Shortly after the installation of an all new set of racks and stacks at the City of Morganton Municipal Auditorium last spring, production manager Tony Bova and his staff started to hear a curious observation from the venue's season ticket holders. "People thought it was too quiet," Bova remarks with a laugh. "That's an interesting reversal in the complaint department, but it's been a nice change and everyone has noticed the improvement."
The Auditorium, known by locals as CoMMA, has been a Morganton, N.C. social scene staple since it opened in 1986. Traveling Broadway musicals and touring bands have been booked into the 1,058-seat venue. "We do everything from concerts to Cats," Bova says. "We're basically a roadhouse."
The PA had been last upgraded in the late 1990s with an array of boxes hung on the left and right, and a center cluster that had horns and mids-boxes placed behind a screen. While functional, Bova hadn't been happy with the PA's performance since he was hired.
A PA Shootout
A number of rigs were brought in to find something that would fit the room better. "We had a shootout a couple of years ago, so we go to hear a little bit of everybody," Bova explains.
But gear from a manufacturer that Bova wasn't familiar with ended up winning the day. "The NEXO rig blew the doors off the place and we were caught by surprise. We didn't know anything about the brand, but all of a sudden it was like, ‘Wow, these things rock.'
Clarity and Control
"What sold us was the clarity in comparison to what was hanging," he continues. "It was a superb clarity between vocals and instruments, and we had total control of what we heard and where we wanted it."
While Bova handled everything from the facility's point of view, he turned to the team at SE Systems for the design and installation of the PA that now includes 15 NEXO Geo S12 boxes (three each in a left, center and right hang) and four RS15 subs stacked on the ground that are driven by NEXO NXAMP 4X4s.
A Complex Retrofit
During the installation, the team was able to utilize the former hang points at the left and right positions. However, after the center horns and boxes were removed – in a lengthy and difficult process where the boxes were dropped to the catwalk and then lowered to the floor through the ladder well – a new Unistrut was installed with the fly hardware that came with the boxes.
The only delay they experienced was a day or so lost because they were trying to recycle some of the existing wiring.
"Other than that, there weren't any real surprises," Bova reports. "I think it's funny, because it seems like all these venues are built with the thought that you're never going to upgrade. The hardest part is always taking stuff down and then making stuff fit between little cracks and in holes that [the gear] wasn't designed to fit through."
According to Bova, there was no need to add or alter any of the acoustic treatments in the room.
One of the more interesting things about the CoMMA project is that the purchasing and installation of other pieces has been going on for almost a year. In fact, the new Yamaha M7CL console at front of house was purchased a number of months before the NEXO boxes. "We shopped around and it seemed to be user friendly, everybody tours with keys for it and it seemed to be a good fit for us and the industry," Bova says.
Less FOH Processing
Any kind of processing that they had at the FOH position has been replaced by the processing built into the 4X4 amps. "The amount of stuff that's been moved out of the way, the racks of amps and processing, has been amazing," Bova reports. At the same time, the facility still has a handful of outboard pieces the likes of a TC Electronics M-One, Lexicon MPX-500, Yamaha SPX-90 and a pair of dbx 2231 EQs.
When it comes to microphones, CoMMA keeps an assortment of Shure SM58s, SM57s, Beta 87s, SM81s, AKG C535EB, C300Bs and D3400s, and Sennheiser 421 wirelesses. CoMMA also houses a Steinway 9-foot concert grand piano, a 1957 Hammond B3 with a Leslie tone cabinet and a Yamaha Studio piano.
A Work in Progress
Turns out the work at CoMMA is not quite complete, since Bova has yet to pick a new monitor rig. While he's looking, the facility is offering a Yamaha M3000A console, Ashly Protea graphic EQs and JBL MR905 wedges, which are powered by Yamaha P7000S amps.
All told, the gear and installation project ran the city just north of $100,000. An additional $100,000 was spent on an extensive HD video rig that includes three Panasonic 3-CCD remote cameras, a Vaddio HD Switcher/Camera control system and three EIKI Projectors to screens hung left, center and right.
Of course, pulling off this kind of project during these economic times isn't the easiest chore. According to Bova, they were able to do it because it had been in the works since 2005. "We put together a wish list and then from 2005 until last year, there were different things that we bought along the way," he says. "When it came time [to buy the boxes], we had enough money to do it and squared it as fast as possible."
That said, Bova was sensitive to cost and believes there are ways to save money during an installation process. "A lot of it for us was timing and doing our homework as far as what we wanted," he says. "When we decided we were going to buy we shopped around and then did it."
