NEW YORK — For Broadway’s Fiddler on the Roof, the audio system supplied and installed by Sound Associates includes d&b audiotechnik V7P point source loudspeakers for those in the ground-floor orchestra section and two rings of E6 for delays under the deeper parts of the large balcony and E4s for lip fills. Working with longtime design assistant/collaborator Alex Neumann and d&b’s Adair Mallory, sound designer Scott Lehrer made use of d&b’s ArrayProcessing to allow for even audio coverage for every seat in the theater.
More details from d&b audiotechnik (www.dbaudio.com):
The current Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof has seen award winning sound designer Scott Lehrer introduce some new audio tools for this emotionally driven musical. “Fiddler is the first time I’ve designed a show for the Broadway Theater. The auditorium has a couple of significant issues that need to be addressed, one is the gigantic balcony — this is one of the largest theaters in New York, the audience capacity is 1,700, and the balcony seats approximately 70% of them, so it’s very deep. The other thing is the acoustic, the auditorium is totally dry; natural reverberation is non-existent, so the actors have a hard time hearing themselves. This is a result of the major refurbishment undertaken in the 1980s, a lot of treatment was applied, to make the acoustic effectively dead.”
What makes Fiddler such a classic musical is the tension of social and cultural change interwoven with political turmoil. While neither of these has any direct bearing on what Lehrer has done with the sound design, he has embraced both metaphorically. An entirely traditional approach to covering the auditorium has been unpicked, most significantly with the application of d&b audiotechnik’s ArrayProcessing to the V-Series line array system covering the balcony. Politically he has taken the d&b credo of ‘democracy for listeners’ and extended the spatial experience — localizing the voices of performers to their station on stage — in such a way that no seat in the house, not even in the deepest reaches of the vast balcony, is absented from that experience. Like the episodes of the plot leading to an emotionally satisfying and uplifting experience, neither technical achievement can be considered without the other.
Coverage in Two Acts
Lehrer explains how he arrived at this balanced solution. “The auditorium has two distinct areas. For the balcony, I’d been to experience d&b’s ArrayProcessing at the Harlem Apollo and was really impressed. I wanted to use it here for two main reasons: the sheer size of the balcony, and because there is a big dome above the orchestra and I really needed to keep control up there. To give you some idea of how effective ArrayProcessing proved to be, once we had correctly set it up I did A/B the system; the difference was so profound I never bothered again. I had expected it to be good, even so, front to back of the balcony was so even in frequency response and SPL — this was a whole new thing. The Broadway Theater has typically been a very difficult space to design for; designers have to devote a lot of time, attention and budget on delays and fills to make the room work. But we didn’t need them, the V-Series covered it perfectly front to back 125 feet, just a 2dB variance, and the front of the balcony is very close to the arrays.
“For the ground floor seating in the orchestra main coverage is from d&b V7P point source loudspeakers. This is a new box; in the past I’ve used d&b’s C7 point source cabinets in this role. Both cabinets have the same defined directivity (75 degrees by 40 degrees, h x v) but the dipole arrangement of the LF drivers in the V7P extends low frequency control down to 350Hz, a significant benefit when the actors walk out downstage of the system. The V7P took some getting used to precisely because of that difference, but the tonality matches what I’m using upstairs perfectly. More importantly, the reason for selecting point source for this area is that you don’t end up blasting the front rows barely twelve feet away in order to ensure the rear seats can hear. That would be unavoidable using a line array downstairs. That said, two rings of E6 for delays are installed under the deeper parts of the balcony, and I use d&b’s tiny E4s for lip fills.”
Implementing ArrayProcessing
The complete audio system was supplied and installed by Sound Associates, but it was one of Lehrer’s longtime design assistants/collaborators Alex Neumann who got to engage with the detail of using ArrayProcessing. “I was assisted from the outset by Adair Mallory of d&b’s Education and Application Support department. First we tried putting the entire balcony into d&b ArrayCalc using architects’ drawings and then creating a 3D model. But the drawings were dated and just not accurate enough. In the end we had to shoot our own measurements. Generally, that wouldn’t be any problem, but here we had the line arrays rigged directly above a couple of staircases, so I had to put the tripod for the laser measurement tool on the steps, measure the distance to the floor, and then calculate the measurement to the rest of the room. If they had been hung over the floor it would have been a lot faster. But using the drawings in the first instance was useful for getting the shape of the array, setting the angles between boxes. Even so, from here on out I will always be measuring the room. Model off the drawings for convenience, then verify. Once we had that it was all pretty easy and when we first listened what we heard was unbelievable. It sounded incredibly natural.
“With the V7P loudspeakers rigged vertically downstairs you do hear a difference in the tilt. Because of the dipole arrangement they are a little bit more directional than the C7 we normally use because they steer the low end more, but the overall character is very similar. The character of the V7P and the V8 line array upstairs were very similar. Downstairs there is inevitably a little harshness when you’re close up, but at 35 feet and over, which is a close as you’ll sit to the loudspeakers upstairs, they are indistinguishable.”
Testing Performance
Domonic Sack has been optimizing systems for Lehrer on and off since the late 1980s. “My first show with Scott was Angels in America, and I’ve done many more since then. Scott has always done interesting work; he never stops pushing for better. As for ArrayProcessing, I am always open to new ideas (unless they’re really crazy) but not having any experience of it I still went into this with my usual expectations. The balcony is substantial, I thought I’d need to do a little gain tapering, maybe adjust the HF for the air loss. With just seven boxes in each line array, I was worried, I’ll admit it. The front row is maybe 32 feet from the array, the rear row 100 or more feet and it’s a steep balcony; there’s a lot of area to cover and only seven boxes per side!
“Using a SIM3 system, I set up a mic every seven rows and what I saw surprised me. Every mic looked the same, it was very even. Traditionally, for the Broadway Theater, there are a lot of delays; a side and rear ring in the balcony is typical. A rear delay zone was part of the design. The question was: do we use them or not? In terms of intelligibility, they added maybe 15% at the very rear balcony position. The reality was, the intelligibility achieved with ArrayProcessing was good enough already that it wasn’t needed, so we turned them off. When you consider the audience absorption for that distance, the rake, and that width, that is spectacular. I arrived thinking at the least I’d be adding some HF, but departed knowing ArrayProcessing squared it off nicely.
“Downstairs, the V7P point source boxes really do what d&b claim they do, and not just in the HF, but down in the lower frequencies as Scott said. For the tricky passerelles, those sideburn walkways that extend beyond the proscenium right out into the audience, that added degree of LF control really helped.”
Spatial Experience
While the technical achievement of using ArrayProcessing is clear, such things are, from the audience perspective, invisible. Yet the experience of the performance is everything. Lehrer sees benefits from using ArrayProcessing here as well. “Typically I do a lot of left right delay panning to give the audience some awareness of where the actors are on stage. I’ve never been able to do that effectively all the way to the back of a deep balcony, certainly not from a simple left/right line array. And you can’t do level panning in a theater to achieve that effect — it just won’t work. When you make spatial adjustments for individual singers using only delay in order to locate those singers in their proper place relative to the listener’s position, you can lose parts of the frequency detail. With ArrayProcessing, that does not happen, because essentially whatever is delayed is always that ArrayProcessed nearfield, full frequency (as mixed) program audio. I want that 30 degrees of spacing between performers to be experienced all the way to the back. The main thing for us is that working this way with ArrayProcessing I didn’t have to worry about that at all. The show has been really well received – there have literally been no complaints about sound since the show opened according to the theater management. That’s never happened before; no one has come out and said ‘its too loud, or too soft’. No one.”
