Orchestra pit -or- Orchestra room

[museav]

I have mixed a number of live broadcasts from a studio about that size. A room that small will not provide you with good sound for more than about 6 musicians because reflections and lack of physical separation will cause a lot of bleed into the mics. Drums and brass will make life difficult. Any large glass surface will make it that much worse. Worse yet, you'd need to do all monitoring with headphones, which makes monitor mixing very critical.

No way you would get 24 musicians in there and individually mic the instruments. For a big group, the best you could do would be a carefully arranged stereo pair and a few spot mics, and then you would be totally reliant on the acoustical properties of the room. The acoustic design of that room will be crucial, and it will take a professional designer with a large budget to make it work.

Also consider that the room will need one heck of an HVAC system to handle the heat load of all those people, and it will have to be quiet which is not easy or affordable. If the HVAC isn't done well, you'll have bad sound, unhappy musicians, and wood instruments that won't stay in tune, especially a piano.

Good points, but some of them apply to either a 23'x14' pit or 24'x12' room as with 24 musicians plus a conductor, and assuming that you can actually use all of the floor space, that equates to about 11.5 square feet per person for the room and 13 square feet per person for the pit, both of which are significantly less area than is recommended for that purpose.

Wherever you locate the orchestra there may also be related life safety and ADA considerations. Is the space rated for that use and occupancy? Are there appropriate exit paths? Is the space accessible? There may also be practical considerations such as access for instruments (can you get timpanis, a piano, etc. to and from and into and out of the space), sound isolation, background noise levels, the relationship to restrooms and so on. Whether it is a pit or a remote room, just because there is a space does not necessarily mean it can be used or will be practical to use as a space for an orchestra or ensemble to perform.

 

[kiwitechgirl]

I've just come off a run of La Traviata on a massive outdoor stage, with the orchestra in a soundproofed room under the stage, all mic'ed up and amplified. Yes, it's an opera rather than a musical, but the basic principle was the same. We had four "stage orchestral" rehearsals and then two full dress rehearsals - and the sound engineer was juggling about 50 radio mics as well as 40 orchestra mics. It worked very well in our situation having the orchestra isolated - but our sound engineer is a genius and vastly experienced, plus we had five other sound staff looking after the radio mics on the cast, the Aviom system the orchestra had for their foldback and the onstage foldbacks, in case anything went wrong. I'd say that would be a bare minimum of rehearsals (total of 18 hours) - and that was with a crew who knew exactly what they were doing.

As Brad has pointed out, there are MAJOR logistical issues - despite me warning the production manager I needed a 3 foot wide door to get the two biggest timpani through, he forgot and so we had to half-dismantle a wall to get the drums in and out, for instance. The air conditioning was a huge issue too- if the trombones were warm enough, the horns were freezing but the bass players were too hot - it being a sealed room was the issue. The humidity also caused some interesting problems amongst the wind players - a lot of bubbles under keys. Our space was approximately 10 metres by 6.5 metres, and we crammed 39 musicians in there (the harp was in another room, because in a normal production of the opera she'd be in the wings playing with the tenor who is singing from offstage at that point), plus all the mic stands, the Aviom desks, etc etc. It was cosy to say the least, and we did end up with some players injured as they'd had to sit at an angle which meant to see the conductor they had to twist backs and necks. My point here is that if you do go down this road, make sure you get input from musicians when the space is being designed - they may have needs that hadn't even occurred to you but will make things a whole load easier for them.

 

[Chris15]

and the sound engineer was juggling about 50 radio mics as well as 40 orchestra mics. It worked very well in our situation having the orchestra isolated - but our sound engineer is a genius and vastly experienced, plus we had five other sound staff looking after the radio mics on the cast, the Aviom system the orchestra had for their foldback and the onstage foldbacks, in case anything went wrong.

TDC is one of the few people in this country / the world that could pull that off.
Was Steve RF master?

 

[JChenault]

Guys

A couple of points that I need to clarify.
1 - Neither the TD nor myself think this is a very good idea - but we need to do our due diligence on it and not dismiss it out of hand. The comments from ControlBoogh has been great. Special thanks to damkamjato and kiwitechgirl, FMEng, and museav for their replies.
2 - We seem to have been sidetracked by the issue of glass walls and the size of a room in the current control booth. This glass wall concept was pretty much a non starter from the first. But there are other spaces in the building that would be available that are quite large. 10 to 12 foot ceilings. up to 1000 square feet.
3 - ADA access and air conditioning are not an issue. Indeed the reason the proposed orchestra pit is as small as it is is purely based on code requirements. One reason the glass wall concept is wrong is due to ADA / fire exit reasons. But the other spaces in the building do not have these problems. ( Located on the ground floor. Lots of exits. Sufficient HVAC. Large doors ).


The question that I would like to ask ( mostly from those that have done this ) is how would you do this with a large room.

• Would you closely mike each instrument or use area mikes in the room?
• Does each member of the orchestra get a monitor headset - or just the conductor?
• Do you feed in the vocals via a monitor headset, or with speakers in the room?
• Do you have a separate audio engineer mixing the sound for the orchestra and feeding it into the voice console - or do you combine the functions into one larger console and one operator?
• How many additional rehearsal days does it take to get the orchestra sounding good?
• Are there different skills that a musician in an orchestra room being heavily miked needs that a pit musician working acoustically would not have?
• How do you handle voice communication between the conductor and the house during rehearsals?

I'm 98% sure that the orchestra room approach is a bad idea for our venue, but I am quite curious how folks that know how to do it would approach the problem.

 

[FMEng]

It would be interesting to talk to some musicians about how they would feel about working in an isolated room. Some of the classically trained musicians I've encountered recoil in fear of being totally reliant on microphones. It would also be wise to take an informal poll of your season ticket holders. I suspect that more than a few would perceive not seeing and directly hearing the orchestra to lower the quality of the theater experience. I think I'd fall into that camp myself even though I would love to have that much control when doing the mixing.

I'll try to answer a few of your questions. Micing the room could work fine, but it'll depend on the room acoustics being very good as a recording studio (that's essentially what the space becomes). Getting good sound from a few room mics takes skill from both the audio technician and the music director. Placement of instruments and mics has to be right. The results would tend to be pretty consistent.

Micing individual instruments or sections also works. It increases the amount of equipment and size of console greatly. It also greatly increases the workload on the person mixing. The results may be less consistent if you have different people at the controls night to night because mixing a large number of channels will be a challenge.

Monitoring is a tough thing. I would prefer to not use monitor speakers due to the unwanted bleed and coloration it would add to the results. Some shows would probably get away with just the director wearing cans. Other shows might have solo and ensemble parts where the musicians must hear the singers to get it right. I have to tell you that when I mix live radio, the thing that scares me the most is monitor mixes. When something isn't right with the broadcast mix, I can hear it and correct it. When the artists aren't grooving to what they are hearing in the headphones, it can turn a into a bad performance very quickly. I don't have sight lines to see any indications of discontent. Monitor mixes are almost more important than the house mix in a normal situation, and an isolated room just makes it even more so.

I would worry about having enough really skillful technicians to pull this off night after night. You'll need an exceptional sound crew.

By the way, I just realized we're talking about Tacoma Musical Playhouse. Tell Maria that Lowell from KPLU says hi. I know her from her work at the Weather Service.

 

[museav]

I'll try to answer a few of your questions. Micing the room could work fine, but it'll depend on the room acoustics being very good as a recording studio (that's essentially what the space becomes).

Which also shows some of the challenges as what is good as a recording studio from the electronic signal perspective is not necessarily good as a performance space from the musicians' perspective. From a recording/signal gathering perspective you may want to essentially remove the environment so that you have full control. However, from a performing and listening perspective the acoustics of the performance space is often a desired component. So you can end up with two somewhat conflicting goals that may have to be reconciled and that can be even more challenging if you are using 'found' space rather than a space you can design and construct specifically for the application. Unless you have a space like a studio or rehearsal hall that provides a desirable acoustical environment for the performers and supports the use of distant or area microphones, you may almost have to go the route of making the room 'dead' and using close miking and heaphones or personal monitors.

I would worry about having enough really skillful technicians to pull this off night after night. You'll need an exceptional sound crew.

I agree, this is a very critical element.


Another possible consideration but will you always have the same musicians for every performance? Changes in the musicians even from illness or other unexpected causes might be more difficult for both them and the techs, especially if thay have not performed that way before.

 

[cleighton]

I have seen and been in this discussion many time. This is what it comes down to for me if you cant hear them live and want to but them in another room why not just lay down tracks..There presents is part of the musical experience.
One of the performing spaces we use we become quite creative as to where the the orchestra goes on roofs of sets in basements of sets behind scrim windows.

 

[DrPinto]

One of the performing spaces we use we become quite creative as to where the the orchestra goes on roofs of sets in basements of sets behind scrim windows.

Where's the best place to put the orchestra has been an ongoing issue forever. I found this solution interesting. I wonder what the acoustics were like in this space?

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[damjamkato]

Figured I'd post our current setup for West Side Story. It's a 16 piece orchestra, plus conductor.

 

[themuzicman]

Each route has it's distinct advantages and disadvantages.

When considering putting the band in a separate room -
*Does your current audio system have the facilities to support individual micing of all instruments? My current 8 person band setup on my tour uses close to 28 inputs...combine that with mics and sfx, you can quickly max out the capacity of your console.
*Do you have the speakers to give the actors the sound they need onstage from the band? High side fill speakers on stage give the actors the instrumentation they need to stay in tempo with the music, without this the orchestration could quickly fall apart.
*Forgoing a class wall, a video system would do just as good. Give the conductor a shot from FOH, give the actors shots of the conductor and you're golden.

When considering to go with a pit:
*Consider that the micing your MD saw was for reasons other than amplification. Maybe the sound he heard in the theatre was at least partially acoustic from the pit, and that those mics were feeding signal to backstage program feeds or helping amplification in other places in the theatre (maybe the orchestra section is unamplified, but the upper balcony is amplified)
*Consider the size of your orchestra - if you are using a 20 piece orchestra in a converted movie theatre space will be at a premium and the musicians may make too much noise to effectively amplify the actors over. Then again, an 8 piece band might sound perfectly natural in a pit.
*Is the pit liftable? When you aren't doing musicals are you going to have 10' downstage that is now effectively dead because you can't either lift it up to orchestra level to be seating or raise it up to stage level to provide extra playing space?

On my tour I prefer to always have a pit, but there have been a few notable occasions where I have had to throw the band in a separate room. With the right gear either way is approachable, but when I have them in a room it kills me a little bit. The actors don't get what they need from the band on stage right from the start (it takes a little bit to dial in exactly what the actors need with a remoted band). Either way is approachable, but I think your MD might not understand all the forces that are at play when watching the shows he saw.

 

[museav]

When considering to go with a pit:
*Consider that the micing your MD saw was for reasons other than amplification. Maybe the sound he heard in the theatre was at least partially acoustic from the pit, and that those mics were feeding signal to backstage program feeds or helping amplification in other places in the theatre (maybe the orchestra section is unamplified, but the upper balcony is amplified)

I know this is an old thread but I should have noted at the time that about a year ago composer Richard Einhorn was involved in a series of interviews regarding his experiences with assistive listening systems and in particular induction loop systems. Mr. Einhorn was kind enough to communicate with me and during one of those discussions noted that he was disappointed that what was published did not place greater emphasis on his postive experiences being a factor of not just the technology used but also the quality of the assistive listening mix. This reminded me that an ALS mix may be another reason for micing something for purposes other than reinforcement to the audience chamber.

 

[hamlett22]

Live Pit orchestra in separate room

HI

Due to space constraints and lack of a proper pit we are considering setting up our pit orchestra for the spring musical in the band room across from the theatre.

I have a few questions as we move forward to run a test on this theoretical application.

- Room microphones; Any suggestions on what type of room microphones we should use? Trim height?
- Our sound system in the theatre has 16 speakers placed at various part of the house pointed at specific sections. Of course we have been running our show mics through these speakers. Any ideas or advice on mixing live orchestra with show mics?
- Video feeds; we will have to run live video feeds to the band room so the conductor can see and setup a monitor for the actors on stage for cuing purposes; there are always those spots in the show that an actor has to cue in on an orchestra conductor. I thought about placing a monitor in the first row of the house facing the stage but I wonder if the image would be big enough and besides the glow of the screen will affect blackouts which can ruin certain effects. Unless I run a DMX power switch from the monitor into the light board and shut down the monitor with a light cue ??? Are there DMX power switches?

The cable run for the video feeds would be roughly 100 meters each way. We have one permanently installed fiber video cable that runs 250 meters and that works but it cost 2000 grand to put in. Any cheaper solutions out there?
- Any other details that I should be aware of?

Our plan is to rent a couple of microphones and test them in jan by hanging them in the band room and then testing the output during the band director's classes. I just want to make sure we test all the variables.

The scary thing is if anything were to fail in the audio feed from the orchestra in another room during a show, the show stops.

Any advice is appreciated.

Chad

 

[Footer]

Re: Live Pit orchestra in separate room

Failing to provide the feed is really the smallest detail.

You have three issues. First, providing a zero latency bi-directional video feed is not cheep in the digital age. If you still have a pile of CRT's and old cameras your in luck. If you are forced to by new digital TV's it gets a bit harder. Houses that do this usually mount a "conductor cam" about the middle of the house on the balcony rail and in each vom, if you have such a thing. You want it to be in line of sight of the actors onstage, they should not have to look down to see it.

Second, it is probably going to be next to impossible to do room mics and get a quality product. Unless your band room is perfectly acoustically treated, your going to have an orchestra sound like they are in a school band room... playing in a theatre. You will want to do everything possible to deaden the room. On top of that, your going to be better off to locally mic each instrument instead of the "room mic" idea. You will get a much better sound because the acoustics of the room will have less of an impact. Micing each instrument is most likely going to add bringing in a lot of gear that you don't have. Additionaly, it is going to add a whole ton of complexity that could be a challenge for your students to operate.

Third, monitoring audio is going to become a real pain. You almost need to have a 3rd console just dedicated to sending feeds to the stage from the pit and to the pit from the stage. It is another layer of complexity that could give you massive problems if you don't already have a rather elaborate monitor system already in place.

My feeling is that unless this is the ONLY way, it is not the way to go. Without the proper gear, room, and staff your asking for a world of hurt.

Additionally, read this thread: http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/sound-music-intercom/28297-orchestra-pit-orchestra-room.html

 

[Stookeybrd]

Re: Live Pit orchestra in separate room

As Footer brought up there is several main issues with removing the pit from the theater, the biggest being visual connections ratter than audio connections. The specification you want to look at is the response time or lag of the display. Other than CRTs every display will have lag and it can be as small as 10mS or as high as 300mS. That can be as much as an 1/8th beat difference between the band and the actors. Plus, the difficulty that many LCD displays have is that their delay is floating and not a fixed rate. If you can get your hands on a pair of CRTs then they should never leave your theater. They are worth every inch of space they take up.

The best place to put these displays is on the front of the balcony. If that isn't possible as high up and as center as possible. Depending on the distance of your first row from the lip of the stage it will be far too low for any singer upstage to see and for any singer trying to sing to the audience either.

There is a gel, I'm actually unsure of who makes it but we call it "Neutral Density." Get a large sheet of it for each screen, and it will help eliminate any glare during blackouts and still maintain a bright enough screen to be seen in stage lights.

 

[techieman33]

Re: Live Pit orchestra in separate room

There is a gel, I'm actually unsure of who makes it but we call it "Neutral Density." Get a large sheet of it for each screen, and it will help eliminate any glare during blackouts and still maintain a bright enough screen to be seen in stage lights.

All of the manufacturers make neutral densisty gel in at least a couple of different levels.

 

[themuzicman]

Re: Live Pit orchestra in separate room

HI

Due to space constraints and lack of a proper pit we are considering setting up our pit orchestra for the spring musical in the band room across from the theatre.

I have a few questions as we move forward to run a test on this theoretical application.

- Room microphones; Any suggestions on what type of room microphones we should use? Trim height?
- Our sound system in the theatre has 16 speakers placed at various part of the house pointed at specific sections. Of course we have been running our show mics through these speakers. Any ideas or advice on mixing live orchestra with show mics?
- Video feeds; we will have to run live video feeds to the band room so the conductor can see and setup a monitor for the actors on stage for cuing purposes; there are always those spots in the show that an actor has to cue in on an orchestra conductor. I thought about placing a monitor in the first row of the house facing the stage but I wonder if the image would be big enough and besides the glow of the screen will affect blackouts which can ruin certain effects. Unless I run a DMX power switch from the monitor into the light board and shut down the monitor with a light cue ??? Are there DMX power switches?

The cable run for the video feeds would be roughly 100 meters each way. We have one permanently installed fiber video cable that runs 250 meters and that works but it cost 2000 grand to put in. Any cheaper solutions out there?
- Any other details that I should be aware of?

Our plan is to rent a couple of microphones and test them in jan by hanging them in the band room and then testing the output during the band director's classes. I just want to make sure we test all the variables.

The scary thing is if anything were to fail in the audio feed from the orchestra in another room during a show, the show stops.

Any advice is appreciated.

Chad

Without a bit of work, this may not sound the greatest. You'll want tight delay zoning, and some good mic'ing in your band room. How big is your orchestra? The musicals I've done have all had stereo feeds from a digital piano, one mic per brass, an up and a down mic per each woodwind (ex: flute gets up, sax gets down), a fully mic'd drum set, and tight mic'ing on strings. You could probably get away with less, but be warned that two overheads over an orchestra won't get you nearly the sound you'll want.

In regards to mixing, if you have an analog console I'd go the submix route - have a smaller console sending a stereo feed to your larger console. Your larger console is pumping out vocals and can affect large changes in band volume, and the smaller console is dealing with the minutiae of the band mix. If you have a digital console I'd throw the band on a VCA (if you have them), else I'd route them to their own mix or several mix's to give you large movement control and fine control.

As for the video, to get bi-lateral video this is simple - 75 ohm coaxial cable, or you can use Cat5. You can run composite video straight out of a camera to the source television, or if you already have a long run of Cat5 you can use a coax to cat5 balun

Energy Transformation Systems ETS BNC Composite Video Over CAT5 Extended Baseband Baluns Composite Video Over CAT5 at Markertek.com

You run one cable going from an FOH camera to the conductor, and one video feed from the conductor to a large television hung on the FOH balcony rail or somewhere on the apron of the stage - large enough so the conductor can cue all the actors.

I must warn you that the band trying to take cues off of remoted video is tricky enough for professionals, make sure to budget PLENTY of tech time for both orchestra rehearsal getting them used to taking video cues both ways and getting your mix right with the remoted band.

 

[museav]

Re: Live Pit orchestra in separate room

In regards to mixing, if you have an analog console I'd go the submix route - have a smaller console sending a stereo feed to your larger console. Your larger console is pumping out vocals and can affect large changes in band volume, and the smaller console is dealing with the minutiae of the band mix. If you have a digital console I'd throw the band on a VCA (if you have them), else I'd route them to their own mix or several mix's to give you large movement control and fine control.

A detail but a VCA would be associated with an analog console, on a digital console it would be a DCA, but you could do basically do the same thing with either a VCA or DCA so the console being analog versus digital does not necessarily make a difference.

As already noted, the video is not necessarily that simple. If it is newer equipment it may be component, HDMI or SD/HD-SDI from the camera and a LCD or plasma monitor rather than composite video and CRT monitors and in those cases latency can become an issue as might the 100m run length.

Chad, as Footer already covered, you mentioned using a couple of microphones in the band room for the orchestra and when you mock that up you might want to be sure to consider how limited control you have over the orchestra mix and how much the band room acoustics affect what you hear in the theater since what people hear will then reflect both how band room acoustics and the theater acoustics (via the theater audio system).

 

[themuzicman]

Re: Live Pit orchestra in separate room

A detail but a VCA would be associated with an analog console, on a digital console it would be a DCA, but you could do basically do the same thing with either a VCA or DCA so the console being analog versus digital does not necessarily make a difference.

Whatever the manufacturer wants to call it, it all has the same function
DCA on a Yamaha, Control Group on a DiGiCo, VGroup on a D-Mitri/LCS rig, though funny enough Digidesign keeps the VCA moniker on the VENUE lineup.

 

[museav]

Re: Live Pit orchestra in separate room

Whatever the manufacturer wants to call it, it all has the same function
DCA on a Yamaha, Control Group on a DiGiCo, VGroup on a D-Mitri/LCS rig, though funny enough Digidesign keeps the VCA moniker on the VENUE lineup.

It is not a matter of what manufacturers call it, VCA and DCA are the generic names for 'circuits' that modify analog (VCA) or digital (VCA) signal levels based on an external control input. Same functionality with the level affected by both the channel fader and VCA/DCA master but to different types of audio signals and in different manners, for example a DCA could be software that applies a mathematical multiplier to the digital signal level.

But the point I was actually trying to make is that since there are analog consoles with VCA functionality, the different approaches you noted would seem to be a factor of having VCA/DCA functionality or not rather than analog versus digital.

 

[TimmyP1955]

The first thing that comes to mind to me is that even with a wall of glass in the back of the theatre the actors wouldn't be able to see a conductor. With stage lights on and a dark house (not to mention the distance to the back of the house in some spaces) you can end up pretty blind, I feel like that would be a pretty quick problem.

I can't imagine the actors being able to see a conductor in a pit either. Oftentimes they are lucky if they can see the floor five feet in front of them.