One of the most unusual theatre events you'll ever experience is Stomp, a percussion-driven ensemble piece with a great sense of fun and playfulness that has been delighting audiences in Manhattan's East Village for nearly 12 years. During the various acts, eight performers play all manner of objects as instruments– brooms, tubes, lighters, candy boxes, metal objects, poles, pipes, customized percussion kits, even their own bodies. They toss in everything, including four kitchen sinks. The man now running the boards of this long-running show is first-time sound man Robert Capellan, a former DJ who has the challenge of tackling a non-stop, 90-minute performance that requires him to maintain even levels from a constantly mutating aural tapestry. With 18 microphones, 12 speakers and four amplifiers, there is a lot of sound to balance.
When did you start working on Stomp?
Robert Capellan: I started sound in October. I first started with Stomp as a crewmember with the props, and then I was trained as an assistant stage manager.
The show has a lot of energy!
It's very creative…just the energy that they put into instruments that people don't even know are instruments. There's not a Broadway or off-Broadway show like this.
How many mics are used in the show?
There are actually 18 mics on the set. We have four Sennheiser MKH-60 shotguns, including two on the front. We have an AKG at the front center. We have a couple of SM57s within the drums in the back. We have four or five more in the drums at the top of the set. We're picking up a whole bunch of sound. You can probably only see two or three of them, but they're there. Some of them are undercover.
What mics are in the drums up top in the back?
There are two Shure 985-TMs, and we have five AKG SE300s.
I'm surprised there are so many mics because the show doesn't sound amplified.
The way the show is designed is that you can't really tell that the show is being ampli- fied because of the way it blends in during each and every act. Stomp takes you on a journey, not knowing what's going to come up next.
You have so many different sounds to juggle–brooms, tubes, trash can lids, lighters… how much are you riding the levels from act to act?
We have 96 cues during the show. During "brooms," every time they hit the handles I move up, and then I move down for the sweeping, so the level in the equalizer is coming back down and up. Hit the sticks, take them back down. It runs like that throughout the show.
So you have a lot of preset levels?
Yes. Just like during "Poles," when you hear the click-click-click-click-boom. You want to hear the extra couple of steps that they take after the slamdown. Everything has its own little sound effect for every little part, like during "Hands and Feet," when they start snapping their fingers. That's pretty hard to catch up to, but you have to make sure you time it so you can actually hear the volume blend in exactly where it was for the cue before. It's all about timing and knowing when to hit the cue.
In terms of the dB and the gain, we have everything set up at a tone where I try not to get any type of feedback. I'll come in two hours prior to the show to make sure that the equipment is running well, and that I don't get any type of feedback. I run a sound meter and make sure that the sound in the theatre is still up to its standards. I do a noise test to make sure that the people in Row X are hearing the same thing as the people in Row C and the same as the people in the balcony, and it's not like they're getting a delayed effect on it.
What kind of console are you running?
We have two O1Vs by Yamaha. We have a graphic equalizer for the main system and two different equalizers for the monitors.
What kind of amps are you using?
We use Crown amps–Micro-Tech. We have two Micro-Tech 2400s, and also two Crown Micro-Tech 5000 DZs. It's a small theatre, so we try not to have it too loud and at a basic level that people are satisfied with.
What are the biggest challenges for you with this show?
Sometimes a mic cable will go out during the show, and I'll have to find the problem and learn how to recover and jump back on it. If nobody knows a mic went dead, I'll manually put the faders up on different microphones so they can get that same tone. The challenge mentally right now is learning more. At this moment, I have someone from the UK show over here showing me everything about the system.
So this is your first sound gig?
This is my first sound job for theatre. I've been dealing with sound since I was in my teens, DJing at parties, but I never thought I'd have the opportunity to work in a theatre. Now I hunger to learn more. I'm reading more books and trying to learn more about sound. Music is my life.
