NEW YORK — Several ongoing Broadway productions, including the two honored with Tony Awards for sound design this year, are using DiGiCo consoles as part of the sound system setup. The Tony-awarded show designers are Clive Goodwin for Once (mixed on a DiGiCo SD7T)and Darron L. West, for Peter and the Starcatcher (DiGiCo SD10-24). Other productions using a DiGiCo SD7 include The Lion King , The Book of Mormon, Evita, Godspell, Jesus Christ Superstar, Newsies, Sister Act and War Horse. Others using an SD10 include One Man, Two Guvnors.
Once
Once is based on the 2006 Academy Award-winning film about an Irish musician and a Czech immigrant drawn together by their shared love of music. In transitioning the show to the larger theatre, Goodwin chose a DiGiCo SD7T after consulting with Scott Kalata at Masque Sound, who’d been helping in the design process.
“We needed something with a lot of buses and a high input/output count, flexible theatre-friendly architecture, and the capability of using Waves plug-ins,” Goodwin said. “And, it goes without saying that we needed great sound quality.
“I had used a DiGiCo D5 in a previous life in live music touring, and I was impressed with the user-friendly nature and excellent sound quality. I found the SD7’s dynamic EQs — both onboard and from Waves — were extremely useful in vocal processing,” Goodwin added.
“The tube emulator is a nice feature for adding a little extra warmth to most things,” Goodwin continued. “The ‘alias’ feature and programming groups were also very useful, especially when planning a show in advance, as they simplify changes throughout the show or just to a single scene.”
Peter and the Starcatcher
Based on the novel covering Peter Pan’s backstory, Peter and the Starcatcher got its start in several venues before moving on to the New York Theatre Workshop.
Working with associate designer Charles Coes, West also relied upon Kalata at Masque, who provided the DiGiCo SD10-24 to handle the expanding needs of the show.
“There was never a moment in tech rehearsals when a request was made by me that Charles or Rob said we couldn’t do,” West said, crediting the desk’s flexibility.
Other key benefits, Coes noted, include the SD10-24’s onboard automation package, flexible bus structure, outboard control, programming and matrixing, transparent sound and compact footprint.
“It’s an incredibly powerful console in a small package, and we weren’t fighting with the producers about seats,” Coes said. “We made great use of all the internal effects, and we didn’t have to bring in outboard gear or worry about automating a bunch of external reverb units to track the show. Everything was in the desk, and it solved the problem very well for a complicated production.”
Because the show strives for a natural sound, the production gets by with a minimum of effects, using mostly stock reverbs, noted engineer Rob Bass, who spent a day laying out the basics and building snapshots with Coes before the console left the shop.
“We don’t want it to sound very reinforced, so none of the effects are super prominent; it’s more about adding space for some of these live sound effects,” Bass said. “We’re using about six reverbs for the different spaces we’re building, like on the underwater grotto where the mermaids swim. Basically we’re taking the stock reverbs and tweaking them to get what we want, and then EQ’ing them over returns. I like that I can get around the desk pretty quickly and it was easy to dial it all in to have everything at our fingertips.”
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