BUENA PARK, Calif. — Nearly three years ago, Head Technician/Room Tech Manager Michael Beyer presided over the installation of two Yamaha PM1D audio consoles in one of the best known theaters in Las Vegas: the 1,700-seat Theater at the Hilton. The addition of the digital consoles capped a complete renovation of the theater built for Elvis – he performed more than 800 shows here –that began even before the 1998 revisions that involved replacing the original stage, reconfiguring the seating and installing a whole new AV infrastructure. At press time, the two PM1D consoles were upgraded with Version 2 software.
Celebrating "The Change": The cast of "Menopause: The Musical" at the Las Vegas Hilton's Shimmer Cabaret are heard loud and clear with the help of a new Yamaha DM2000 console and loudspeaker system from NEXO.
Beyer's expertise was tapped again when the Hilton's 375-seat Shimmer Cabaret underwent a sound system upgrade. The extent of that upgrade was influenced by other, simultaneously occurring projects in the room. "We intended to upgrade the front-of-house console," says Hilton Technical Director, Tony Tauber, "but at the same time, we were contemplating a room redesign and preparing to host a new show." The new show was "Menopause: The Musical," and the new console was a Yamaha DM2000. When Tauber and Hilton Director of Entertainment, J. Eric D'Richards, saw the renderings for the set design of "Menopause," they turned their attention to the room's speaker system, which was based around cabinets set in a seven-foot deep soffit, covered with beige grill cloth, at the top of the proscenium.
"We realized that we could pick up a footprint if we eliminated the soffit, replaced it with a curved proscenium, and went with some form of line array speaker system," says Tauber. Head Tech, Beyer, joined the process: "I looked around the room," he says, "and I thought: 'wow, if any room is crying out for a line-array, it's this one.'" Beyer's assessment was based partly on the dimensions of the Shimmer Cabaret: a pie-shaped room with the stage at the apex and balcony seating, not very deep, but relatively tall, and suited to stereo.
At this point, Tauber and D'Richards realized that they had an opportunity to accommodate a number of major changes –sound system, room redecoration and set install – in a very compressed time-frame; changes that might normally take months to approve and execute. "Instead of waiting until the third quarter 2006," says Tauber of the room furbishing in particular, "we decided, 'let's jump on this right now.'"
"Menopause" went into production with the legacy loudspeaker system – the soffit-fitted cabinets, supported by side-stage stacks. But this setup was updated within a few days with a new vertical tangent array loudspeaker system from NEXO: seven GEO S805s per side, with one S830 at the bottom of each cluster, and two CD12 HyperCardioid Subbass speakers per side. Two NX 242 Digital TD Controllers—one for the stereo arrays, and one for the subs – provide crossover, sensed-amplifier control and system alignment acoustically matched to each NEXO GEO. The system is driven by four Yamaha PC9501Ns, with the cluster split in half, and the subs powered on their own. Mixing is handled by the Yamaha DM2000, positioned behind the balcony seating.
Beyer considered other line-array products, all excellent he notes, but not necessarily ideally suited for the room he had to work with. "I was looking for a 1100 to 1200 pattern in the horizontal plane for downstairs and, going higher in the array, I wanted a narrower pattern, 800 to 900, for the balcony which, obviously, is much farther away. The NEXO boxes do both, whereas the other products were not as flexible. And the NEXO boxes horizontal could be adjusted asymmetrically using the flare fittings on one side to narrow the horn throat.
"The NEXO rig gives you the ability to really adjust the amplitude nearfield to farfield with differing vertical patterns. Yes, their S805 boxes are 50° vertical, but they also have a single box [the S830] that's 30° vertical. What a concept! Instead of having to use six boxes and six sets of drivers to cover 30° vertical, and blowing people out of their seats in the near field, and then trying to find a way to get the nearfield amplitude down without ruining the composite waveform, somebody thought to take one box with one set of drivers and make them 30°, thereby bringing down the amplitude, but covering the area. It's so logical. No magic here. It's all about physics. If the design's logical, that speaks to me.
"Our other consideration in the Cabaret was the size of the boxes. When we tore out the soffit above the stage, I was working with the set designer and told him that we were going to put in line arrays and showed him where. He was very concerned about them blocking the set sightline, so I told him that this PA was only 17 inches wide, you won't even see it… I know he believed me, but I don't think it really sunk in until a few weeks later when we hung the arrays backed with a black Velour with 50% fullness. He was thrilled that he could barely see it, and with the lights down, he couldn't tell it was there at all. After we tuned the system and started listening and walking the room, the 'Menopause' staff was astounded. They said it was like listening to a giant version of the best home stereo system they had ever heard; the coherency and imaging were absolutely amazing. It revealed another bonus to this system that you can't get with a large [width] array – a very small and uncannily coherent point source!
"The only supplemental speakers we needed were a few Yamaha IS 2205s for fill at the back of the room, in the under-balcony area. Otherwise, the coverage was complete. The predictions in the software drawings came out almost spot-on too… I was able to steer away from the outside walls so that you hear the high end just barely start to roll off, but at the point when you're a foot-and-a-half from the wall. It's really perfect. I did 120° patterns for the bottom three boxes and 80° for the top five.
"We stacked the subs on the stage because we had sightline and room-size constraints, but we stacked them on frames that a very talented welder here on site built for us. He also built the rolling frames for the PM1Ds in the Theater here. The frames for the CD12s put the subs about 18-in. above stage level. They were built to accommodate a set piece that stores underneath, plus I wanted them decoupled from the stage. The frames got the subs up to where they were between the floor and the bottom part of the array, very close to the middle point. When I timed the PA to the subs, from a spot in the front row of the balcony to the same spot downstairs directly beneath, it's plus or minus half-a-millisecond. If I had positioned those subs on the stage floor or underneath, the timing wouldn't even have been close. It's like having a semi-flown sub.
"The other thing that attracted me to the CD12 sub was its size and the 12-in. drivers. I'm a small sub driver guy, and these appealed to me. When I demo this system for people, they always remark on the how awesome the bass is, but also how punchy and tight it is. And they're going well down into the 40s too. This is a really well-designed box and control system."
While the Shimmer Cabaret has become a more production-show intensive venue, the decision was made recently to give the room over to a live band after "Menopause's" 7 PM show. Beyer, whose background is in concert touring, says he's happy about that because whether it's a production show or a live band with dancers and backup singers playing, the NEXO arrays are fit to the room.
