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I'm hoping to see if any of you have any first experience with electronically enhancement stage reinforcement?  I have a small theatre with probably the most dead stage acoustics imaginable. The auditorium end of things sounds great, but the stage experience is horrible. Due to this being a restored old theatre, and to make matters worse, it has 2 prosceniums due to an low budget addition to the stage. The downstage proscenium is fine, but the inner one, which is place just over where the woodwinds would be seated, sucks all of the sound straight up and creates a sound deficiency. And due a lack of height in the stage area,  there's no place to float clouds, nor room to store any shell.

Thus the talk is to think towards going the electronic route and do a high tech sound reinforcement. I've heard a few halls that have done it successfully and think this might be the way to go. I have a donor who is willing to put the $$ and the theatre has given a green light if we can figure this out logistically

Any insight for pros and cons would be most helpful

As a working professional symphony musician, and as a conductor of 2 orchestras that work at this theatre, and of course my role as the concert piano tech for the hall, I'm just about at my wits end in finding a good resolve for this issue.

Esteem List

I'm hoping to see if any of you have any first experience with electronically enhancement stage reinforcement?  I have a small theatre with probably the most dead stage acoustics imaginable. The auditorium end of things sounds great, but the stage experience is horrible. Due to this being a restored old theatre, and to make matters worse, it has 2 prosceniums due to an low budget addition to the stage. The downstage proscenium is fine, but the inner one, which is place just over where the woodwinds would be seated, sucks all of the sound straight up and creates a sound deficiency. And due a lack of height in the stage area,  there's no place to float clouds, nor room to store any shell.

Thus the talk is to think towards going the electronic route and do a high tech sound reinforcement. I've heard a few halls that have done it successfully and think this might be the way to go. I have a donor who is willing to put the $$ and the theatre has given a green light if we can figure this out logistically

Any insight for pros and cons would be most helpful

As a working professional symphony musician, and as a conductor of 2 orchestras that work at this theatre, and of course my role as the concert piano tech for the hall, I'm just about at my wits end in finding a good resolve for this issue.

The Newport Arts Center in Newport, Oregon had this work done, with great success.

Here's a description:

http://www.coastarts.org/about/pac-capital-campaign/phase-2-acoustical-system/

This is exactly what I was l looking for. Thanks Susan

This is exactly what I was l looking for. Thanks Susan

Esteem List

I'm hoping to see if any of you have any first experience with electronically enhancement stage reinforcement?  I have a small theatre with probably the most dead stage acoustics imaginable. The auditorium end of things sounds great, but the stage experience is horrible. Due to this being a restored old theatre, and to make matters worse, it has 2 prosceniums due to an low budget addition to the stage. The downstage proscenium is fine, but the inner one, which is place just over where the woodwinds would be seated, sucks all of the sound straight up and creates a sound deficiency. And due a lack of height in the stage area,  there's no place to float clouds, nor room to store any shell.

Thus the talk is to think towards going the electronic route and do a high tech sound reinforcement. I've heard a few halls that have done it successfully and think this might be the way to go. I have a donor who is willing to put the $$ and the theatre has given a green light if we can figure this out logistically

Any insight for pros and cons would be most helpful

As a working professional symphony musician, and as a conductor of 2 orchestras that work at this theatre, and of course my role as the concert piano tech for the hall, I'm just about at my wits end in finding a good resolve for this issue.

You don't mention if you have a shell over and surrounding the orchestra.

Perhaps this is not an option in this theater, so electronics is your next best bet. 

Is there an acoustical consultant available?

The cost of the shell (even if the theater can support one structurally) might

be more than an electronic solution.

A trip to the hall in Oregon with the donor might help

decide.

We have a hall with very poor acoustics, and another

with troublesome acoustics, so I'm interested

in what you find.

Esteem List

I'm hoping to see if any of you have any first experience with electronically enhancement stage reinforcement?  I have a small theatre with probably the most dead stage acoustics imaginable. The auditorium end of things sounds great, but the stage experience is horrible. Due to this being a restored old theatre, and to make matters worse, it has 2 prosceniums due to an low budget addition to the stage. The downstage proscenium is fine, but the inner one, which is place just over where the woodwinds would be seated, sucks all of the sound straight up and creates a sound deficiency. And due a lack of height in the stage area,  there's no place to float clouds, nor room to store any shell.

Thus the talk is to think towards going the electronic route and do a high tech sound reinforcement. I've heard a few halls that have done it successfully and think this might be the way to go. I have a donor who is willing to put the $$ and the theatre has given a green light if we can figure this out logistically

Any insight for pros and cons would be most helpful

As a working professional symphony musician, and as a conductor of 2 orchestras that work at this theatre, and of course my role as the concert piano tech for the hall, I'm just about at my wits end in finding a good resolve for this issue.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/02/23/wizards-sound

This is telling if you're an orchestra conductor...:

"I was never entirely convinced by the string timbre, especially the cellos and the double-basses. At full force, they had a slightly puffy, plastic quality—a familiar handicap of amplification that Meyer technicians haven’t yet overcome.

There is something philosophically disquieting about the Meyers’ work, as there is in any digital makeover of reality. Both at Oliveto and at SoundBox, the Constellation process never seemed obviously fake or too good to be true, and yet I had a sense of being ensconced in an audio cocoon. In the concert setting, I missed the thrum of floorboards under my feet—the full physical tingle of reverberation. Traditionalists will insist that there is no substitute for a first-class hall, and they will be right." Alex Ross in the New Yorker 2-23-15 "Wizards of Sound."

I recently attended a Stan Kenton Orchestra concert in a local hall that had

some kind of sound reinforcement. It was pretty good, but my friend and I

both thought it was a bit too much treble and cause a certain fakeness

and timbre issues for the Saxes. It was plenty loud. The "reverb" setting

was too high for jazz, but I suppose most folks wouldn't have cared or

even thought it was "great". Perhaps it has to do with who's running

the board and who's ears decided on the hall setting. It wouldn't

surprise me if they do have the Meyer system in there.

Wenger has an acoustical hall system for their practice modules.

I'm sure you've wracked your brains on this one. It sounds like

a compromise to me.

Good luck!

That's exactly what needs to be done. The house side of things sounds great. Its just the stage that stinks. The trick would be getting very sensitive mics and monitors placed strategically that would be turned out at the lowest level possible. Then there has to be a level of delay that is figured so that all the monitors create a real time acoustical experience.  And then the other issue is not creating any unwanted circumstances like feedback, or slapback, or any unwanted electronic caveats that can raise their ugly head.

That being said, I'm learning that this is still going to be a very expensive fix anyway they look at it.  The orchestra that plays here ( which I'm a  member of) with is on par with the Sante Fe Opera orchestra, so whatever is done, the musicians will demand that the experience be as real as possible. And that's going to be the trick.

The good news is we finally have a  donor with deep pockets who wants to help. Hopefully soon, we can a project in order and move forward.

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Tom Servinsky