Now a music and broadcast tradition, the Proms in the Park celebrations attract thousands to outdoor venues in London, Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland, and is broadcast live on TV and radio. Each event centres on a live concert with its own high-profile artists, BBC orchestras and presenters.
Capital Sound took on the Hyde Park event, providing an Optocore fibre-optic audio network infrastructure and Martin Audio MLA loudspeaker system.
While centred on the stage, preparations for a major theatre production put sound operators on an equally steep, if not steeper, learning curve than that of its actors. Not only do they need to learn every actor’s lines and cues, but they need all of the show’s effects in their head and at their fingertips.
Andrew Bruce lifts the curtain on the action at front of house, from first rehearsal to the premier and beyond.
Following an in-depth look at the development of DiGiCo’s theatre-specific mixing software, Andrew Bruce follows the story of the stage and the mixing console, and plots the development of technologies that are now familiar both in the West End and on Broadway.
Although many members of the cast will be familiar to you from their other audio adventures, their roles here may hold some surprises.
‘I've worked in a lot of weird and wondrous sites, but it’s seldom one comes across a place quite like this,’ says sound artist Thor McIntyre-Burnie.
He’s describing the wind tunnels that helped shape the Spitfire’s elliptical wings and guided the design of early supersonic aircraft. Now open to the public for the first time, the tunnels provide the setting and the acoustics for his Flying Into The Dawn sound installation.
‘I said I’d done some work with Soundcraft and Cadac, and I had a big folder of information. Would they be interested in evolving something specifically for use in the theatre?
‘James put me in touch with the people who write DiGiCo’s software. They came to London and we went to see several shows that night – and I watched while the colour drained from their faces…’
Nick Cohen believes that broadcast is on the cusp of being hit by the storm that has previously ravaged the print publishing and music industries.
If he’s right, it’s going to be a doozy – ‘the most exciting time in the history of broadcasting’s evolution’, according to Jay Scanlan. With future and access to a connected world, the most fundamental tenets of broadcasting stand to be dramatically rewritten.
Aiming to inspire ‘wonder, discovery and responsibility for our natural and cultural worlds’ in its visitors, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHM) houses one of the most extensive collections of natural and culturally historic artefacts on Earth.
Its new Otis Booth Pavilion is set to call on present-day A/V technology to enable it to do just that…
One of the largest music technology departments of any European educational institution, London College of Music is presently building the world’s largest Focusrite RedNet networks.
With Pro Tools as it primary music recording platform, the arrival of Pro Tools 11 invited a move to HDX systems, which are not restricted to Avid I/O – and opened the door to RedNet.
Recalling the work of pioneering ethno-musicologists, a 580-mile walk via 36 churches presents a daunting brief for a documentary project. This, however, is the goal of The Walk to Fisterra, which involves an acclaimed cellist, a Grammy award-winning recording engineer and an enthusiastic team of assistants.
The journey is being undertaken by Dane Johansen, who will perform Bach’s Six Suites for Solo Cello at each stop, while the team documents his endeavour.
Opened as one of the last cinemas to be built for the era of silent movies, Bath City Church occupies the beautiful art deco Forum. The latest chapter in its history is an extensive refurbishment of its audio infrastructure by Autograph Sales & Installations.
In addition to the very diverse religious activities of the church, this also had to attract potential hire clients for other meetings and events.
Dating from 1839 as the Melbourne Mechanics’ Institute, the Melbourne Athenaeum is among Victoria’s oldest public institutions. In 1873, it became the Melbourne Athenaeum and was the first theatre to screen a movie in Australia. In 1921, it began hosting theatrical and creative performances.
Today, it is home to the Melbourne Theatre Company, as well as hosting comedy, theatre, opera, acoustic and amplified concerts, and musicals.
