So a guy walks into a bar and starts to talk about how to mic a tree

[fifthcircle]

There is a joke in here somewhere... The question is where. I just finished a week and a half in Ojai, CA doing the sound design for the Ojai Music Festival. '

It is one of the great old festivals in the US (this was the 63rd season) that specializes in contemporary music. This year was no exception- the music director was the group Eighth Blackbird, a group that pushes boundaries out of Chicago and the big premiere was a theatrical work by composer/guitarist Steve Mackey.

First tech-

Our PA system was provided by Sound Image out of Escondito, CA and was based on their proprietary Audio Composite G2 speaker. It is a carbon box with a 12" woofer and a coax top (if memory serves me right). They use them on their tours a lot as monitor wedges, but they also work very well as a main speaker. The throw isn't long, but this show's design was about coverage and distribution and not volume.

The venue is asymetric- There is a bowl shaped area with the expensive seats and then lawn and outlying areas of seating that are not on axis of the stage. In the bowl, we switch between L-R plus mono in front and a 7.1 discrete rig. The stereo feed is derived from the stereo bus and then matrixed out through the system using the board's matrix and a Meyer Gallelio. The 7.1 mix is derived for point source work through the use of aux sends. The L-C-R sends come up in the matrix (to avoid the mono sum) and the surrounds are all on their own aux send to be dialed up as needed. Delay lines are both mono and stereo and are derived in the board's matrix and distribued by the Meyer box. This allows stuff to still come through when I'm flipping between stereo and surround down front.

The needs from FOH included both recording and PA. To do this, we had a Pro Tools system for the multitrack and then I mixed 8 channels of stems for the documentary live recordings. This allowed me to break out various voices for rebalancing in post if needed. There stereo mixes are usually pretty good, but when mixing for PA, it is easy for things like reverb to become overbearing on the live recording. Since they plan to broadcast some of the recordings on NPR, the level of the recordings needed to be a bit higher than just a board mix to stereo.

This year I mixed on a Digi Venue system which made the PT thing a lot easier (and cheaper!). The rig pretty much maxed it out- 78 inputs and 30 of the 32 outputs in use (matrixed to 46 outputs). At the stage, all mics were high-end. It is fun when the "uitility" mics are schoeps (we had 14 of them on site). We also had roughly 40 channels of high-end preamplification on stage- they ran the range from clean to colored. Vac Rac, API, A Designs, Millennia, Grace, etc... Being a festival patch- we set the gain structure on the pres and left them. Anything that needed to be added to was taken care of with the console's headamps. I also had an A Designs Hammer EQ to insert on the board as needed as well. It was a big help on some of the wireless.

Speaking of which- the show wasn't huge there- about a dozen or so channels. Eighth Blackbird does a lot of theatrical work so they have DPA mics that we plugged into our wireless. This year, we used Sennheiser there including 5000 series handhelds and belt packs (the older stuff you see on broadway a lot- Don't know the exact model number). We also used the wireless to help out with some of the performances that were off the stage- was a lot easier than running even more copper.

That is the basic setup- I'll be writing more when I get a moment. I also have pictures that will be posted as well...

To be continued...

[matyas]

Cool gig report. I went to school with the Blackbirds and it's always pretty awesome to hear about some of the stuff they've been doing. Ojai would be a pretty amazing gig, that's for sure!

Originally Posted by fifthcircle

There is a joke in here somewhere... The question is where. I just finished a week and a half in Ojai, CA doing the sound design for the Ojai Music Festival. '

It is one of the great old festivals in the US (this was the 63rd season) that specializes in contemporary music. This year was no exception- the music director was the group Eighth Blackbird, a group that pushes boundaries out of Chicago and the big premiere was a theatrical work by composer/guitarist Steve Mackey.

First tech-

Our PA system was provided by Sound Image out of Escondito, CA and was based on their proprietary Audio Composite G2 speaker. It is a carbon box with a 12" woofer and a coax top (if memory serves me right). They use them on their tours a lot as monitor wedges, but they also work very well as a main speaker. The throw isn't long, but this show's design was about coverage and distribution and not volume.

The venue is asymetric- There is a bowl shaped area with the expensive seats and then lawn and outlying areas of seating that are not on axis of the stage. In the bowl, we switch between L-R plus mono in front and a 7.1 discrete rig. The stereo feed is derived from the stereo bus and then matrixed out through the system using the board's matrix and a Meyer Gallelio. The 7.1 mix is derived for point source work through the use of aux sends. The L-C-R sends come up in the matrix (to avoid the mono sum) and the surrounds are all on their own aux send to be dialed up as needed. Delay lines are both mono and stereo and are derived in the board's matrix and distribued by the Meyer box. This allows stuff to still come through when I'm flipping between stereo and surround down front.

The needs from FOH included both recording and PA. To do this, we had a Pro Tools system for the multitrack and then I mixed 8 channels of stems for the documentary live recordings. This allowed me to break out various voices for rebalancing in post if needed. There stereo mixes are usually pretty good, but when mixing for PA, it is easy for things like reverb to become overbearing on the live recording. Since they plan to broadcast some of the recordings on NPR, the level of the recordings needed to be a bit higher than just a board mix to stereo.

This year I mixed on a Digi Venue system which made the PT thing a lot easier (and cheaper!). The rig pretty much maxed it out- 78 inputs and 30 of the 32 outputs in use (matrixed to 46 outputs). At the stage, all mics were high-end. It is fun when the "uitility" mics are schoeps (we had 14 of them on site). We also had roughly 40 channels of high-end preamplification on stage- they ran the range from clean to colored. Vac Rac, API, A Designs, Millennia, Grace, etc... Being a festival patch- we set the gain structure on the pres and left them. Anything that needed to be added to was taken care of with the console's headamps. I also had an A Designs Hammer EQ to insert on the board as needed as well. It was a big help on some of the wireless.

Speaking of which- the show wasn't huge there- about a dozen or so channels. Eighth Blackbird does a lot of theatrical work so they have DPA mics that we plugged into our wireless. This year, we used Sennheiser there including 5000 series handhelds and belt packs (the older stuff you see on broadway a lot- Don't know the exact model number). We also used the wireless to help out with some of the performances that were off the stage- was a lot easier than running even more copper.

That is the basic setup- I'll be writing more when I get a moment. I also have pictures that will be posted as well...

To be continued...

[fifthcircle]

I couldn't imagine working with a cooler group of folks than what the Blackbirds assembled for this year's festival. It really was a treat...

So I don't have too much time to write this morning, but I'll add a few things... First is a copy of the festival patch list and a picture of the backstage area with pres, splitter, monitor amps, and wireless. As I said, we ran a festival patch. I had to figure out not what was always the absolute best for a situation, but what would work. This included mics and preamps. Once a preamp is set, the pre is set and will never move. I keep the gains low and make up what is missing at the console. On the festival patch- the colors are code so I know who was providing the various parts of the rig. Most of the mics and pres were mine, but we also got demo mics from Mojave Audio and Royer Labs and pres from A Designs. Many thanks to both companies for their help. The gear was pretty awesome to have. Pianos through a Pacifica were a mighty pretty sound. Strong, detailed, etc... Everything I wanted. Mics were either MG M930, AKG 414XLS or DPA 4006.

This year, I used the digi Venue and it was not anywhere near as happy to see line level as the Yamaha desks I have used in the past. I was fighting gain structure issues for pretty much the entire festival. To add to the issues, the console had some bugs that really set me back. Occasionally a headamp or pad level wouldn't be stored in the scene memory or I couldn't solo a channel properly or the pad didn't seem to do anything. Very strange stuff that meant at show time, my levels were sometimes quite far off from rehearsal. Fortunately, it was almost always on the spot mics and the audience was never aware of my fights. As convenient as the hookup between a PT HD system and the venue is, I don't think I'm going to use that console again. The ergonomics and the little issues just bugged me to no end. The internal summing was fine, but the console was just a bit too "rock and roll" for a classical venue like this. I will say, though, that pulling in known Pro Tools plugins to a mix was a really cool thing. Also, the ease of organizing show folders and pulling only channels I needed from a master setup was also really cool. The full extension from faders to VCA (and I'm 6 feet tall) really sucked, though.

The main part of the sound was provided by a decca tree and flanks. As this year's festival was largely chamber music, I went with a smallish setup- the Tree contained Schoeps MK21 mics with a spacing of a bit less than a meter left to right and back to front. My flanking mics were Schoeps MK2 spaced about 10 feet off center. The entire rig was about 9 feet off the stage level.

'nuff for now...

--Ben

[fifthcircle]

So..

Overall the festival went very well. There were a couple different aesthetics at play with the sound design.

The first was surround versus stereo. The system was made to be able to flip between. The downside of the flip is that surround was dialed up on aux sends. Meant lots of programming. The good side of that is I could put anything in a point source that I wanted. For the majority of the festival, surround was a more subtle effect. I would put reverb returns into the surrounds to make the sound from stage a bit more involved. On a few pieces, I "panned" out to the side speakers to bring the stage into the audience. When there was interaction between the two sides of the stage, it was very effective. Also on pieces that were musically effect-driven (ie Crumb Music for a Summer Evening), it brought that out into the audience. On the last day, we finally got to the point-source stuff. There was one piece where 4 recorders performed from the 4 corners of the audience. I was able to flip the system into a quad configuration to emphasize the relations of the performers. It was fun to watch the audience as I think they got whiplash from listening and looking to the performers.

The second aesthetic was heavy micing versus light. For vocal recitals and piano recitals, I relied heavily on my overhead mics. The sound created was probably 70% from overhead and the rest from a spot pair or mic. For works like the Reich double sextet and music for 18, the ensemble was individually mic'd and more than half the sound came from those mics. That being said, the overhead mics were still important for maintaining a sense of blend with the group.

Lastly, there was a rock aesthetic with the classical aesthetic. The world premiere was a theatrical piece by Steve Mackey. It had everything- subtle string lines, beautiful chamer music with piano, and what I can only describe as rock opera. The cellist doubled on electric bass, there was an electric guitar, etc... For these theatrical works, DPA mics were used on the house wireless. They included 4066 for the viola/violin and flute and 4061 for clarinet and cello. The A Designs Hammer was inserted on the violin as one of my EQs to help warm up the sound.

From a technical standpoint, we were thrown some curves, but it went well in the end. On our second day, as we were tuning the system, a squirrel decided to go on a Kamakazi mission into a power transformer causing an explosion that knocked out power for 3 hours. It sounded like Frankenstein's lab a couple blocks over and a smoky haze covered the venue for a period of time... The other issue was the supid board's fans. The noise from them was a major problem for the patrons and we ended up having to move FOH after our first show. Not ideal by far, but we made it work (despite a delay because of a lunched BNC cable from the stage racks).

More pictures....

[fifthcircle]

Last pictures....

A Mantis on a Lex960 LARC, The protective squirrel, and lastly....

There was no joke. I had to mic a tree that had been rigged with percussion as part of an installation music piece. The percussion was controlled by MIDI, the instruments on stage had their signals turned into MIDI for control and there were other players on stage with MIDI controllers. The percussion in the tree included saw blades with resonators, wood clogs with strikers on them, toy pianos, various drum heads and other noise-makers.

--Ben

[Rick Sutton]

Originally Posted by fifthcircle

A Mantis on a Lex960 LARC,

Enjoyed the pictures. Hopefully you didn't get any mantises in your pantises.
You probably have to be a Mystery Science Theater 3000 fan for that one to make any sense, I just couldn't resist.

[phil.]

Great report. Thanks Ben! thumbsup

Phil.

[bishopthomas]

I love the picture with the older man next to the cellist. It must have been a long day...

[loujudson]

Very interesting postings! Nice to have budget...

I can just imagine doing that sort of gig (and have in the past, such as Cabrillo Music Festival in the 80s) with an analog board, a few Bose 802s (cause I have them, is all) or Meyer mains, and an HD24XR.

The problems with the Venue are good to hear about - first real world report I have seen. Moving to a digital board in August at local folk venue - hope the Soundcraft is easier than that!

Thanks,

Lou

[fifthcircle]

Originally Posted by bishopthomas

I love the picture with the older man next to the cellist. It must have been a long day...

Nah.. Part of the staging of the piece. It was theatrical in nature- the 6 members of 8th Blackbird plus Guitar and an actor. The piece was called Slide and it was about a series of psychological experiments on perception and how they affected the person doing them. It really was an awesome piece. The photo in question is part of the cello cadenza.

I really have mixed feelings about the Venue. There were some very cool things and if it wasn't a festival patch, I would probably have liked it more. I understand some of the ergonomic issues can be solved by placing the sidecar on the other side of the masters and connecting them physically. This console, however, had neither. Don't know about the bugs- none of them were killers, but there was some strange stuff happening. Perhaps it was from the cable to the stage rack that had to be replaced or perhaps it was something else from crazy repatching across multiple show files for several days. Don't know, and honestly don't care. I just know that when the show came up, things were not as they were supposed to be.

--Ben

[Remoteness]

Awesome report Ben

Keep up the good work!