Meyer Sound a Tradition at Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade
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Next to carving the turkey, watching the giant balloon-filled Macy's Parade is surely the most enduring Thanksgiving Day tradition in American homes. Countless millions have seen the parade on television since it was first broadcast by NBC in 1948, and in recent years the biggest crowds along the route – concentrated around TV camera locations at either end – have heard the stirring sounds of the parade through Meyer Sound loudspeakers. For the past fifteen years, audio consultant Randy Hansen of ADI Group has served as sound designer for the parade, and for the last ten parades he has relied on New York-based Sound Associates to provide audio equipment and system engineering. "I generally prefer to use Meyer Sound loudspeakers whenever I can," says Hansen. "We've been doing this parade so long with Sound Associates that I guess I just take the Meyer speakers for granted. Perhaps that's because we haven't had any problems with them, whether in brutal cold or heavy rain. They've always performed flawlessly." Meyer Sound loudspeakers have been a part of the parade audio since Sound Associates first became primary audio supplier, and Meyer products have been the exclusive street system loudspeakers since at least 1998. This year's parade, the 77th annual, once again started out on Central Park West at (appropriately) 77th Street, and proceeded down Broadway to its terminus in front of Macy's flagship store on 34th Street at Herald Square. The Macy's parade producers charged Hansen with creating extensive reinforcement systems at opposite ends of the route: the "uptown system" and the "downtown system." Systems integration and on-site supervision were assigned to Domonic Sack and his Sound Associates crew, with loudspeaker installation and interconnection accomplished by a skilled team of IBEW electricians. The "uptown system" covered the entire parade line-up and starting area, extending along Central Park West from 72nd Street up to 81st Street, and also circling around an adjacent large city block occupied by the Museum of Natural History. "That system had a number of different uses," notes Domonic Sack. "It handled announcements and music tracks on Wednesday night when over a million people came to see the inflation of the balloons – an event in itself. Early Thursday morning it was used by the parade captain to line up the parade and get it launched on schedule, which meant communicating clearly to over ten thousand people. During the parade it carried the broadcast feed to the people on the streets. Finally, since the police wanted it available as an emergency paging system, there was zero tolerance for any failures." The uptown system was split into three subsystems, each with distinct coverage assignments. One subsystem of 32 venerable UM-1 UltraMonitors covered the Museum block, with each speaker mounted on a six-foot pole – dubbed a "lollipop" – strapped to the museum fence. Along Central Park West, 10 UPA-1C loudspeakers on 10-foot "lollipops" covered the long rows of premium bleacher seats, while a trio of self-powered MSL-4 horn-loaded long-throw loudspeakers projected down along the streets from the starting intersection at 77th Street. Because no wires could cross the streets, each remote subsystem was connected to the audio booth by Sennheiser wireless link. A fourth MSL-4 was mounted on a dolly (complete with its own small mixer) that rolled alongside floats whenever on-board artists needed to perform to track in front of the NBC camera positions. The downtown system on 34th Street had to the meet the significantly different challenges imposed by surrounding building surfaces and an extremely tight deployment schedule. "We needed a system that could go in ultra-fast and work right off the bat," Sack reports. "We couldn't even load in until 6:15 that morning, so we had no time to fool around. We used a forklift to put three MSL-4s and a CQ-1 up on each of the three Macy's marquee platforms over the street. We had a year-round power drop on each, so we simply pulled up the audio line and we were ready to go." The MSL-4s projected a tightly focused pattern down the adjoining streets, while the CQ-1 full-range wide coverage units covered the bleachers immediately in front of each loudspeaker location. "The MSL-4s work particularly well down there because we can cover a long distance by coupling them, and because the throw of the horn is so direct," observes Hansen "That lets me aim them down narrow streets without a lot of sound splashing off the walls of the buildings." The downtown system covered the happy throngs gathered at the parade's conclusion, where many of the marching bands and musical acts took full advantage of the extra space and multiple TV cameras to give their grand finale performances of the day. Summing up the annual parade experience, Hansen concludes, "It's a day that's about children and families having a lot of fun. You want to make sure your sound is clean, intelligible, and never too loud or too in-your-face. That's one of the reasons I chose to go with an all-Meyer system, and I very rarely make a departure from that preference." December, 2003 |
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