Marion Oliver McCaw Hall (USA) installed a Yamaha PM1D system to update the sound system in this historic venue.
Marion Oliver McCaw Hall is the centerpiece of the performing arts community at Seattle Center, an 87-acre landscaped campus, with theaters, arenas, museums and other public facilities, including the Experience Music Project and the Key Arena. Although technically a renovation, the $127 million transformation of McCaw Hall saved about 30 percent of the original building, with portions of the auditorium core shell embracing the original 1927 structure as well as a 1962 renovation. The re-building of the Hall’s 2,900-seat Susan Brotman Auditorium improved sightlines and acoustics, and created a more intimate atmosphere with new seating configurations.
Sound systems were also updated. An opera house is typically designed and built to require little to no sound reinforcement, relying on natural acoustics to carry voice and orchestral sound to every part of the hall. Although most performances are productions of Seattle Opera and Pacific Northwest Ballet, McCaw is a true multipurpose venue, hosting pop and rock concerts, lectures, stand-up comedy and four regional festivals per season.
The sound system is put to its most creative use in support of the hall’s opera productions—not for vocal or instrumental reinforcement, but almost solely for sound effects to support the onstage drama.
The system is anchored around a Yamaha PM1D digital mixing system with two 96-input CS1D control surfaces (front of house and monitors) sharing a single Yamaha DSP1D 48-input/32-output mix engine, plus loudspeaker arrays and monitors from JBL’s Custom Shop. A Yamaha 01V96 digital mixer provides cue and program mixes for backstage and lobby areas.
“The main thrust of the design was the building’s infrastructure, and the ability to get sound, video and data everywhere needed,” explains Richard Erwin, who left a position as vice president at Audio Analysts to supervise. “Opera makes demands on a sound system unlike any other art form, so it’s important to get the required imaging for sounds and place them properly. For example, a bell tower needs to sound like it’s coming from the tower location. A cannon shot from ‘out at sea’ needs to sound like it’s coming from behind you. Galloping horses might move from one end of the stage to the other, or out into the house, or both. A storm has multiple locations for lightning strikes.”
Erwin and a staff of 29 provide audio/video services for the entire Seattle Center campus, but the most challenging assignments involve sound designs for opera and ballet productions. During technical rehearsals, the sound designers and their assistants meet with the director and technical directors around a “tech table” set up on the house floor. Working with a wireless tablet PC running Remote Desktop as a graphic interface to the main audio systems computer, the sound designer will configure the house and effects systems, and program individual scenes for each cue that will recalled.
The Yamaha DSP1D handles A/D conversion and automates input signal processing, effects and matrix signal routing—all critical functions for creating an appropriate apparent location and/or movement for each cue.
On the surface, the sound system appears to be a conventional L-C-R design augmented by distributed fills on the orchestra pit rail, under- and over-balcony areas. An elaborate patch network, along with sophisticated digital technology, allows the system to be reconfigured in various modes. Proscenium speaker arrays become 11 separate audio sources. Left, center, right long-throw 3-way; left, center, right 3-way down-fill; mid-proscenium 3-ways; subwoofers (both dual 15’s and dual 18’s); low proscenium 3-ways; and all of the fill systems (including an 8 mix orchestra monitor system) are individually addressable via the PM1D, the patch bay, and 11 dbx DriveRack speaker management and signal processing units. A total of addressable 178 plug boxes for portable effects loudspeakers, located throughout the house, the stage and in the auditorium, complete McCaw’s intricate “surround” sound matrix. Sixteen effects speakers are permanently mounted in the rear walls, but most are placed according to the sound design needs of each performance. The orchestra pit can also be raised to stage level.
The re-building of McCaw Hall's 2,900-seat Susan Brotman Auditorium improved not only sightlines, but also acoustics and sound systems.
The dbx units are used for speaker management, while a Crown IQ network monitors the amplifiers and allows subsystems to be muted when not in use. During a performance, an operator will work on a CS1D control surface at stage left, following the conductor and activating scenes as needed.
“Our principal operators were involved in the design process, so they understand the systems extensively,” Erwin adds. “We’ve been doing this kind of thing for 20 years, but it was much more difficult when done manually. The PM1D’s matrix output capability, onboard effects and automation allow us to program much more elaborate cues, because you don’t need 36 fingers or three operators.”
The left and right P.A. systems are tailored to cover the room and function like a line-array system. “We have presets stored in the PM1D and system processors that allow us to change our base opera setting to ballet, pop, rock and spoken word,” notes Erwin. “We’ll adapt those basic setups to specific events as needed. Except for touring shows that carry their own productions, almost every music performance has used the PM1Ds. They’ve pretty much become a standard. People aren’t afraid to use them, and they’re generally happy to see them. There’s always a few holdouts who prefer their analog consoles, and that’s no problem.”
The ability to reconfigure the entire system at the touch of a button is one reason the Seattle Center design team chose the PM1D. “One of the first PM1Ds was delivered to the Mercer Arts Center, which was the Opera’s temporary home,” says Erwin. “We’ve had a lot of experience with Yamaha digital consoles, and the 01V and 01V96 are standards for all our smaller systems on campus. Both main components of the PM1D system are important in this application. We needed a comprehensive automation system to perform the effects scenes and movement required for opera and ballet. The DSP1D, located in the main electronics rack room, meets those needs with, for example, 24 graphic EQs assignable to the various outputs, as well as reverb and delays or dynamics (limiters, gates, compressors) as needed. When this is all used in a complex opera or ballet production, the control surface is critical. Since the production is operated manually, we need to be able to see everything that’s going on at any time. The CS1D allows control of almost everything from the surface, without having to go through a lot of layers.”
Having separate control surfaces and a central DSP engine enabled the design team to pre-wire McCaw Hall for multiple mix positions. “There’s a mix position in the center of the orchestra seating area that’s typically used for pop and rock shows,” says Erwin. “Another in the dress circle (first balcony) area is used for spoken word and smaller music events, which might be mixed on an 01V96. There’s a small booth in the rear of the hall that’s enclosed in studio glass, which is often used for spoken word events. There’s also a position at stage left, which is the monitor mix position during a music concert. Monitors will be mixed on one of our two CS1Ds while the house sound is mixed on the other, and both mixes are processed by the DSP1D backstage.
“The opera and the ballet both operate from this stage left position.” Erwin continues. “The operator will follow the conductor on video, watch the action on stage, listen to the intercom for cues from the stage manager, and activate the scenes that he programmed during technical rehearsals.”
Since the PM1D has onboard effects, the mix position has no outboard racks to occupy space in the seating or backstage areas. “We can move the CS1Ds with two people,” Erwin points out. “With a staff as busy as Seattle Center’s, that’s critical.”
While the sound designer sets up scenes for an opera or ballet’s house sound, he also sets up the Soundweb processing for all paging and programming needs. “The 01V96 was the solution for program mixes, since it can create eight separate mixes and store up to 99 scenes,” says Erwin. Sources include ambience mics in the hall to pick up the orchestra, shotgun mics on the soloists, plus mixes from the PM1D, the wired and wireless intercom systems and the radio systems. This allows production team members to hear different mixes of the program material for different types of cues.
As with house sound, flexibility is the key. “Rigging operators, for instance, need to hear certain cues from the music and the stage manager,” Erwin explains. “The production and stage managers want to hear another type of mix, while the lobby areas require another. We also create mixes for the Sennheiser infrared assisted listening system and for the audio description booth. It gets really complicated sometimes.”
Complicated, but also “spectacular,” according to the Seattle Weekly and Seattle Times, whose critics agreed that “the sound in the hall is nothing short of amazing.”
