Meyer Sound News : Meyer Sound's M1D Curvilinear Array Loudspeaker Makes UK Theatrical Debut

Meyer Sound's M1D Curvilinear Array Loudspeaker Makes UK Theatrical Debut

Following a demonstration, Autograph Sound Recording's Andrew Bruce "became really interested in the M1D and its seamless transition to the larger M2D, and its size made me think of using it for front fill. It wasn't specifically designed for this, but everyone at Meyer Sound knows I don't habitually do things in a conventional way."

125th Street, the latest musical to open in London's West End, has transformed the Shaftesbury Theater into Harlem's legendary Apollo to host an interactive musical party set in 1969.

125th Street's action unfolds during the live broadcast of a sixties TV show that has been interrupted by the Harlem riots, preventing its stars from arriving at the Apollo. Pressed into action, the theater staff gives the performance of their lives, saving the day while riots rage outside.

This is the first theatrical application in the UK of Meyer Sound's M1D Ultra-Compact Curvilinear Array loudspeaker, the latest product from the M Series range of line array loudspeakers. Autograph Sound Recording's Andrew Bruce, together with Autograph's newest star sound designer, Simon Baker, specified the sound system. They chose the M1Ds to banish many of the problems traditionally associated with front-fill systems, selected Meyer Sound MSL-2s and USW-1s to reproduce the raw atmosphere of a sixties club, and installed a surround system of UPM-1s to conjure up the riots outside.

Bruce was impressed by a demonstration earlier this year of the M1D, along with the larger M2D Compact Curvilinear Array loudspeaker, at the Roda Theater near Meyer Sound's Berkeley premises. "An array of M2Ds had been set up center stage," he recalls. "Hanging next to it was a smaller array of M1Ds. We listened to the M2Ds for an hour and a half, and then turned them off to hear the M1Ds. As the engineer cross-faded from one array to another, there was no discernible difference — tonal or otherwise. The engineer had to prove to the assembled company (John Meyer included) — using an RMS Remote Monitoring System and close-up physical inspection — that the M2Ds had indeed been switched off! We couldn't believe it: the M1Ds sounded exactly the same at that power level, and yet they were less than half the size. I became really interested in the M1D and its seamless transition to the larger M2D, and its size made me think of using it for front fill. It wasn't specifically designed for this, but everyone at Meyer Sound knows I don't habitually do things in a conventional way."

Bruce decided to test out his theory at the Shaftesbury Theater. "Front fill can — and usually does — sound terrible because of the way the speakers are arranged in a line, all facing in the same direction so that they interfere hopelessly with each other," he says. "Reducing the level to minimize contamination means the loudspeakers only cover the front row of the stalls at best, but in actuality we usually push harder to increase the work done by front fills so as to bring the image toward the center of the auditorium. It has always struck me that if you could use fewer speakers with wider coverage, and arrange them radially or quasi-radially using delay so they didn't interleave so much, you'd get a better front fill sound."

Bruce's experiment was enhanced by the discovery that the front of the stage at the Shaftesbury Theater was curved. "This allows you to produce a natural array with the front fill speakers, so they don't interfere with each other in the way they would on a straight, flat stage," he explains. "We put them on the stage, ran sound through them and moved them further and further out until we got the right location, a distance of about 10 feet apart. The amount of interference is very minor, and it occurs in the central aisle where nobody's sitting."

Bruce used Meyer Sound's SIM System II FFT Analyzer throughout the system design phase, although he and Baker also relied on their ears in fine-tuning delays to achieve the desired psychoacoustic imaging.

Three MSL-2s and two USWs occupy each side of the proscenium arch. "I've always had a particular love for MSL-2s," says Bruce. "We drove them very, very hard, and they gave us exactly the sound we wanted. We have a fantastic armory of reverbs at our disposal, and all we used were old-fashioned plates. Everything is heavily compressed, with distortion added to taste using Empirical Labs Distressors because that's the way it sounded at the time. We didn't want the sound to be too clinical and thereby lose the energy and the feel."

Working on 125th Street brought Bruce's career full circle, as his first professional job in the theater was at the Apollo. Strangely, the job had nothing to do with sound: the young Bruce had wanted to become a photographer, and was working in New York as an apprentice to his brother-in-law, who specialized in photographing musicians in performance.

"My brother-in-law had a contract to take photographs at the Apollo, mainly of jazz musicians," recalls Bruce. "On one occasion, he had a job at Radio City Music Hall and asked me to go up to Harlem to photograph an afternoon rehearsal on my own. I was only eighteen and fresh out of an English public school. The show happened to include 'Little' Stevie Wonder and Junior Walker and his All Stars.

"When I told the producers of 125th Street this, they were quite taken aback that I had worked there just two years before the time in which the show is set. I gave them some of my reject photos, and one or two of them ended up in the brochure. They felt the fact that I'd been there, and witnessed the atmosphere, was useful for the production; they ended up using me as an informal consultant on the backdrops and atmosphere. I hadn't the heart to tell them that I couldn't remember!"

November, 2002