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In a sense, the Teatro Orfeon in Mexico City is the perfect venue for Beauty and the Beast, Walt Disney World's musical about a beast who becomes a handsome prince. The theater, originally called the El Cine Orfeon, opened as a movie theater half a century ago. When production company Ocesa Presents purchased the Orfeon early last year, the building had been abandoned for many years, and was in a dilapidated state. But just as, in musicals, hulking beasts can be transformed into handsome princes, so in theater design and construction, dilapidated movie houses can become beautiful, state-of-the-art theaters, with comfortable seating, advanced lighting systems, and sophisticated sound systems bringing voices, instruments, and effects to every seat in the house. Ocesa and Disney completed the theater's transformation in March, in plenty of time for Beauty and the Beast's opening night, May 8. A key part of the theater's transformation was its new, largely self-powered Meyer sound system.
Luis Lojo, Ocesa Presents' sound designer and engineer for the project, is impressed by the new system. "The Meyer system sounds great," says Lojo. "I'm very comfortable working with this system. The self-powered design solved many logistical problems for us. It saved me the trouble of needing to run hundreds of feet of extra cable to connect our delay systems and surround-sound system to amp racks. And the cabinet design and coverage patterns of the self-powered loudspeakers were just right. To provide clear sound and eliminate reflections, we were looking for very specific coverage patterns. The dispersion angles of the self-powered loudspeakers were just what we needed. We installed the system, SIM'd it, and made only some minor adjustments. Now the hall sounds great."
Before designing the sound system for the Orfeon, Lojo traveled to New York and Los Angeles to study the Meyer systems used for the Beauty and the Beast productions in those cities. He considered, briefly, using a non-self-powered sound system from another manufacturer, but after taking into account the logistical advantages and superior reliability offered by Meyer self-powered systems, he decided to follow the New York and Los Angeles productions and use Meyer. Scott Gledhill of Meyer Sound Mexico explains, "Ocesa recognized that the Meyer system would actually save the company money over the long run, because of the system's reliability and the quality of Meyer Sound service."
Once Lojo and Ocesa selected the Meyer system, Lojo enrolled in a Meyer Sound SIM school, where he learned how to operate Meyer Sound's source-independent measurement tool, SIM® System II. SIM technology was made integral to the entire Orfeon sound system. Three sets of SIM EQ and system snakes were permanently installed in the 20+ channel audio control rack to provide for easy measurement and future recalibrations.
The Orfeon sound system combines Meyer Sound's popular MSL-4 and 650-P self-powered loudspeakers, along with Meyer Sound's newest self-powered offering, the HM-1 self-powered loudspeaker, released in April at the NSCA show.
The hall's main sound system features a center cluster of six MSL-4s, three per tier, flown horn down, and two side systems, left and right, each featuring two CQª-1s, two CQ-2ªs, and two 650-P subwoofers. Six UPM-2s are installed as a front-fill system under the stage lip. Two delay systems cover the balcony: the first, a center cluster of four UPL-2s, complemented by an additional UPL-2 on either side, covers most of the balcony; the second, an identical configuration of UPL-2s, covers the balcony's last ten rows. Four more UPL-2s are positioned on stage as monitors, and two more serve as monitors off stage. In the orchestra pit, eight UPM-2s serve as monitors for the show's 19-piece band. Thirty compact HM-1s, powered by two 5 kW supplies, are installed on custom, adjustable platforms along the side walls.
"The HM-1s are great," says Lojo. "We're using them for effects like wind and forest ambianceÐÐcrickets, birds, and so on. Running cables from the surround system to traditional amp racks would have been very difficult, so the self-powered design was very helpful here."
Lojo and others have also been impressed with the sound quality of the unequalized MSL-4s, particularly in high frequencies at the farthest distance in the theater. Lojo will be mixing the show and supervising its sound production for its run at the Orfeon, which is expected to last fifteen or sixteen months. But Lojo is already looking ahead to future projects with Meyer self-powered loudspeakers. "When I was using traditional loudspeaker systems, I would occasionally have an amp problem, and lose eight loudspeakers in the middle of a performance," says Lojo. "I never have to worry about that happening with the Meyer loudspeakers. I can't wait to use these loudspeakers for new projects."
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