Aida
Beck Center for the Arts
Lakewood, OH
July 2005
Aida was a very interesting experience for me. Not only was it the first musical I designed in the Mainstage at Beck Center, but it is also the first time I've worked with what I would call an entire electronic orchestra. What I mean by an entire electronic orchestra is that all of the instrumentation within orchestra pit was either electric (electric guitar, electric bass) or an electronic instrument (keyboards/synths, electronic percussion). All of the musicians in the Orch. Pit wore headphones, which provided them with both a mix of all the musical instruments, and the vocals from the stage as well.
The majority of the sounds were provided by three separate keyboard/synths. The percussion was a combination of Roland V-Drums and a Roland Percussion pad, and we had electric guitar and electric bass. The only instrument which was actually making any audible sound within the orch. pit itself, was the electric guitar. (it was played through a standard guitar amplifier) All the other instruments went directly into a our sound system, and were mixed appropriately (and routed) via the sound system.
I have to say walking through the orch. pit while the musicians were playing was a rather strange experience. Since the electric guitar was the only instrument making any audible sound, it's amplifier was placed within a baffle, so as not to create any problems for the other musicians who were playing their instruments solely via the headphone mix. When I would pass through the orch. pit during technical rehearsals, mostly what you heard was musicians breathing and/or counting, and lots of keyboard keys clicking, and electronic drum pad hits.
All in all I feel that the final product was a good one. Although I was a bit concerned about how well it would sound when I was first informed that it would be an electronic orchestra, I have to say that I was very pleasantly surprised by the out come. There were a few parts where a real acoustic instrument probably would have sounded better in the score, but over all the music sounded good, and the instruments were believable. I also think that this particular musical lent itself to this type of production, since almost all of the musical numbers in the show have a very pop music feel to them.
Front of House Position:
Wireless: 8 Channels of Telex FMR450 Systems; Console: 40 Channel Allen & Heath GL4000; Computer: SFX Pro Audio Show Control 5.6 with Dual Yamaha DSP Factory sound cards.
SFX was used for audio playback, and automation of the Orch. Mix. The Yamaha DSP Factory Sound card was actually mixing the orchestra, and providing effects for both the orch. and vocal mics. SFX sent MIDI commands to C-Console (the control software for the Yamaha DSP Factory System) to adjust the orch. mix and effects settings during the show.
The Orchestra Pit:
Keyboards: 1-K2600, 2-PC2x, Roland V-Drums and Percussion Pad. Not Shown: Electric Bass and Electric Guitar.
The Mackie Console acted essentially as a large multi-channel DI Box for all the keyboards, and percussion instruments. It also performed some mixing functions for the Orchestra's headphone monitors. Just above the Mackie Mixer you can see the Rane Headphone Amplifier used to power the musicians headphone monitors.
(to the left you can see just a small fraction of the large amount of spaghetti within the Orch. Pit)
System Drawings:
Show Final Paperwork - Adobe Acrobat Format
Click above link to view a copy of the Show's final paperwork