History was made back in October 14, 1974, when the now-landmark PBS series Austin City Limits kicked off with the taping of its pilot episode, featuring a performance by the then-not-quite-iconic Willie Nelson. After first airing in 1975, the public’s reaction to the show was nothing short of sensational.
Today, ACL is still going strong, and some 40 years later, the weekly KLRU-TV-produced series’ diverse mix of live country, blues, folk, rock and psychedelia has become the longest-running music program in television history.
Things do change along the way. In 2011, the show departed the small but much beloved KLRU Studio 6A, a 100 by 100 foot, 325-capacity room that served as its home for more than three decades — and moved into the $40 million, cutting edge Moody Theater.
Today, Austin City Limits Live at The Moody Theater (ACL Live) is a 2,700-capacity music venue. Besides serving as the new home for Austin City Limits, the theater hosts approximately 100 concerts a year along with numerous special and private events and, of course, plenty of special showcases and performances during the South By Southwest festival (SXSW).
The venue is arranged in three tiers. Level 1 has the stage and general admission/reserved seating; Lever 2 has premium theater seating and suites; Level 3 has theater seating; and the public areas also include galleries by noted photographers Scott Newton and Jim Marshall.
The Little Big Room
The room is sizeable, yet at the same time can convey a small feel. With its versatile staging and flexible seating, ACL Live’s actual capacity can vary from 300 to 2,700, with no seat farther than 100 feet from the stage, a design intended to recapture the ambience of the original KLRU Studio 6A.
While a few may complain that ACL Live doesn’t have the intimacy and charm of its predecessor, the Moody Theater more than compensates by its selective investment in state of the art technology. “We have an extensive rig of High End Systems lighting,” explained the venue’s technical production manager, Billy Heaslip, “and we’ve recently renewed the sound system, making a big investment in d&b audiotechnik.”
The audio side had previously presented Heaslip with some issues, as he acknowledged, “we get a real variety of performance styles passing through this room, and our options were limited. There was also the consideration of advancing technology; it seems like audio moves on faster than lighting these past few years.” Heaslip took a close look through all the band touring riders from the preceding year. “The most consistently requested system was for d&b audiotechnik; they featured in about 90 percent of riders.”
Heaslip contacted Austin-based entertainment technology provider Big House Sound. “I spoke to Roy Kircher, the boss at Big House, and he arranged for his audio installation specialist Zach Richards to come down and rig a d&b V-Series system alongside the existing house rig for a comparison.” They played a variety of different music CDs through the system — even classical — and walked the three levels of the wide, fan shaped auditorium. “It sounded much better everywhere,” Heaslip acknowledges.
That was back in May 2013, and following the successful demonstration, Richards set about planning a detailed proposal. “In terms of power and quality, the V-Series is ideal for a concert hall of this volume, though the wide horizontal and tall vertical spread over three layers is not a simple ‘two hangs and you’re done’ kind of room,” he notes. “I designed coverage using d&b’s ArrayCalc for the main system; splitting the V-TOP cabinets into distinct vertical zones and avoiding reflections off balcony frontage was easily achieved. But I consulted with d&b’s office in North Carolina for recommendations about what elements to use for front fills, and they confirmed my calculations. They’re great with that sort of thing.”
The Install
Big House Sound completed the V-Series installation in good time. Richards’ design uses more of the wide dispersion 120° (horizontal) V12 cabinets than typically seen “to provide that full even coverage in the lower seating levels this venue demands,” he adds.
The entire system is driven by d&b D12 amplifiers, with onboard system zoning, delay and EQ managed using d&b’s R1 Remote control software. There are Q10 loudspeakers for frontfill and d&b J-SUB triple-18 cardioid subwoofers for the low-end. “Even with three J-SUBs a side, for some bands, arguably, you still might want more power in the low-end,” said Richards. “But we can always provide that out of our rental stock. No venue wants to invest in equipment that only gets used ten percent of the time. Can you really imagine an artist like, say, Kacey Musgraves, needing the sort of low-end power that Nine Inch Nails might use?”
The Ultimate Test
One of the first bands to use the new system was Chris Isaak, a more nuanced and varied rock combo that was an ideal choice to put the system through its paces. Isaak’s front of house engineer Eddie Cole summarized his experience. “I did get the chance to walk the room in the afternoon and the coverage was good. The system as installed gave me great vocal clarity, there was plenty of headroom and achieving the distinctive Chris Isaak sound was extremely easy.”
Cole also confirmed Richards’ assertion about the low-end. “If I’d had more time, I would have liked to experiment more with the subwoofer placement. The width of the room is an influence. I know those J-SUBs can really produce, but felt that three a side were just too far apart to give the full 18-inch punch I needed when Chris does some of his more rockabilly stomps.”
Heaslip was well pleased. “Those are typical of the sort of comments we’ve been getting with the new system — engineers are positive about the benefits and engaged by the system’s flexibility, and in how they use it. My touring background was mainly in lighting, but even I can hear the difference. From a production perspective, my days are much smoother, and having Big House Sound based locally means I get that instant response a premier venue like ours deserves.”
