LONDON – Simon Fox, associate sound designer for the West End production of Mean Girls noted how Fourier Audio’s transform.engine has enhanced the show’s workflow. With transform.engine, his preferred plugins now connect, latency-free, via Dante to the show’s DiGiCo Quantum338T console at FOH. Autograph is the show’s systems supplier.
More details from Fourier Audio (www.fourieraudio.com):
It may be “secondary school,” or perhaps the “sixth form” there, but whichever the preferred term, the British experience high school much the same way Americans do: a period of savage class warfare, bad hair days, and Euclidian geometry. Small wonder then that Mean Girls has become as much a hit since it opened last June on London’s West End as it was in the States. Complete with Tina Fey’s seminal script, in which The Plastics – Regina, Gretchen, and Karen – rule North Shore High and burn anyone who gets in their way, it’s been reliably selling out the Savoy Theatre because, you know, life is easy – high school is hard.
Getting that experience across to the audience is being immeasurably helped by the inclusion of a Fourier Audio transform.engine as the host for the show’s audio-processing plugins. Simon Fox, the production’s associate sound designer, says the addition of the transform.engine has helped the show’s workflow considerably, with his preferred processing plugins, including the LiquidSonics Seventh Heaven reverb and Soundtheory Gullfoss EQ, able to be connected latency-free via Dante to the show’s DiGiCo Quantum338T front-of-house console.
“It’s definitely making connectivity on the show much, much easier,” says Fox, who has also performed critical audio roles for shows including Disney’s Aladdin and Aida, Tina!, and Monty Python Live (Mostly), a milestone performance at London’s O2 in 2014. Autograph, Mean Girls’ systems supplier, suggested the Fourier Audio transform.engine when availability of a particular reverb that the show’s sound designer had included in the design was no longer available. “We had to look for other options and we saw that the transform.engine would support tc electronic reverbs, so that’s what we went for,” he explains. “We’ve had it as part of the kit from the beginning and I’ve found it to be very useful ever since on the show.”
The transform.engine had used the original software and has since been updated to the new software, including the addition of Cuelists, although Fox says he hasn’t had the chance yet to implement those. But even the most basic functions of the transform.engine are game-changers on complex productions like West End shows. Fox says he’s able to apply the appropriate plugins via the transform.engine as inserts for the band channels, giving him an added layer of precise control over their processing.
“It’s a single source going into the console, so it reduces complexity while also eliminating latency,” he says. “It’s an extension of an outboard rack but with much more flexibility. It’s been a good choice for me.”
For information on the current run of Mean Girls at the Savoy Theatre in London’s West End, visit https://london.meangirlsmusical.com. Autograph can be found online at www.autograph.co.uk.
