Not for nothing, but it's slightly doubtful that there were any eyes scanning the top of television sets around the country during this year's broadcast of the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show looking for speaker boxes. Could be wagered, in fact, that all eyes were firmly placed on hostess Heidi Klum and models Marisa Miller, Alessandra Ambrosio, Doutzen Kroes and Miranda Kerr.
Even so, sound designer Erich Bechtel, the team from ADI: Audible Difference Inc. and the host of other production companies that worked on the two day shoot were asked to ensure that nothing obscured the view of the catwalk.
"Two Things in One Place"
The first meetings to plan this year's Victoria's Secret show, which aired on CBS in December, took place in the late summer of 2009. One of the first things covered during the meetings, reports Bechtel, was the minimum array trim height at 47 feet.
"We put together an initial design, then we went back and forth, trying to make sure all the rigging, lighting and set pieces lined up with each other, and then we adjusted what we needed to adjust," he says. "I wouldn't say we made any sacrifices, it was just that everybody had to figure out how to put two things in the same place."
Bechtel has designed the sound system for this show since 1999, so he understands its unique needs, and he's worked at this year's venue – New York's Lexington Avenue Armory – a handful of times, so its tricky architecture was not daunting.
"It's three-quarters of a city block that's got a height, at its peak, of 110 feet," he explains. "Construction is entirely of steel and concrete, and it's completely column-less."
A "V"-shaped Thrust
One of the differences this year was the stage layout. In years past, the models walked down a conventional straight catwalk. This year they traipsed down a "V"-shaped thrust stage that went three-quarters of the way into the room. Not only did that divide the audience almost equally on each side, it spread out the VIP section across the venue.
To cover all the sections, Bechtel designed a hang of seven arrays of six Meyer Sound MILO boxes in the center of the room and eight arrays of five MICA boxes on the outside. To overcome the reverberant nature of the room, those hangs were tilted and pointed directly at the audience. "We used the audience to absorb as much sound as possible," Bechtel says.
When it came to setting up monitor stations, again with the important caveat that they remained invisible to the television audience, Bechtel tapped six UPQ-1Ps and CQ-1s and tucked them into the stage. An additional collection of 10 UPA-1Ps was hung in the backstage area so everyone could stay in the vibe of the show.
To meet rigging weight restrictions, 24 700-HP subwoofers were placed under the audience's coliseum seating.
Even Coverage
Bechtel used the Galileo management system and four Galileo 616 processors to time, equalize and distribute the signal throughout the room. "We used [the Galileo] for matrixing system distribution," he explains. "We had to ensure even coverage throughout the house from multiple different positions."
While Bechtel had to keep the sight lines clean, he didn't have to worry about making sure the house audio bled into the broadcast. "There were 16 room-ambient mics to pick up crowd reactions, but most of it was taped and there was a split that went right to the truck," he says.
The console that FOH engineer David Kotch used was an Avid Profile. "I speced that in to make sure I could record all the tracks to have an audio backup," Bechtel says. "Also, it was great for the signal distribution." The monitors were mixed on a Yamaha PM5D.
Other than the processing on the boards, a Waves Gold processing packing was brought on. "We use some small processing packages on different sections of the sound system," Bechtel says.
Not only did the system have to keep up with DJ Jeremy Healy during the models' performance, it had to be able to carry the tracks that the Black Eyed Peas' will.i.am, Fergie, Taboo and apl.de.ap used during their performance.
