MISS BENNET:
CHRISTMAS AT PEMBERLEY
By Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon
Directed by Kristine Holtvedt
Sound design & incidental music by Jeff Sherwood
Purdue University Fall 2019
Role: Production Sound Engineer
Production Sound Engineer Concept
As a production sound engineer, my job is best serve the needs of the sound designer and their vision for the system. This includes, installation, testing, and calibration of the sound system. I believe the greatest asset of a production sound engineer is to give realistic and achievable goals and answers to the sound designer. This allows a clear communication path to be established which also mitigates overpromising or underachieving. Developing a relationship with the designer and their design is also crucial as I believe anticipating the needs of the designer allows the designer to focus on designing their show rather than problem solving issues as they arise.
Show Concept
Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley follows the journey of Mary Bennet. This is a sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice set a few years in the future. The sound designer wanted the ability to localize sound from various places within the dramatic space & convince the audience someone was playing a real piano onstage. To accomplish this, I created a load in and calibration packet to properly prepare the system for the sound designer. My concept as production sound engineer was to work closely with the sound designer to better understand his concept and execute his design in addition to training the playback operator and assistant production sound engineer.
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Sound Load In
Pianoforte Smaart Traces
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QSYS Designer file DSP photos
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Documentation
The following PDFs are samples of documents used by Adam to properly install, verify and calibrate the sound system.
System Photos
Main left speaker (Renkus Heinz PNX121) hidden behind acoustically transparent material.
An inside view of the pianoforte speaker placement. These are D&B E6 speakers with custom NL4 cabling created to send two audio signals over one cable. Also pictured is a heavy fabric used to contain the reverberance of the piano itself.
Network patchbay located in service room. This bay is used for two separate VLANs. One is for dante and QLAN protocol (QSYS networked audio) and one for networked control.
Audio patchbay used to hard patch different audio signals. This was used to patch the piano subwoofer (JBL PRX 518S) into the DSP.
Pre-show photo of complete set.
View of the pianoforte with the lid closed which concealed the speakers within.
A speaker (Renkus Heinz PNX121) located behind duvetyn.
D&B D12 amplifier (bottom left) used to power the pianoforte speakers (D&B E6). Yamaha RIO 3224-02 used to route audio to D&B D12. JBL PRX518S (hidden underneath fabric) subwoofer used as the pianoforte subwoofer.
up close view of D12 amplifier and RIO rack used to route audio to the pianoforte speakers.
Main Right Speaker (Renkus Heinz PNX 121) hidden behind acoustically transparent material.
Hidden within the wall of the set. This speaker along with its counterpart across the stage provided most of the incidental music within the show.
Speaker cable path across actor entrance and exit. Gaff was added to give extra visibility to the raise floor.
Labeling scheme used on all cabling to identify plug and socket connection ports.
NL4 to NL2 (x2) cable. This cable was used to run one line to the piano forte to minimize the visibility of the cable. The designer wanted the audience to believe they were really playing the piano.
Tech table setup with designer (Jeff Sherwood) on the right and Adam on the left.
In developing a load in plan, I consulted with the sound designer to go over the expectation of his system and our relationship over the course of the show. This proved to be an important step in our process and developing a good working relationship. I was then able to develop a concept for how to load in the show and what specific elements were crucial to the design, thus able to prioritize different sections of the system. This show required outside gear which had to be prepped, tuned and installed into our system. I used shop prep to properly test all cabling, speakers and microphones as well as label all equipment, confirming everything was in working order before being installed into the theatre. As my role of production sound engineer I was tasked with developing a DSP control file for the QSYS Core510i digital signal processor. As this processor and amplifiers were new to the theatres, the control files I generated for the show have been converted into the template files for the theatre.
Our load in plan was laid out to prioritize stage speakers and rental gear while also leaving time to focus speakers and set preliminary levels. This was achieved to give more time when calibrating to EQ each speaker to the designer’s liking. We set aside time to install the pianoforte speakers as they required a custom NL4 cable to be created to split the signal along the cable.
The sound designer requested the sound of the plan to come from the dramatic space. This necessitated the need for us to signal delay the onstage speakers. We decided to use the Library speakers are our starting speakers as they were the correct height the furthest upstage speakers. We started with signal aligning the each main speaker to its corresponding library speaker, then signal aligning each proscenium speaker to its corresponding main speaker thus allowing the proscenium speakers to be signal aligned with each onstage speaker. We then looked at the pianoforte speakers and signal aligned them with the closest main speaker thus allowing all of the onstage speakers to be signal aligned allowing the sound designer to combine different speakers to achieve the desired effect. Then we focused on the three subwoofers. The piano subwoofer were phase aligned with the proscenium subwoofers to allow the power alley formed during the summation of the subwoofer to occur in the isles of the audience. The crossover frequency used for sub alignment was 80 Hz as this frequency is specified by the manufacturer. We then focused on the signal alignment of the surround system. This was achieved by measuring the distance at the closest seat in the ONAX field of the surround speaker to the closest proscenium speaker, then adding 5 ms of delay for the Haas Effect.