I Can't Sing - also known as The X-Factor Musical - opened in March, written by comedian Harry Hill and composer Steve Brown, with sound design by Gareth Owen.

Gareth specified the d&b audiotechnik J-Series speakers for the first time in a West End production – one of three firsts in I Can't Sing's sound design.

The FOH system is configured with seven J8s with two J12s a side, complemented by V-Series cabinets in the gallery and T-Series for the centre cluster. Gareth explains why he chose the J-Series:
"There is no other theatrical venue in London quite like the Palladium, and we wanted a system that would deliver the power we needed without sounding loud. The major advantage with a box the size of the J-Series is that it lets you do this – it combines extremely high output and headroom with d&b's customary transparent and detailed audio performance. Despite I Can't Sing being a very loud show, we haven't had a single complaint about the volume."

Another major innovation involved building a one of a kind mixer, based on two Avid Profiles, a MADI matrix system and custom software to create a 256-channel mixing desk. When asked why, Gareth had a simple answer!
"There quite simply wasn't anything else available that would give us the channel count, the native handling of plug-ins and the programming flexibility. This show features so many different styles of music with very quick changes between numbers – from rap, ballads, rock'n'roll to pop, jazz and swing. Using the plug-in racks, we can change mode really fast. The other issue is that it is a brand new musical and you expect to have to handle a lot of changes, right up to the last minute. It was an interesting exercise and has enabled us to achieve the result we were looking for."

The third unique feature involves the surround sound system, with the objective of giving every seat in the house the full surround mix. Using a proprietary MaxDSP-based control system, Gareth developed a new approach:
"We had a bit of an issue with getting the speakers high enough, and levelling out the surround image to avoid it being too quiet in the middle and too loud at the edges. It took a lot of cunning speaker placement, lots of speakers and custom-designed software to get the result we were after. But at the end of it all, every single seat in the house gets the full surround treatment. We started out with a theory and built the system up around that!"

Gareth and his team are intent on pushing the boundaries of what is considered to be best theatrical sound practice, reflecting continually rising audience expectations in our high fidelity, connected age. In the case of I Can't Sing, this involved coming up with some unconventional yet clearly successful new techniques.

In addition to Gareth, the sound team comprised: Associate Sound Designer Russell Godwin; Production Engineer Chris Mace; Head of Sound Dave Palmer; Sound Number Two Simon Brynley-Fowler; and Assistant Sound Designer Zoe Blackford. Orbital Sound was responsible for supplying sound equipment and support.