Mike Tucker, the venue's technical director, felt the recent audio refit was long overdue. Although the system had been upgraded piecemeal since the building's 1974 opening for the World Fair, it still fell far short of what most touring acts now require - and what discriminating patrons had come to expect. "It was a mostly second-generation, mix-and-match system," Tucker says. "It couldn't supply the clarity and 'oomph' we wanted for most shows, so more often than not we had to bring rental systems in."
The rental system of choice was a Meyer Sound rig supplied by George Relles Sound of Eugene, Ore. Though Relles's inventory includes a selection of M Series curvilinear arrays, for the Spokane venue he usually selected a system based on the MSL-4 horn-loaded long-throw loudspeaker. "The MSL-4 worked very well in there, and it was a good choice for the permanent system as well," Relles says. "The high vertical coverage needed relative to the throw distance would have required a long array. They didn't want a big banana hanging down. With the MSL-4 clusters, everything fit behind the existing soffit scrim, and it also fit the budget nicely."
The Spokane Symphony was one of Relles's first clients, and he has been invited back to the hall frequently over the past thirty years. So it was appropriate that he be chosen to design and install the venue's new audio system. The two main clusters each comprise a two-by-two arrangement of MSL-4 cabinets, which provide balcony and rear orchestra coverage. On each side, two DF-4 dedicated downfill loudspeakers hang underneath for the orchestra front section. A single UPA-1P compact wide coverage loudspeaker on each side covers the corners, while two M1D ultracompact curvilinear array loudspeakers serve as frontfill cabinets. Two cenre-flown 700-HP ultrahigh-power subwoofers supply the sub-bass support.
A Galileo loudspeaker management system - the first Relles has placed in a permanent installation - ties everything together. "I downloaded the Compass control software the week before the Galileo arrived," Relles says. "When the processor arrived, I took a wireless router with me, hooked the Galileo system up, and tuned the room with it using a tablet PC. It worked great, and everyone was thrilled."
(Jim Evans)
