COPENHAGEN, Denmark – Four years after presenting Thor, The Royal Danish Theatre (Det Kongelige Teater) is staging its fifth and biggest outdoor production so far, Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers. FOH sound engineer Jonas Vest is using a Vi6 digital console to mix the show.
The story is played out by more than 200 participating actors, singers, horses and stuntmen – to loud pyro accompaniment. The event is taking place in Ulvedalene, Dyrehaven, a public deer forest north of Copenhagen, situated next to a famous 1,000-year-old oak tree.
The show has been in the planning stage for a number of years by the Copenhagen venue, which incorporates The Royal Danish Theater, Royal Danish Opera and Royal Danish Ballet under one roof.
The production has proved a challenge for Vest, who for the past five years has been the resident tonemester. But his past experience, having been involved with the programming and sound FX design for Thor, helped address those challenges.
Talks began in earnest on The Three Musketeers production late last year with the idea of creating a festival-type atmosphere. This time around, the 90-minute adaptation of the Dumas classic (which runs until the first week in July) meant that Vest would need to balance the sound between the Lyngby-Taarbaek Concert Band, a large choir and sound effects in a surround environment.
To facilitate this, he purchased a 64-input Soundcraft Vi6 digital console from Nordic Rentals (sourced through LydRommet, Harman's Denmark distributor).
In terms of workflow, Vest and sound design colleague Karsten Wolstad had also been involved in the procurement of the theatre's two Studer Vista 5s (which use the full Vistonics interface, similar to the Vistonics II interface as fitted on the Vi6). The Opera House also has a Vista 8 as its FOH desk.
Vest also found the new V4.0 software to provide some advantages. "I was a little nervous, because the update arrived in the middle of rehearsals – but I had no need to worry, as the upload procedure was very simple; it has given us snapshot crossfades on all parameters and smoothes out the cue shift to give a neat transition."
He added, "I love the Vistonics software and interface and the Vi6 is great for live production work. In terms of sound quality and ergonomics the desk sounds so much better and it's easy and fast to generate your own configuration – there's no comparison."
One attribute that he draws on heavily is the "scope" function. "I find it's really useful to cope with the overlapping cues of orchestra and spoken words."
In addition to using snapshot recalls to crossfade smooth transitions from one setting to the next – critical to a show such as this – with the new operating software Jonas has also been able to benefit from user-configurable fader layers, enabling him to map out his own channels on any of three user layers so that a combination of different inputs can be placed on one layer (as opposed to the standard set of sequential channels on the three fixed layers).
The five main output fader layers may also be customized in a similar way while the ability to assign output busses to the channel faders for immediate control, makes access to the bus masters much faster – all vital attributes in a complex theatre show.
Another new function of V4.0 allows all 30 bands of premium BSS EQ to be ‘condensed' onto eight faders, to save operating space and allow access to input channels while working on output EQ.
The Three Musketeers production has been running QLab as show controller to change the snapshots on the Vi6 desk, and for playback of the multichannel sound effects.
Vest also found the Vi6 to bypass issues with virtual layers. While changing fader banks or adjusting EQ or aux send levels can be confusing for operators and detrimental to achieving a fast workflow, "there has not been one single issue and we feel entirely safe with it," he says, of the Vi6.
A reverb system around the 3,600 seats gives additional ambience and dimension achieved by the Vi6's onboard Lexicon FX and reproduced with coaxial point source speakers surrounding the audience. All the processing is done in the Vi6, without the need for any outboard FX.
Other features that the FOH engineer has needed to call in is the console's talkback system since the orchestra is located in a cellar, buried right under the stage. "Imagine a WW2 concrete bunker," he says. "Also, it's 100 meters away from the mix position."
Production is using an optical fiber system to cover the distance without the need for extenders, but Vest admits that "after dragging fiber through small canals" it was a relief to get everything connected up and operational.
Although there will be no multi-tracking of this show, one recent classic drama did take a MADI split between the Vista 5 at one end and a Vi6 at the other, which was rented in.
But now the Royal Theatre has its own Vi6, and after the present production, it is will be used for other outdoor productions, including concerts and ballet.
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