Stereo in blackbox theater?

[HSSBO94]

Our school is doing a production in our small (30 ish seat) black box. We're still in the very early creative process with our sounds, but I've already run into something I thought might be strange:

We have four speakers in each of the four corners of the room, split as left and right channels, two on each channel.

Some of the sounds we were looking at were "sweeping" 360 degrees around the theater, which, to my knowledge would require 4 distinct channels of sound

There isn't a patch panel, and it would appear that the only way to get four different outputs to control each speaker separately would be to use a different mixer - the one in the black box now has only a left out, right out, and aux out (3 outs for 4 speakers).

Is it common to have a black box on a Left / Right setup? To me, it would seem like no two audience members are going to have the same left and right, since they surround the actors.

In general, how do approach a black box production differently from a production in a proscenium or thrust space from a sound perspective?

I'm just looking for thoughts, with nothing to apply this to directly... yet.

thanks!

 

[ccm1495]

We might need a little more information.
Do you have amps that are built into a rack some where?
Do you know how the speakers are wired (in parellel or are they individual)?
Does you mixer have sub outs that could be used for the individual speakers?

Give us anything you know about the space.

If your sperkers are wired in parellel there is nothing you can do without re wiring.
If they are individual your amps my be on briged mono.

If they are wired it may be able to send the 4 inputs you want to the amps if your board is capable.

To the subject of people hearing it diferently. Everbody in the audiance my hear it slightly diferently depending on ther proximity to a speaker.

 

[museav]

Is it common to have a black box on a Left / Right setup? To me, it would seem like no two audience members are going to have the same left and right, since they surround the actors.

Black box does not equal in the round, in fact in many cases the concept is to support a number of different potential stage and audience configurations in the space. That also means that many black box audio systems do not have fixed arrangements or approaches.

'Stereo' is a fantasy for many systems as simply having left and right speakers does not make a system stereo, that requires the entire audience having at least close to the same left/right relationship in level, frequency and time, which is much more complex than simply having left and right speakers.

The issue often becomes that of what you are trying to achieve and what perception you are trying to create. You mentioned 30 seats so I assume that you are not reinforcing the actors and the audio is all music and effects related. In that situation, are you trying to create a sound coming from some direction off stage? A general background mood? A sound appearing to come from on stage? These types of considerations will affect how you use the system and route the audio.

If you want to get into more specific aspects then I agree that knowing more specifics about the space and system would be appropriate. Even factors as simple as the pattern of the speakers and if you can adjust where they are aimed could affect how you might approach the audio.