Saltimbanco Live Cirque du Soleil’s Saltimbanco is on the final leg of a very successful Australian tour. Like many thousands of Australians, AudioTechnol- ogy’s Trevor Cronin went to see what all the hoopla was about.
irque du Soleil was founded in French speaking Québec, Canada, in 1984. Since then more than 18 million people from all around the world have taken in one of Ctheir shows. On a typical weekend in 1999, some 50,000 people will see one of the several shows being staged simultaneously around the world. The circus employs over 1,500 people, including 460 performers. Performances have been staged in over 120 cities throughout the world, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Tokyo, Osaka, Hong Kong, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Berlin and Vienna. They have won many prestigious prizes, including an Emmy, Drama Desk and Ace awards, Gémeaux and Félix trophies, and a Rose d’Or de Montreux. All up you’d have to say that it’s a bit more of an enterprise than the Flying Zucchini Brothers’ who rolled into town when I was a kid! The Saltimbanco show consists of a diverse variety of acts, stunning acrobatics being the main feature – hand balancing, double trapeze, double tightrope, Chinese poles, the Russian swing, bungees. The show also features superb jugglers and hilarious clowns (bald people beware, wear a hat!). There are no animals involved – yep, no fearless lion taming, or dancing bears here. The costumes are brightly coloured affording the performers an almost supernatural appearance. The set and lighting are superb, embuing proceedings with a futuristic industrial feel. I had a great chat with front of house engineer Mike Amstadt. He comes from a very un-theatrical background, having mixed front of house for some of America’s loudest heavy metal bands. Since a pretty intense rehearsal period at home base in Montreal, he has nearly completed his first year of a three year commitment to the show. It’s a bit of a dream gig – same rig every night, same band, same room – almost like a theatre engineer’s job, except every three months you find yourself in a new city! It is the second run of this particular show and Mike’s first involvement with the organisation. Much of the equipment is a number of years old, having been put together for the original European run in 1992. However, that is not to say that the show’s organisers don’t take the audio facet very seriously – for starters, the mix position is in the perfect central audience position, allowing Mike to hear the show exactly as the paying public do. The seats taken out to facilitate this would generate about $1,000,000 per year in ticket sales – the sort of statistic that would give the tour accountant a coronary! It might be a stable job for an engineer but it’s also a pretty full-on work schedule – a soundcheck every day and only one night off per week.
42 The audio equipment consists of a fairly standard ing and Countryman Isomax headsets. Two small concert sound setup. You’ll find a large Yamaha FOH Apogee SSM monitors are pointed at the band to create console, racks containing the usual assortment of reverbs, a vibe for the players. The monitor engineer, Borneo delays, multi-effects, compressor/limiters, noise gates and Brown, is located under the stage with his Soundcraft equalisers, while a Peavey PC1600 Midi controller is used monitor console. He provides the band with sub mixes for instant patch changes of the effects for the various of the various inputs which are fed into each of the acts in the show. The speaker system was the unique backing musicians’ small Mackie mixers which they can feature of the audio inventory. As you can imagine, tweak as desired. The band and audio crew are all getting a show in a Kevlar tent to sound good is not an provided with a telephone talkback system. It’s a very easy task. Meanwhile, pleasing slick and professional setup. everyone in an audience age The show was one of the most enjoyable live perfor- group that ranges from 9 to mances I’ve ever seen, aided by a very tight five piece 99 years old is in itself no mean feat. multi instrumentalist band who played a diverse range of Hence, the designers have opted for lots music varying from orchestral-like classical, to hard edge of smaller time-aligned speakers distributed rock’n’roll. The sound during the show was excellent, very around the tent and cleverly positioned them impressive, but never a distraction from the stunning per- so as remain unobtrusive. This means that formances. Mike dialled in some very neat panning everyone in the audience of 2,000 people has a effects, reverbs, and dynamic pushes during the show. The nice controlled beam of direct sound focused rumble boxes under the seats worked very well, although on them, thus keeping reflections off initially I thought the rumblings were a dodgy tandoori I the tent to a minimum and the overall ate earlier! All up, I think I have found the dream gig for a SPL down, free and single sound engineer who likes to travel – if but still only there was a vacancy! AT providing superb clarity. US The key players: audio company Apogee Sound’s speaker system is The Composer: René Dupéré, an award winning composer, used exclusively. Apogee musical director, record producer and arranger who has credits Sound’s products aren’t of several stage, dance and film productions. widely known or used in Australia at this time, but are very Sound Designer: Jonathan Deans, who has worked on several popular for theatre and club use in prestigious productions including Evita, Les Misérables, and A Chorus Line as well as operas like, The Death of Klinghoffer at Europe and the US. They make very venues such as the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brussels’ compact and powerful units, with their Maison de l’Opéra La Monnaie and France’s Opéra de Lyon. own matched crossover/processor He has also brought his expertise to Covent Garden’s Royal units and matching power ampli- Opera House and is a consultant for the Los Angeles Opera Company. He is producing the fiers. An ‘LSC’ time alignment acoustic environment for unit and software is used Cirque du Soleil’s latest pro- (with the older duction, La Nouba.
analogue Sound Designer: François interface) to line up the Bergeron has been associated with Cirque du Soleil since his system and control the level of involvement with the Nouvelle all the speaker zones. The time point zero reference is set Experience production in somewhere near the front of the stage. Six Apogee AE- 1990. He worked on Saltim- 2s2 wide dispersion speakers are set pointing up into the banco in Japan in 1994. His most recent productions Kevlar canvas, to produce some interesting swirling include EFX with Michael surround effects. Six AE-8 speakers make up the main Crawford at the MGM Grand flown rig supplemented by two AE-12 sub bass cabinets Hotel in Las Vegas, the North under the stage, and another four used as rumble boxes American premiere of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Requiem Vari- under the seats. The horns from the front of the stage ations, Die Frau und Schatten boxes were removed from their enclosures and incorpo- at the Los Angeles Opera, and rated into the futuristic looking stage set. Mike oversees Sayonara, Dreamgirls, and the setup and makes any of the changes that the George Lucas’ Live Adven- tures in Japan, and is also designers want to implement in each new city. working on La Nouba. He also There’s a few novel innovations in the band’s monitor- owns a recording studio. ing. To help confound the laws of physics and not to distract the audience’s central focus, a plexiglass isolation booth, with its own air conditioning system, is used for the drummer. The vocalist uses in-ear monitor-
FOH engineer, Mike Amstadt, ran away to join the circus Roll up, Roll up: Saltimbanco use an innovatively rigged Apogee Sound system
Founder and Apogee Sound president Ken DeLoria talks to AudioTechnology about the company’s past, present, and future.
AudioTechnology: Ken, can you give us the LucasFilms, taking on the task of manufactur- strengthen our position in this specialised, potted history of Apogee Sound? ing and marketing a LucasFilm THX profes- high-end segment of the market that earned Ken DeLoria: Before I established Apogee sional monitoring system for the growing post the company its initial reputation. Sound I’d come from a pro audio background, production market. working as a loudspeaker systems and sound In 1993 Apogee developed its first studio mon- designer for a lot of large-scale shows, events itoring system for the music industry. Also in AT and installations. From that standpoint I knew 1993, the company developed the world’s first the strengths and weaknesses of all the major pro power amplifier designed from conception players in the market, and I felt that with my to be computer controlled, enabling remote own company, Apogee Sound, I could signifi- monitoring and operation from a standard PC cantly improve on the sound systems that over simple twisted-pair wire. were out there. AT: How do you think Apogee Sound as a In 1985 we began by developing loudspeakers company is perceived by the market place? for the sound reinforcement market. They were KD: I think we’ve always been seen as offering ‘processor-based’ speakers which offered real honesty and integrity, in our products and the advantages over the other brands and types, way we do business. Apogee strongly believes and it was the integration of our electronic in working to produce the highest quality processor with the enclosure and driver products possible – products with inarguably elements that’s the key to our loudspeakers’ superior performance rather than frills and immediate and continuing success. fancy styling. Our products are built with Our next design breakthrough was in 1989, longevity in mind, and customers like the fact with the CORREQT equalisation system. that their purchase won’t be superseded by a CORREQT stands for Computer Optimised needless upgrade in a year’s time. Room Resonant Eqalisation Technique, and it’s The other thing you have to remember is that an advanced method of integrating a loud- Apogee Sound isn’t owned by a huge parent speaker system into a room’s acoustical envi- multinational company, and our customers ronment. The results are far superior to con- know that they really matter, that we stand ventional methods of EQing and balancing a behind our products and if there are any system – it was used for seven consecutive problems we’ll work with them to sort it out to years on the Grammy Awards and Oscar their complete satisfaction. Awards. AT: What’s in the pipeline for Apogee Sound? Over time as the reputation of speakers spread further, we expanded our range into amps for KD: We’re looking to broaden our product line touring and installation markets, and a spe- to include other types of audio products in cialised parametric equaliser. In 1991 Apogee order to cover a wider segment of the market- entered into a business relationship with place. Of course we’ll also be continuing to
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