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The competitive hotel/casino world of Las Vegas and the city's recent trend towards a family style, "theme park" atmosphere make top-quality entertainment an eye- and ear-catching performance imperative. As the city's explosive growth continues, so does the demand for attention-grabbing spectacle and state-of-the-art equipment to deliver it. An example of both can be found in a new expansion of the Rio Casino, where the Parade in the Sky--an overhead procession of floats manned by musicians--proceeds 13 feet above the casino floor.
"They were looking for some kind of show that was going to be interactive with the live performers that would be in the casino," says Jonathan Deans of Real Time Audio, who installed the Rio's new system, "and a show that was free for anyone who was there." To keep on top of the current penchant for wholesome family fare, the Rio mixes live entertainment with taped music and the aforementioned attention-grabbing novelty, which, in addition to the Parade in the Sky, includes a pirate show and active volcano. "If you're going to do that," adds Deans, "a normal 70-volt system is not going to do it, because you need different kinds of aspects to be able to control certain zones that are much smaller."
Given the challenge of space restriction, however, a new component had to be developed. "There was no speaker that was able to do what we wanted to do because we didn't have room for an amplifier," Deans explains. "We wanted small, very high-powered speakers, so we needed self-powered speakers for the entire project." The result is the HM-1, a new self-powered speaker by Meyer Sound.
Deans conveyed to Meyer Sound specifications, size and power requirements and gave references to other speakers so an engineered specification could be developed. "John Meyer and the guys put their heads together and came out with an HM-1," Deans recalls. "They went for it, did a good job and met the timeline, which was pretty impressive."
One hundred thirty HM-1s were built and installed so that each one would run on its own discreet channel, bypassing the need for external amplification and meeting the tight space requirements. Of these, 115 were installed in the walls, while the remaining 15 are used on the Parade in the Sky. In addition to the HM-1, an LD-88 computerized, digital mixing console by Level Control Systems (LCS) was chosen for the Rio. "We needed 88 outputs, so there are 11 boxes on the wall system, and each float has a single system, which is 8 in, 8 out," says Deans. "But inserted in each one of these areas is a SCSI interface card, which goes into the LCS box, that gives you a 16-track playback from hard drive." Microphones are by Vega and Countryman, connecting to the LD-88 via ARX DI boxes. A Roland AR-100 is utilized for additional sounds such as applause and voice-over.
The HM-1's power supply has just a 48-volt requirement, conforming to the control issues cited earlier by Deans. "It's almost like a trickle charge that is trickling the power into a capacitor inside the speaker," Deans outlines, "so that the speaker has full dynamic range when it needs it. When it needs the power it's stored already, so when you have dynamic bursts, you don't kill the power supply."
The HM-1s had to be designed, developed and installed to fit physical, as well as budgetary, specifications, a challenge which was also met. "It was nice to come straight out of a mixing console and go directly to the speakers," Deans says, "because we didn't have to go through any external amplifiers. It literally went from mixing console to speaker, and we had full parametric control, full delay control and full level control by using the LCS and the self-powered speakers. I think it's a nice little speaker," Deans concludes, adding, "I don't know any other way I could have done this project without that particular speaker because of the space that I needed. Also, it had to fit a budget, which it did."
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