Starlight Express

Orbital Supplies SFX On Starlight Express Tour and London's West End

Theatre sound specialist Orbital has added various SFX workstations from Stage Research Inc to their expansive rental fleet.

As an innovative and powerful software tool, it offers enormous potential for sound designers as a contemporary alternative to traditional playback equipment.

Developed from the ground up by a team of theatre professionals, SFX offers a digital playback platform for designers, which removes the need for ancillary playback technology. Based around its Cue List and Go button, it takes sound design to a new level. Providing all the features of traditional CD players and minidisks, it also boasts automated facilities that increase control, enhance operations and augment creative potential.

Specified by Sound Designer, Mick Potter, for use on the first UK tour of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Starlight Express, it proved invaluable creating the voice of the famous virtual character "The Voice of Control".

When Starlight Express first opened in London's Apollo Victoria Theatre back in 1984, The Voice of Control took the form of four Telex 1/4? Cart machines located at their own control point at the back of the stalls. In those days members of stage management were feverishly engaged to shuffle the appropriate cartridge cassettes selected from a bank of dozens laboriously taking them in and out of the machines as the races progressed.

Very easy to operate and very flexible, SFX works on a drag and drop principle where FX are simply pulled from the hard drive to the Cue List. Benefiting from a point and click architecture, this is particularly useful during rehearsals where jumping cues, adding or removing cues or changing cue properties is necessary.

Orbital?s SFX workstations currently use version 5.6 software running on a pair of custom-built P4 3Ghz Digital Audio Workstation with a high speed 120 Gb SATA drive arrays for audio playback. The second identical workstation tracks the first to provide complete audio back up. In each case i/o is achieved using a pair of MOTU 2408 mk3?s, again combined via an Audiences audio switcher. Particular attention has been paid to the workstation's cooling that utilizes custom fabricated heat sinks and zero noise fan ducting. The system ships its own self-contained transit rack AC stability being guaranteed via an APC 1400kva UPC.

Orbital has also recently supplied the SFX Pro Audio version to use on a host of West End shows including By The Bog of Cats in London's Wyndhams Theatre; Murderous Instincts, The Savoy Theatre; Tennessee William's Suddenly last Summer starring Diana Rigg and Victoria Hamilton, The Albery Theatre and Romeo & Juliet at The Playhouse.

Orbital's MD Chris Headlam commented:

"SFX dramatically simplifies FX operation in many instances. We are delighted to be able to offer the highest specification solutions available with full built in redundancy, as well as lesser specified SFX systems for less demanding applications. Orbital will be offering SFX training and advice to prospective users in the new year. "