via a 60 metre Ethernet cable to a WiFi base station located at a point with good line of sight to the majority of the theatre. Remote control of AudioCore was achieved using Symantec's pcAnywhere package, which allows the remote computer to take control of the base station, effectively acting as its keyboard, mouse and screen. The system has been used on Mamma Mia! in Melbourne and Brisbane, and is slated to stay with the show for the remainder of its tour.
Although the Mamma Mia! system works reliably, the hardware and software was still relatively expensive, and tied to Windows/Intel computers; System Sound however, uses many Macintosh computers in its operations. Spink's new generation solution to remote control is cheaper and platform independent. It is based on Toshiba Satellite notebook computers to run the audio control software, while the remote stations are the Macintosh G3 and G4 notebook computers that abound in the company. Both computers are fitted with the now very accessible WiFi (2.5GHz) 10Mbps radio LAN cards, with the Satellite base station using an external antenna to improve signal reception.
After careful examination of the requirements for remote control, Spink concluded that many of pcAnywhere's excellent features were not required for this application. He chose instead to use VNC (Virtual Network Computing), a platform-independent software protocol, developed under the GNU Public Licence system by AT&T's laboratories at Cambridge University. Not only is VNC free, it is available for most computer platforms, and the r
