MUNICH, GERMANY — The world premiere of Marilyn – the Musical took place at the Gärtnerplatz Theatre in Munich, using a networked (EtherSound) Camco-powered NEXO GEO S sound reinforcement system. Incorporating Monroe songs like "Diamonds are a Girl`s Best Friend" and "I Wanna be Loved by You," the production also includes new compositions, all performed live by orchestral players and a jazz band.
The Gärtnerplatz Theatre in Munich seats nearly 900 people in its four-tier auditorium. The sound reinforcement concept for this production was put together by Robert Hermann, chief sound engineer at the Basle Theatre. For Anna Montanaro as Marilyn, the PA settings had to be precise, both for the loud, fast and rousing songs, as well as for the whispered "boop-boop-bee-doo." In addition, it had to take into account the musicians from the State Orchestra and the jazz band Die Konferenz, providing the music for the show from the orchestra pit.
A NEXO GEO S system, powered by Camco amps, was chosen as the sound reinforcement system. System planning was done by Robert Hermann, Dirk Buttgereit, head of the Gärtnerplatz Theatre's sound engineering, and Axel Falk from 2projects in Berlin, which also provided the necessary technical equipment. FOH engineer Stefan Schmidt played an essential part in alignment and equalization of the loudspeaker systems. Hans Jürgen Heitzer, from Mega Audio, who was there to give the team help and advice, aided with audio production.
After the premiere, Robert Hermann said, "with even very slight changes in the positioning of the GEO S, the results can be clearly heard in what is acoustically a relatively difficult auditorium."
On each side of the stage, NEXO GEO S cabinets (three S805s and one S830) were stacked on CD 12s, with four NEXO PS 8s as near-field speakers at the edge of stage above the orchestra pit. For the upper circles, two NEXO PS10s were flown above the proscenium arch. The loudspeakers were all driven by four Camco Vortex 6s, two Camco Tecton 28.3s and a PS 10 system amp. As front fills (L/R), two PS 8s were used, and the same two speakers also provided the monitoring for the rhythm section.
For transporting the signals from the 64 stage inputs to the main mixer position, and for the 16 returns, a bi-directional EtherSound network was used. For this purpose, the Yamaha DM2000 used for the auditorium mix was equipped with a total of four Auvitran AVY16-ES cards, each of which added 16 input and output channels to the EtherSound network. Additional wireless channels, music playback and effects signals could be realized directly via the analogue and digital AES/EBU inputs on the DM2000. For converting the onstage analog microphone signals to digital EtherSound signals, eight Netcira/Fostex MS88 master-slave units were used.
Fitted with their own NX.ES-4 extension card, each NEXO digital NX242 TDcontroller can process up to four signals directly from the EtherSound network, thus eliminating the need for any further external DA converters. Both signal routing and monitoring and control of the individual EtherSound network components could be done through the Auvitran Software ESMonitor.
For further information visit www.Camco.de.
Photography credit – Ida Zenna
