BURBANK, CA — When Conan O’Brien took over NBC’s The Tonight Show on June 1, it was the first time in nearly 40 years that the show received a new home. Crews worked for months to prepare the new digs at Universal Studios, the same Hollywood soundstage built in the 1950s and occupied by The Jack Benny Show.
Jeff Peterson of Green Audio was contracted by ATK AudioTek to handle the design and act as project manager for O’Brien’s Tonight Show sound system, and as part of that undertaking, chose two Yamaha PM1D digital audio consoles and an M7CL for the theater, plus elements from JBL’s VRX, SRX, VerTec and Control Contractor series.
“Between NBC and ATK, we decided to use Yamaha PM1D consoles for both the front of house and monitor positions based on their flexibility, familiarity and reliability,” said Peterson. “While the front of house PM1D has 192 available inputs, we still needed to add a Yamaha M7CL as a sidecar for additional channels.”
In addition to the 192-input PM1D at the monitor position, the monitor set up includes a two-tiered 16-channel Aviom Personal Mixing System to drive in-ear monitors for drummer Max Weinberg and his band, eight channels of Sennheiser EW350 wireless in-ears, and four channels of Shure PSM700 in-ears, available to accommodate guest bands. The wireless in-ears and Aviom inputs are fed analog from the PM1D monitor console.
“The PA system is driven 100 percent AES/EBU from the Yamaha PM1D through two BSS Sounbdweb London Blu-800s, then AES directly into the amplifiers,” said Peterson. “Care was taken to keep everything synchronized and to keep latency to a minimum.”
Peterson also noted that the sound reinforcement system needed to be visually unobtrusive. “We designed a system to provide audio that met the standards of both live performance and television broadcast, configured to blend in seamlessly with the set design,” he said.
The main PA system consists of left and right clusters, each containing four JBL VRX932LA-1 compact constant curvature array systems with one VRX918S subwoofer on top. A center cluster features three VRX932LA-1 loudspeakers. The system is enhanced by a center array of two VerTec VT4880A full-size arrayable subwoofers. The system also features two delay clusters flown 40 feet downstage from the main PA system, each containing two VRX932LA-1 loudspeakers.
The wireless complement is a 12-channel Sennheiser 3732 receiver with 5212 belt packs and 5200 handheld transmitters using VT500 lavs for the belt packs and 12 channels of Shure UHFR receivers with handhelds using SM58 and KSM9 heads, with VT500 lavs on belt packs.
Three custom ATK 4-way Universal 56PR splitters distributing microphone and production hi-level signals to all consoles were also installed. ATK permanently installed 168 inputs from the stage to the FOH position as part of the splitter system.
Peterson’s system design features a unique approach to nearfield sound support, with a JBL Control 23 surface-mount speaker underneath every other audience seat in the theater for dialogue, creating an “under-seat” system of 178 individual speakers.
Each row in the under-seat system is treated as an individual zone for signal-delay purposes, time-aligned to the main PA so they can be used in tandem. Onstage are 16 JBL SRX712M stage monitors for performers, four VRX915M stage monitors for drums and two VT4881A compact arrayable subwoofer for the drum monitor system.
Crown I-Tech 4000 amplifiers power the PA system, with high-powered I-Tech 8000s driving the subwoofers. Crown I-Tech 4000 amplifiers power the stage monitor system.
Signal processing for the entire audio system is accomplished via two BSS Soundweb London BLU 800s, while the system is networked for remote control and monitoring with Harman HiQnet™ System Architect™ software.
O’Brien’s June 1 debut featured guest actor/comedian Will Ferrell and musical guest Pearl Jam. The show generated the program’s highest ratings for a Monday in four years, 82 percent higher than the show’s average in major markets in the second quarter of 2009.
For more information, visit www.yamahaca.com and www.jblpro.com.
