With a sparkling score by Dolly Parton including the much-loved song 9 to 5, the West-End hit musical 9 to 5 is the quintessential feel-good show for the times.
The Australian tour started at Sydney’s Capitol Theatre with a sound design by Julian Spink and Michael Waters.
“Our brief was to create an Australian sound design – which meant a different system design from the last production and fresh sound effects,” commented Julian. “We used some archival footage to get a handle on the show, together with a read of the UK script from the West End.
The director and UK musical supervisor were out for this production and they conveyed to the audio team that the show should be more like a concert in terms of sound levels.
“I think we certainly achieved a lot of gain before feedback, but have also found the highs and lows we needed so that the audio experience has a dynamic journey,” added Julian.
The system is supplied by JPJ Audio and comprises 36 x L-Acoustics Kara, 6 x SB18 Subs, 6 x SB218 Subs, 2 x MTD112b, 8 x 5XT, 8 x Clair Cohesion CP-6, 8 x Meyer UP Junior, 9 x Meyer MM4-XP and 6 x Meyer UPM-2. Amplifiers are L-Acoustics LA8.
The main system is essentially an LCR hang, with a delay centre cluster. It wasn’t necessary to hang circle delays in this venue, which was a great time saver on the bump-in and will be on the bump-out. The Lefts and Rights are physically split upper/lower – the lowers are close-coupled with 2 x SB18, as is the Delay Cluster. Fill speakers are the MTD112b, UPM-2 for those shadowed areas under boxes/logues. Stalls delays are all the rest of the Meyer boxes.
The L-Acoustics speakers are all controlled using L-Acoustics Network Manager – most system EQ and level is set using the software which controls the DSP in the LA8 amps.
“For delay, we chose to do this on the DiGiCo SD10T which has a cross-point delay matrix (theatre option),” added Julian. “This method allows us to have different system delay times for vocals, band and sound effects. For all the self-powered boxes, EQ and level are done on the desk matrix.
“It’s a very simple setup in terms of gear, but made very powerful due to the cross-point matrix in the desk. We do have 3 x TC Reverb 4000 outboard devices and a redundant QLab playback rig for click tracks and sound effects.”
The show has a fair number of vocal groups and because of the delay matrix Julian doesn’t pan vocal, he group assigns them – so he has a left-centre-right group setup for principal vocals and ditto for the ensemble.
“It’s a bit to manage group EQ wise, but it gave us further flexibility with group processing,” he said. “Also it was a first time for using side-chain compression over the band groups programmatically triggered by vocals. This worked well but is something that the mix engineer has to work with and not against, so it ended up being a fairly subtle effect.
“There’s a fair amount of horsepower on stage with the 8 x Cohesion CP-6 and they are all delayed back to the mains to make the stage sound as cohesive as we can (pardon the pun).”
Julian remarks that The Capitol is a great sounding theatre although it does have rigging restrictions, as well as side boxes (the ashtray things people who like to be seen sit in) that shadow stalls seats on the side.
“Upstairs, at the rear, is a long, long way back, and ultimately you do need to reach the very back seat,” he explained. “The mix engineer will only be hearing the lower arrays and stalls delays. You probably have about 4 to 5 different “sounds” in the room Front stalls, Rear stalls, Circle Front and Rear. Upstairs in the circle is more “roomy” sounding, as is the front of the stalls, whereas the rear of the stalls is a bit of a ‘sound lounge’.”
Shure UR1 Radios are used on the cast, the main five principals are all double mic’ed – all on the hairline with DPA6061 mics. The band is rather small: drums, bass, guitar, three keyboards, trumpet and reed. Drum mics – Kick is SM91 in and Audix D6 out. The snare is Audix i5 top and Beta57 bottom. Toms are Beyer Opus87. HHat and triangle Neuman KM84i, Wind-chime and Overheads Audio-Technica AT4050 condensors. Bass, guitar and keyboards are all direct. The trumpet is Neuman TLM-102 and Reeds a pair of DPA 2011. There are a bunch of Shure SM58s shout mics for the band to talk to each other as they are all on headphones using Aviom A360 mixers and no local pit amps. The Musical Director on Keys 1 fires the QLab click tracks with a remote trigger box and has a remote screen and keyboard linked back to FOH control area.
“We were pretty happy with all our plotted positions, but a late call from lighting meant we had to modify a trim on the centre cluster which is always annoying,” said Julian. “The overseas creatives were happy, producers happy, and so we are happy! It all worked out pretty well, we had a huge amount of loop gain, which can always be a challenge if you don’t have that luxury.
“The delay cluster was a hit although rigging delays in the circle is time-consuming. The crew were, and are, great – an absolute pleasure to do business with all; Paul Tilley Head of Sound with Tracy Leong as Deputy Head, Jamie Martin as PSE, Tanieka Stones as Radio Mic Supervisor and Wiki (I don’t know his real name!) as swing (stage technician and sense of humour).
“And of course, an honour to be working with a friend from way back, Michael Waters.”
