Orbital Sound Ltd

Orbital Deploys Digidesign's VENUE on New West End Musical - FOOTLOOSE

Orbital have used their skill and experience to make the regenerated Novello Theatre music-ready, allowing the Tristian Baker & Mark Goucher production of Footloose to take up residency in the West End following its successful provincial tour.

Much of the success of this new release has been due to the close working relationship that has developed between the theatre specialists and Digidesign's Live Sound Product Manager, Sheldon Radford, who is full or praise for the London production company's enterprise and innovation.

Yet while these software changes have been largely driven by theatre requirements, Sheldon believes they apply equally to other applications. "Live shows are becoming more sophisticated and digital consoles more prevalent, so engineers need tools that empower them to work smarter and faster. The advanced features, flexibility and ease of use built into D-Show 2.0's Snapshot system provide exactly that, whether it's a touring rock show, corporate presentation or West End production.

Gareth Owen's creativity isn't confined to his implementation of the Digidesign VENUE. He has also devised an experimental loudspeaker configuration for this production.

"We generally put subs on the advance truss but that can result in insufficient sub frequencies in the Circle and too much in the Gallery, so we've tried to alleviate that by bringing the subs closer to the audience.

As a result, the d&b subs are rigged on all four tiers - B2's in the Stalls, C4's in the two Circle levels and the E18's in the Gallery. "In this way we can achieve a tighter, more direct sound than we would by sending sub energy through freespace from the pros arch.

He has also deployed 20 d&b C7's in an L/C/R system - but in pairs, splitting the band and vocal systems in every part of the theatre (including the delays and surrounds). "It means there are a large number of speakers, but we have done this because in the loud numbers, where handheld mics are used, the speakers can become overpowered by the vocals. In this way the vocals and the band can each do their thing, providing more of a smooth controlled sound coming out of both speakers."

But rigging the speakers had presented its own set of challenges. Orbital had to install a heavy duty goalpost scaffolding array to hoist the speakers as far off the stage as possible. "The Novello is not really suited to staging rock 'n' roll shows as it is designed more as a playhouse," acknowledges Gareth. "It took the riggers three days to get this in."

The system is EQ'd using 12 x XTA DP226's and DP224 EQ's, remote controlled from front of house by AudioCore, and powered by a combination of d&b and Lab Gruppen amplification, all from Orbital's equipment inventory.

Orbital are using Trantec S6000 UHF radio mics for all the cast fitted with DPA 4066's as well as fitted to the roving fiddle player and an on set oil drum!

Finally, the eight pit musicians have been fitted with Digidesign Personal Q (PQ) controllers. "The concept of the PQ is pretty revolutionary," says Gareth. "Every other headphone mixer I have seen is an external source, and this is the only one I'm aware of that allows musicians to remote control a section of sound desk.

With PQ's, he says, the FOH engineer only has to look at the screen at front-of-house to review the mix. "If there's a problem the musician presses a Call button on the PQ and a message flashes up on the FOH screen, and the engineer picks up the radio and sends one of the sound crew down to the pit to deal with it."

Orbital MD Chris Headlam commented, "Footloose was a speculative project, starting off as a small provincial tour. It quickly turned out to be a stunning production with a great, cohesive creative team and that cohesive attitude really shows in the final product. We've all had a great time working on the project and are delighted with the results".


Based on the original screenplay by Dean Pitchford, Footloose is directed and choregraphed by Karen Bruce, produced by Tristan Baker and stars Stephen McGann and Cheryl Baker . Orbital's sound team includes Dan Bailey (PICTURED RIGHT ABOVE - Sound No. 1), Chris Mace (production engineer), Les Dwight (Sound No. 2 - radio mics) and Kimberley Egan (Sound No. 3 - responsible for the band).

In so doing, Orbital have broken new ground being the first to deploy Digidesign's new V2.0 D-Show software for the VENUE digital desk.

Orbital had long selected this digital environment for the Footloose tour of duty. Feedback on the desk which the production company provided following last year's production of Annie Get Your Gun has largely been incorporated into the new D-Show operating software, giving it the same cachet in the theatre world as it has been enjoying in the rock 'n' roll environment.

"A lot of minor issues have been addressed, predominantly to do with Snapshots, which now make this desk awesome," says Orbital sound designer Gareth Owen (Pictured Left), who gave the new software a clean bill of health after subjecting it to a thorough stress testing. "The crossfade times now go up to 99 secs which make scene plotting easier but the big step forward is in the scene handling, thanks to the Recall Safe facility."

This allows operators to filter the recall of any parameter on any channel or output on a global basis, allowing for real-time adjustments without losing changes with a subsequent snapshot recall. "Using the Scope facility allows the recall of specific elements such as EQ settings or fader positions; alternatively you can recall everything (except those parameters defined in Recall Safe), or you can have a cool combination of the two.

The Snapshot Preview Mode, meanwhile, enables operators to take the D-Show console offline from the audio mix and create, modify, manage, store, and view snapshots in their entirety without affecting the currently active mix.

"This innovative approach has created the most powerful means of programming a theatre show by quite a distance, and it now puts Digidesign way ahead of the game", continued the Orbital designer.

"The improvements they have made to the Propagate mode make it much more difficult to inadvertently mess things up. The new Absolute and Relative edit modes mean you can make small changes to large groups of scenes with the minimum of effort. The two different scene handling modes make the console flexible enough to programme in whatever style you prefer".

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Much of the success of this new release has been due to the close working relationship that has developed between the theatre specialists and Digidesign's Live Sound Product Manager, Sheldon Radford, who is full or praise for the London production company's enterprise and innovation.

Yet while these software changes have been largely driven by theatre requirements, Sheldon believes they apply equally to other applications. "Live shows are becoming more sophisticated and digital consoles more prevalent, so engineers need tools that empower them to work smarter and faster. The advanced features, flexibility and ease of use built into D-Show 2.0's Snapshot system provide exactly that, whether it's a touring rock show, corporate presentation or West End production.

Gareth Owen's creativity isn't confined to his implementation of the Digidesign VENUE. He has also devised an experimental loudspeaker configuration for this production.

"We generally put subs on the advance truss but that can result in insufficient sub frequencies in the Circle and too much in the Gallery, so we've tried to alleviate that by bringing the subs closer to the audience.

As a result, the d&b subs are rigged on all four tiers - B2's in the Stalls, C4's in the two Circle levels and the E18's in the Gallery. "In this way we can achieve a tighter, more direct sound than we would by sending sub energy through freespace from the pros arch.

He has also deployed 20 d&b C7's in an L/C/R system - but in pairs, splitting the band and vocal systems in every part of the theatre (including the delays and surrounds). "It means there are a large number of speakers, but we have done this because in the loud numbers, where handheld mics are used, the speakers can become overpowered by the vocals. In this way the vocals and the band can each do their thing, providing more of a smooth controlled sound coming out of both speakers."

But rigging the speakers had presented its own set of challenges. Orbital had to install a heavy duty goalpost scaffolding array to hoist the speakers as far off the stage as possible. "The Novello is not really suited to staging rock 'n' roll shows as it is designed more as a playhouse," acknowledges Gareth. "It took the riggers three days to get this in."

The system is EQ'd using 12 x XTA DP226's and DP224 EQ's, remote controlled from front of house by AudioCore, and powered by a combination of d&b and Lab Gruppen amplification, all from Orbital's equipment inventory.

Orbital are using Trantec S6000 UHF radio mics for all the cast fitted with DPA 4066's as well as fitted to the roving fiddle player and an on set oil drum!

Finally, the eight pit musicians have been fitted with Digidesign Personal Q (PQ) controllers. "The concept of the PQ is pretty revolutionary," says Gareth. "Every other headphone mixer I have seen is an external source, and this is the only one I'm aware of that allows musicians to remote control a section of sound desk.

With PQ's, he says, the FOH engineer only has to look at the screen at front-of-house to review the mix. "If there's a problem the musician presses a Call button on the PQ and a message flashes up on the FOH screen, and the engineer picks up the radio and sends one of the sound crew down to the pit to deal with it."

Orbital MD Chris Headlam commented, "Footloose was a speculative project, starting off as a small provincial tour. It quickly turned out to be a stunning production with a great, cohesive creative team and that cohesive attitude really shows in the final product. We've all had a great time working on the project and are delighted with the results".


Based on the original screenplay by Dean Pitchford, Footloose is directed and choregraphed by Karen Bruce, produced by Tristan Baker and stars Stephen McGann and Cheryl Baker . Orbital's sound team includes Dan Bailey (PICTURED RIGHT ABOVE - Sound No. 1), Chris Mace (production engineer), Les Dwight (Sound No. 2 - radio mics) and Kimberley Egan (Sound No. 3 - responsible for the band).