# Orchestra pit -or- Orchestra room



## JChenault (Apr 18, 2012)

My theatre is working on a remodel to ( among other things ) put in an orchestra pit into our converted movie theatre. Our musical director just returned from a trip to NYC and made the following observation:

_The day after seeing Book of Mormon in NYC, I had a vision of ‘Biblical proportion’ while trying to nap. I want to share it with you and ask that we at least give it consideration.

While attending numerous shows in NYC this past week, I realized that at no time were we listening to natural/acoustical sound (from actors or musicians). Everything is amplified. In some cases I saw individual mics on individual instruments in the pit. That implies that the sound is mixed in a sound board and then amplified to the audience. As a listener, you really can’t tell where it is coming from at the level it is produced.

We all know that theaters historically were built with orchestral pits because they wanted the “natural” sound to come from the stage area with the voices. They didn’t have amplification as we do today. That is no longer a relevant issue in our world of modern acoustics and amplification. Also, there was space dug out under stages for other reasons and it was a logical solution to put the musicians under there too. 

I was suddenly struck to consider if our project was based upon historical tradition or practical contemporary needs and I realized that perhaps we can actually make do without an orchestra pit and consider another option.

My suggestion is to put the orchestra into the sound booth room on the second floor with sound proofing walls and a new (floor to ceiling) glass or Plexiglas wall to the auditorium so actors can see the conductor and vice versa. Since I am one of the main beneficiaries of a traditional pit, after consideration of this new idea, I believe I could really live with this option with no loss in the quality of our productions. 

There are prototypes of this scheme in successful use. The Westchester Broadway dinner theater (which we attended this NY tour) has the orchestra in a side room. We have also seen it in several Las Vegas theaters. I’m certain there are other examples as well._


Now the idea of putting the orchestra behind a glass wall at the back of the house seems wrong for a number of reasons - but what do you guys think of putting the orchestra in a dedicated separate room, and pipe in the sound as opposed to having an orchestra in a pit and amplifying as necessary.

Have any of you worked in such a venue? What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages? ( For the record -ballpark guess would be $200,000 to $300,000 savings if we go with the orchestra room approach)


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## josh88 (Apr 18, 2012)

The first thing that comes to mind to me is that even with a wall of glass in the back of the theatre the actors wouldn't be able to see a conductor. With stage lights on and a dark house (not to mention the distance to the back of the house in some spaces) you can end up pretty blind, I feel like that would be a pretty quick problem.


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## derekleffew (Apr 18, 2012)

This article _Moving Orchestras Out of Sight, Maybe Even Out of the Theatre - NYTimes.com_ from the _New York Times_ recently spawned a lengthy and at times heated discussion on the SML.

My opinion? I'd rather have that prime real estate put to better use than to create a chasm between audience and stage for every production.


> Mr. Gagliardi said he was especially appalled by the piped-in music last June for the televised Tony Awards; the band played nearly 50 blocks south of the Beacon Theater, which helped alleviate the crowding in an already crammed auditorium.


 Putting the orchestra fifty blocks away is, however, taking things too far. Literally.

EDIT: More good discussion here:
http://groups.google.com/group/theatre-sound-list/browse_thread/thread/4a156a92146f580d#
and here: 
http://groups.google.com/group/theatre-sound-list/browse_thread/thread/63a2c7197854669b?pli=1 .


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## techieman33 (Apr 18, 2012)

Why does there even have to be a wall of glass, a couple of cameras and monitors would probably work better.


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## JChenault (Apr 18, 2012)

Guys

Let me be clear IMHO the wall of glass is a bad idea. It's not going to happen for a number of reasons. One is that there is no way to sound proof it so the audience would hear the orchestra through the speakers and through the back wall, this means constructive and destructive interference with the sound. Not only that but we would have to get into ADA issues, and elevators etc.

But the idea of putting it in another room with video monitors - that is what I am interested in hearing your thoughts on. 

Sorry if I was not clear.

My questions are things like :
What is the sound quality like.
How do you deal with the communication between the stage and pit
How many rehearsals to you take to get the sound man up to speed on the show. How many sound operators do you use?
Aside from not loosing the first couple of rows of seats - what advantages to you see in the approach.
How large a mixing console do you devote to the orchestra


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## techieman33 (Apr 19, 2012)

JChenault said:


> Guys
> 
> Let me be clear IMHO the wall of glass is a bad idea. It's not going to happen for a number of reasons. One is that there is no way to sound proof it so the audience would hear the orchestra through the speakers and through the back wall, this means constructive and destructive interference with the sound. Not only that but we would have to get into ADA issues, and elevators etc.
> 
> ...



With thick enough Glass it's possible to get it pretty close to sound proof. Two of our spot booths have somewhere around 3/4" thick glass in front of them and you can't hear a thing in there when it's 115DB on the other side of the glass. I would think you would need two consoles for something like this to work. One in the room with the orchestra to mix them and then send a feed to your main console in the theater where everything else would be mixed. As far as how big the console for the orchestra is that all depends on how many pieces the orchestra is and how many mics you have on them.


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## Footer (Apr 19, 2012)

What size are your pits currently? What size do they want them to be? What size is your house? 

Back when I was actually doing musicals, I believe we had 48 inputs on the pit and at least 30 wireless mics onstage. We had two operators both using M7 consoles. Because we were in a 2,000 seat+ house, everything in the pit was amplified anyway. Monitors were ran in every direction (Conductor to stage, stage to conductor). 

Here is where it gets tricky with moving them totally offstage. Onstage monitoring is going to become a real pain. So much so that I would probably advise that you have a separate monitor engineer for tech who can be onstage. It does not matter if that person is mixing from a tablet, but they do need to be there. You now have to deal with 4 very different zones in the mix (stage to pit, pit to stage, pit to house, stage to house). All of that is going to require some serious routing.

Beyond that, doing this solution is going to cost you probably more then you save. Your PA will need to be much larger (unless you are already in a fairly large house). Your going to have to run a ton more copper. Tech time is going to take longer. Finally, labor could go up considerably. 

I would get in touch with a few sound designers and pick their brains about what kind of system they would want. I could easily see a PA capable of doing this type of thing costing a half million. I'm going to be around some of the guys who tour with Troika on Monday, I'll pick their brains a bit. I know for Cat's they bury the pit in a back room. However, those guys are all running midi linked keyboards.


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## chausman (Apr 19, 2012)

I thought I had a similar experience, but after some more thought, it was quite a bit different from this, so...

It took us about a week to get used to running sound without having any acoustic sound from the band. It takes a lot more work to mic individual instruments when you can't rely on them to fill the space on their own. We used at least two board ops. One for actors mics, one for the orchestra. Sometimes we would have another person giving advice to the orchestra board op from other places in the house. We used two individual boards, but we needed signal to go from the orchestra to the main board, but also a monitor mix to go from the main board to the orchestra. Ideally, we would have also had multiple lines going from the orchestra. One for the actors, and one for the house. We used a console just large enough for the entire orchestra, but for a longer show, or a full band/orchestra, you'd obviously want "spare" channels. I would also suggest a console with as many outputs as possible for different monitor mixes. At some point, someone will want to hear less drums, but more piano, and the main accompanist is going to want everyone else quieter so they can hear the actors better. You now need twice as many axes/outputs as you previously thought. YMMV. Communication was also an issue. The actors couldn't really see the orchestra or conductor. We had to make sure the actors knew the music well enough to keep in time with the piano alone. They actually did very well, and we didn't have really any complaints.

As I see it, the pros are,


Much more control over individual instruments.
The orchestra could practice with the house open, because you could just mute their channel(s).
No killed seats for an orchestra.
Orchestra gets more control over monitors.
Most likely cheaper then a pit.

Some of the cons,
Needs (possibly) a second console, and probably a second operator during shows.
Can cause issues with possibly video feeds.
Many more points of failure/Much greater complexity.
Added responsibility of board operators.
Uses other valuable space. (You can't do as much under the stage during the show, but areas backstage can be very valuable.

Just some thoughts.


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## JChenault (Apr 19, 2012)

Footer said:


> What size are your pits currently? What size do they want them to be? What size is your house?



The proposed pit is 23 feet by 14 feet. The proposed opening is 23 feet by 6 feet.

Size of house is 400 seats. No balcony.

Footer said:


> Onstage monitoring is going to become a real pain. So much so that I would probably advise that you have a separate monitor engineer for tech who can be onstage. It does not matter if that person is mixing from a tablet, but they do need to be there. You now have to deal with 4 very different zones in the mix (stage to pit, pit to stage, pit to house, stage to house). All of that is going to require some serious routing.



Could you expand on this a bit. (not totally sure what you mean by zones. Assuming it is from a source -> through mixer/amp -> to speakers. ) I think you are saying that it is suddenly harder to get an acceptable stage monitor mix as it has to come entirely through the monitor system and nothing direct from the orchestra. Same from the stage to the pit. Additionally the mix from the orchestra to the house becomes much more critical. Is that the point or am I in the weeds?


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## Clarkwg3 (Apr 19, 2012)

Our Spring Musical _Urinetown_ closed a month ago. It was our first attempt @ amplifying the whole pit. We were still using the pit due to lack of video equipment and other decent sounding room for them. We left our pit cover in and closed the front opening as much as possible. BTW: our pit is under the stage with ~ 4'x8' opening in stage and 4'x10' opening in wall under stage lip. We still fought the acoustic reflection, much less reflection than expected. being a high school band we had to be careful not to over mic the bad tempo of a musician or two. We had 2 days just for sound, unfortunately the first day we had to get pit AND actors mic'd. I'm working on how to split those into different days.

Our vision for next years pit is get better cameras and video monitors for pit to... and ...to pit. Also looking into bell mics for each instrument. As for mixing console, I have a M7CL-48 using 16 channels for pit, 16 for wireless, 8 to 10 for area mics for back-up vocal stuff. 

If your looking into new install sound system,
after having a new system for my 1,200 seat house for 3 years a few things I'd like to change, amend, assist: Keep the copper lines run to each side of stage. Add copper lines to pit, Fly system grid, cavern above house ceiling yet below roof. Add ethersound runs to each spot as well for future use. I would have used the ethersound option in a few areas for most musicals we produce. Our performing arts hall is lucky enough to have a recording studio that I would like to have 8 tie lines run into. The room the studio uses for playing in isn't the best, but i think it's better than the trouble our pit delivers.

- If I needed a second board, I'm happy my main is a M7CL, very ease to get extra ins/outs/sync lines with card slots.
- agree 2 board ops, and a monitor tech.
- video feeds for keeping in sync will always be trouble
- making sure actors know music good enough 4 just piano - well my experiences says: 'push a little harder than they want and the outcome is much more than either side expected'
- sound quality is exactly what the mic picks up, weather off key or missed tempo. no correction for that. what you hear in the house: that starts with coverage by speakers and ends with an op the can understand what he/she hears from the speakers.
- have 3 days for sound before adding another tech element. day 1: keep rehearsal music arrangement, and add actors mics. Day 2: keep actors mic'd and add pit. Day 3: work out kinks between the troublesome trio(pit, actors, house)
- putting the orchestra 50 blocks away being 2 far? mush not have been a signal lag issue, Would be interesting putting the orchestra/band on the moon! I'm up for that challenge, R U?
- Yes I'm totally serious about [putting the band on the moon challenge. Having an idea of what would be harder makes the current issue(s) seem easier or not so out of control.


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## DrPinto (Apr 19, 2012)

In my opinion, if you're going to remove the orchestra from a place where the audience can directly hear the sound, you might as well just use a recording. I always thought there was a big difference between the sound I heard coming from an instrument and the sound I heard coming from a speaker. What's the point of having a real orchestra if you're only going to hear the instruments through speakers?


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## museav (Apr 19, 2012)

techieman33 said:


> With thick enough Glass it's possible to get it pretty close to sound proof. Two of our spot booths have somewhere around 3/4" thick glass in front of them and you can't hear a thing in there when it's 115DB on the other side of the glass.


I think you may be overlooking several factors such as the frequency content of the noise source and the ambient noise levels at the receiver. When assessing sound isolation the frequency content of the sound source is often a critical factor, especially when dealing with many common music and mechanical noise sources that contain significant low frequency energy. A window system to isolate a variety of instruments and acceptable playback levels would be extremely expensive and even then may not be sufficient.

For an example, randomly picking a common manufacturer, their highest isolation STC55 rated acoustical window assembly is 8-5/8" thick and has a 40dB Transmission Loss at 125Hz. ASHRAE recommends an ambient noise level of NC20 for drama performance spaces, which is 40dBSPL at 125Hz, however you would want to be 10-12dB below that to not add to the level so that would be a goal of a 28dBSPL receiving level. So if you had a source level of 115dBSPL at 125Hz, a 40dB Transmission Loss at 125Hz from the window assembly and an allowable receiving level of 28dBSPL at 125Hz, that would mean you require an additional 47dB of loss at 125Hz. There will be other factors involved such as listener room correction, but unless the room is very dead at 125Hz and the listeners are quite some distance away, those factors will provide much less than 47dB of attenuation. And a single pane of 3/4" laminated glass would have somewhere around a 10dB lower Transmission Loss at 125Hz and thus be even more deficient at low frequencies.

FWIW, you rarely effectively increase the sound isolation of glass simply by making it thicker, you generally need to look to multiple panes with intervening airspaces, laminated lites, lites and panes of varying thicknesses (to address coincidence dip) and so on.



As far as the concept of a remote orchestra, the purist in me wants to say then why not also move the actors into a space that works better for them (and would be less expensive to build), chromakey in backgrounds, add any visual effects and project the result in the auditorium, that would be just as 'live'. However, the realist sees the issues and the potential viability of a remote orchestra. As others have already noted, there are some challenges in that arrangement including technical challenges that while they can be overcome, could greatly impact the technical systems and associated budget required. My fear is venues and companies committing to a remote orchestra concept without having the resources or abilities to properly support it.

There may also human factors to consider, for example at the end of a performance the orchestra and conductor are greeted with nothing. No recognition of them by pointing to them, no hearing the applause. They somewhat become more like the tech crew than performers (hmmm, maybe IATSE should think about that...).

I think an interesting concept would be to create a virtual reality for the musicians. Put a wide angle camera at the stage lip and have the musicians looking at a wall of monitors that makes it seem as though they are looking out into the audience chamber. Maybe even a stage camera on display above and behind the musicians (for which latency and timing issues might be a factor). Document the acoustics where they would otherwise be playing and try to recreate that acoustical environment in their performance space using feeds from the space along with an electronic reverberation/acoustic enhancement system.


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## Chris15 (Apr 19, 2012)

A part of me says that if an orchestra in a room can't balance their own sound out they aren't a very good orchestra and so one option is (assuming a reasonably good orchestra room acoustically) to just put a stereo pair not far from the conductor (since she is the one that should be getting the optimum balance)...

As for band on the moon, my concern would be all the space junk taking out the fibre link (man that's a long piece of fibre, shame about that rotation thing)...


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## TMPTechDir (Apr 19, 2012)

Hey all,

I'm the TD at the venue in question here and thought I would throw in a few bits about what we have to work with. As JChenault stated, we have 400 seats and the originally proposed pit will be 23x14. The room that the Music Director is suggesting would be about 24x12 with an 8ft ceiling. We also have an orchestra anywhere from a small combo to a 24 piece group w/ some musicians doubling. I think the large windows would be out of the question. Its difficult enough to see the back of a darkened house with stage lights up at all...let alone 15 feet up the back wall. Cameras and monitors would be a necessity. The proposed board is an M7CL, though at this point, there is no plans for an auxillary board to mix the orchestra from "off-site". We also routinely run up to 32 body packs for the actors and have a proposed 12 aerial and 4 boundary mics going in. All told, it looks as though we'll have nearly 80 sources to mix. I'd be happy to have more control over the orch levels to get a great balanced sound (adjusting musical dynamics to what is on stage seems to be a foreign concept to some...if its written "FF" then they play their brains out). Another question though is the skill level of the board ops. I have trouble getting the money-holders to pay for the skilled operators and we routinely run shows with high school students manning the sliders. Anyway, I've been scouting out this site for a while now and have finally become a member so I wanted to take a second to thank you guys for your input.


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## Footer (Apr 19, 2012)

JChenault said:


> The proposed pit is 23 feet by 14 feet. The proposed opening is 23 feet by 6 feet.
> 
> Size of house is 400 seats. No balcony.



How many musicians is the typical show? That is a pretty small pit, are we talking 10 people (Piano, percussion, a few strings, a few winds)? Are you looking to produce Webber where you need the 30+ pits.

With a house as small as yours, you are adding a ton of complexity that is simply not needed. I would price it out both ways, but your operating costs are going to go up with an off site pit. 


JChenault said:


> Could you expand on this a bit. (not totally sure what you mean by zones. Assuming it is from a source -> through mixer/amp -> to speakers. ) I think you are saying that it is suddenly harder to get an acceptable stage monitor mix as it has to come entirely through the monitor system and nothing direct from the orchestra. Same from the stage to the pit. Additionally the mix from the orchestra to the house becomes much more critical. Is that the point or am I in the weeds?



Almost. If you go "on the moon", you have to really consider monitoring much more then usual. Sure, you always need a conductor monitor and you always need to boost a the strings and piano to the stage. However, when you isolate them you now have to fully monitor everything, if your not sending it they can't hear it. Its not a bad thing, but it makes things a lot harder for your engineers. They now have to deal with a full stage mix, full monitor mix, and FOH mix. That is a lot of monitoring. It is also a lot more monitoring then most theatre engineers are trained to deal with. It is the reason why for R&R monitoring is on a separate console.


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## Footer (Apr 19, 2012)

TMPTechDir said:


> Another question though is the skill level of the board ops. I have trouble getting the money-holders to pay for the skilled operators and we routinely run shows with high school students manning the sliders. Anyway, I've been scouting out this site for a while now and have finally become a member so I wanted to take a second to thank you guys for your input.



Your question is answered. Asking a high school kid to mix this many inputs is really out of the question. Your going to be running at least 12 mixes plus FOH across 80 something inputs... that is something that would give my audio guys a run for their money. 

To put in flatly, a board op can not mix this. A good engineer can. Good engineers don't come cheap.


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## Clarkwg3 (Apr 19, 2012)

DrPinto said:


> What's the point of having a real orchestra if you're only going to hear the instruments through speakers?



Evidently the speakers you have heard this arrangement through were not providing proper coverage for the space. My 1200 seat house with balcony has: lip fill, side fill arrays, flown main center cluster over balcony and under balcony delays. All that making a seamless transition as you walk around the theater. If you pay attention you can notice when you in a particular speakers' cone of sound otherwise the coverage is pretty seamless. Having said that, now I have to mention that the acoustics in our auditorium are horribly live. Our pit is heard perfectly in balcony, front 3rd of lower house gets blasted directly from pit, middle 3rd get good coverage through reflection and back 3r, most of which is under our balcony, gets reflections from throughout the space and almost always sucks for anything relying on the rooms acoustics. 

Our decision is based on our sound system being able to properly cover the space. We still have some acoustic reflection area to address, but still get better coverage by amplifying the pit.

Someone on here said 'Why not just use a recording then.' OMG, I kill you. I've worked with our sister theater that uses a midi pit. I HATE the sound produced. I talked them into recording their band playing the music during school day, once. They really liked the sound of actual instruments, the down side is to change anything meant rerecording the whole song. Yes we tried to recording a section and splice it in, BAD idea! The recorded pit also meant if an actor messed up and the pit needed to play a loop for a while that wouldn't be possible, The midi could, a real pit could(weather in the pit or in a different space)


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## museav (Apr 20, 2012)

Clarkwg3 said:


> Evidently the speakers you have heard this arrangement through were not providing proper coverage for the space. My 1200 seat house with balcony has: lip fill, side fill arrays, flown main center cluster over balcony and under balcony delays. All that making a seamless transition as you walk around the theater. If you pay attention you can notice when you in a particular speakers' cone of sound otherwise the coverage is pretty seamless. Having said that, now I have to mention that the acoustics in our auditorium are horribly live. Our pit is heard perfectly in balcony, front 3rd of lower house gets blasted directly from pit, middle 3rd get good coverage through reflection and back 3r, most of which is under our balcony, gets reflections from throughout the space and almost always sucks for anything relying on the rooms acoustics.
> 
> Our decision is based on our sound system being able to properly cover the space. We still have some acoustic reflection area to address, but still get better coverage by amplifying the pit.


Proper coverage of the listeners is one of the most critical factors in audio system performance, however it is not the only factor that may be relevant.

As an example, if the orchestra is all through the sound system then that probably means increased levels, especially at lower frequencies, being reproduced by the speaker system and particularly near the stage where the audience might otherwise hear the orchestra acoustically. Especially at lower frequencies where the pattern control of the speakers may be more limited, that would likely translate into greater 'spill' levels on stage which can in turn could result in reduced gain before feedback for any open microphones on stage.


I don't think the question regarding 'zones' was answered. I believe that what Kyle was referring to was that when you remove an acoustical path of communication such as orchestra to stage then you may have to recreate that communication path electronically. When they are in the pit the orchestra hears some of the stage sound and some of the house sound and conversely, both those on stage and in the audience hear the orchestra. That's four audible communication paths that may have to be recreated via the audio system and that are likely related to four different mixes. You may also want Assistive Listening and remote/overflow mixes that then differ from any of the other mixes. You can quickly find yourself faced with a multitude of different mixes being involved some of which have the potential of becoming sources of feedback if certain sources are included or turned up too much in that mix. That can be a lot to expect of an inexperienced operator, or even multiple operators, who may already be struggling with handling up to 32 wireless mics, 12 hanging mics, 4 boundary mics and all of the orchestra inputs.


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## damjamkato (Apr 20, 2012)

I'm currently sound designing a production of West Side Story that is using a 15 piece orchestra located in a separate room. Just for a bit of background, my high school has two performance spaces; a 350 seat thrust on the ground floor, and a 640 seat proscenium on the second floor. Because of space issues in both venues, on the ground floor there is a remodeled classroom treated to be acoustically "dead" that we use as our pit room. It has audio and video ties to both of the performance spaces, so it is able to be used for a show in either venue. 

In terms of audio, all mics for the band are fed into a 16 channel Aviom system. From there the audio is sent through Cat-5 cable to the theatre. Inside the theatre, an Aviom break out box feeds into a 16 channel submixer, and from there into the main 32 channel mixer. Each musician has their own Aviom personal mixer and headphones and can adjust their mix themselves. Vocals are sent through copper from the main mixer in the theatre to the Aviom input module in the pit room, allowing them to become part of the Aviom network, and therefore part of the musician's personal mixes. 

There are a few issues with the way this specific system was designed. 15 inputs for the band really is not enough, especially for my current show. I am being forced to submix the drum kit and percussion down to one channel each, in order for everything to fit into the Aviom system. If I had the ability to re-design the system, I would make sure to have more available inputs from the pit room to the theatre. For the musician's monitoring, I would still recommend a personal monitoring system like the Aviom, but rather than feed the instruments mics directly into it, create subgroups (brass, keys, drum kit, vocals, etc.) to allow the musicians an easier time in creating their mixes, as well as fix the issue with limited channels. Also, I would most certainly mix the band inputs in the house as opposed to the pit room. What sounds good to someone mixing the band in the pit room may not sound so good a front of house, when variability in volume level and EQ is taken into account.

Each performance space is equipped with two networked PTZ cameras, which are viewed on LCD TV's in the pit room. The conductor has control over both of them from the pit room. There is another camera in the pit room focused on the conductor, which is then shown on another LCD TV on the back wall of the theatre, for the actors to see. There is also an intercom line wired from each of the performance space intercom systems to the pit room.

It has worked well for all of our past shows. We usually mic up the actors one to two days before the band arrives, and then dedicate one to two rehearsals (depending on length) to sound checking and stumbling through the show with the band. For these rehearsals we have found it helpful to have a designated person being on a headset in the pit room, in order to facilitate communication between the two rooms. As has been previously said, this is not just an isolated system. Monitoring for the stage needs to be taken into account. Whether your current speakers can faithfully reproduce what the band is playing is extremely important. There is no point in investing in this system if your main PA is pair of Mackie's on tripod stands (hyperbole, but you get the point). Do you have enough mics for everything in the pit room? And again, do you have the personel with the skills to set up and operate the system?

I would say don't make the investment to do this "just because". There are situations that call for it, and there are others where a more traditional orchestra pit may work better.


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## FMEng (Apr 24, 2012)

TMPTechDir said:


> Hey all,
> 
> I'm the TD at the venue in question here and thought I would throw in a few bits about what we have to work with. As JChenault stated, we have 400 seats and the originally proposed pit will be 23x14. The room that the Music Director is suggesting would be about 24x12 with an 8ft ceiling. We also have an orchestra anywhere from a small combo to a 24 piece group w/ some musicians doubling.



I have mixed a number of live broadcasts from a studio about that size. A room that small will not provide you with good sound for more than about 6 musicians because reflections and lack of physical separation will cause a lot of bleed into the mics. Drums and brass will make life difficult. Any large glass surface will make it that much worse. Worse yet, you'd need to do all monitoring with headphones, which makes monitor mixing very critical. 

No way you would get 24 musicians in there and individually mic the instruments. For a big group, the best you could do would be a carefully arranged stereo pair and a few spot mics, and then you would be totally reliant on the acoustical properties of the room. The acoustic design of that room will be crucial, and it will take a professional designer with a large budget to make it work.

Also consider that the room will need one heck of an HVAC system to handle the heat load of all those people, and it will have to be quiet which is not easy or affordable. If the HVAC isn't done well, you'll have bad sound, unhappy musicians, and wood instruments that won't stay in tune, especially a piano.

My advice is go with a pit, which will be much simpler and cheaper in the long run. After all, pits have worked fine for the last hundred years or so.


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## museav (Apr 24, 2012)

FMEng said:


> I have mixed a number of live broadcasts from a studio about that size. A room that small will not provide you with good sound for more than about 6 musicians because reflections and lack of physical separation will cause a lot of bleed into the mics. Drums and brass will make life difficult. Any large glass surface will make it that much worse. Worse yet, you'd need to do all monitoring with headphones, which makes monitor mixing very critical.
> 
> No way you would get 24 musicians in there and individually mic the instruments. For a big group, the best you could do would be a carefully arranged stereo pair and a few spot mics, and then you would be totally reliant on the acoustical properties of the room. The acoustic design of that room will be crucial, and it will take a professional designer with a large budget to make it work.
> 
> Also consider that the room will need one heck of an HVAC system to handle the heat load of all those people, and it will have to be quiet which is not easy or affordable. If the HVAC isn't done well, you'll have bad sound, unhappy musicians, and wood instruments that won't stay in tune, especially a piano.


Good points, but some of them apply to either a 23'x14' pit or 24'x12' room as with 24 musicians plus a conductor, and assuming that you can actually use all of the floor space, that equates to about 11.5 square feet per person for the room and 13 square feet per person for the pit, both of which are significantly less area than is recommended for that purpose.

Wherever you locate the orchestra there may also be related life safety and ADA considerations. Is the space rated for that use and occupancy? Are there appropriate exit paths? Is the space accessible? There may also be practical considerations such as access for instruments (can you get timpanis, a piano, etc. to and from and into and out of the space), sound isolation, background noise levels, the relationship to restrooms and so on. Whether it is a pit or a remote room, just because there is a space does not necessarily mean it can be used or will be practical to use as a space for an orchestra or ensemble to perform.


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## kiwitechgirl (Apr 24, 2012)

I've just come off a run of _La Traviata_ on a massive outdoor stage, with the orchestra in a soundproofed room under the stage, all mic'ed up and amplified. Yes, it's an opera rather than a musical, but the basic principle was the same. We had four "stage orchestral" rehearsals and then two full dress rehearsals - and the sound engineer was juggling about 50 radio mics as well as 40 orchestra mics. It worked very well in our situation having the orchestra isolated - but our sound engineer is a genius and vastly experienced, plus we had five other sound staff looking after the radio mics on the cast, the Aviom system the orchestra had for their foldback and the onstage foldbacks, in case anything went wrong. I'd say that would be a bare minimum of rehearsals (total of 18 hours) - and that was with a crew who knew exactly what they were doing.

As Brad has pointed out, there are MAJOR logistical issues - despite me warning the production manager I needed a 3 foot wide door to get the two biggest timpani through, he forgot and so we had to half-dismantle a wall to get the drums in and out, for instance. The air conditioning was a huge issue too- if the trombones were warm enough, the horns were freezing but the bass players were too hot - it being a sealed room was the issue. The humidity also caused some interesting problems amongst the wind players - a lot of bubbles under keys. Our space was approximately 10 metres by 6.5 metres, and we crammed 39 musicians in there (the harp was in another room, because in a normal production of the opera she'd be in the wings playing with the tenor who is singing from offstage at that point), plus all the mic stands, the Aviom desks, etc etc. It was cosy to say the least, and we did end up with some players injured as they'd had to sit at an angle which meant to see the conductor they had to twist backs and necks. My point here is that if you do go down this road, make sure you get input from musicians when the space is being designed - they may have needs that hadn't even occurred to you but will make things a whole load easier for them.


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## Chris15 (Apr 24, 2012)

kiwitechgirl said:


> and the sound engineer was juggling about 50 radio mics as well as 40 orchestra mics. It worked very well in our situation having the orchestra isolated - but our sound engineer is a genius and vastly experienced, plus we had five other sound staff looking after the radio mics on the cast, the Aviom system the orchestra had for their foldback and the onstage foldbacks, in case anything went wrong.



TDC is one of the few people in this country / the world that could pull that off.
Was Steve RF master?


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## JChenault (Apr 24, 2012)

Guys

A couple of points that I need to clarify.
1 - Neither the TD nor myself think this is a very good idea - but we need to do our due diligence on it and not dismiss it out of hand. The comments from ControlBoogh has been great. Special thanks to damkamjato and kiwitechgirl, FMEng, and museav for their replies.
2 - We seem to have been sidetracked by the issue of glass walls and the size of a room in the current control booth. This glass wall concept was pretty much a non starter from the first. But there are other spaces in the building that would be available that are quite large. 10 to 12 foot ceilings. up to 1000 square feet. 
3 - ADA access and air conditioning are not an issue. Indeed the reason the proposed orchestra pit is as small as it is is purely based on code requirements. One reason the glass wall concept is wrong is due to ADA / fire exit reasons. But the other spaces in the building do not have these problems. ( Located on the ground floor. Lots of exits. Sufficient HVAC. Large doors ).


The question that I would like to ask ( mostly from those that have done this ) is how would you do this with a large room.

Would you closely mike each instrument or use area mikes in the room?
Does each member of the orchestra get a monitor headset - or just the conductor? 
Do you feed in the vocals via a monitor headset, or with speakers in the room?
Do you have a separate audio engineer mixing the sound for the orchestra and feeding it into the voice console - or do you combine the functions into one larger console and one operator?
How many additional rehearsal days does it take to get the orchestra sounding good?
Are there different skills that a musician in an orchestra room being heavily miked needs that a pit musician working acoustically would not have?
How do you handle voice communication between the conductor and the house during rehearsals?


I'm 98% sure that the orchestra room approach is a bad idea for our venue, but I am quite curious how folks that know how to do it would approach the problem.


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## FMEng (Apr 24, 2012)

It would be interesting to talk to some musicians about how they would feel about working in an isolated room. Some of the classically trained musicians I've encountered recoil in fear of being totally reliant on microphones. It would also be wise to take an informal poll of your season ticket holders. I suspect that more than a few would perceive not seeing and directly hearing the orchestra to lower the quality of the theater experience. I think I'd fall into that camp myself even though I would love to have that much control when doing the mixing.

I'll try to answer a few of your questions. Micing the room could work fine, but it'll depend on the room acoustics being very good as a recording studio (that's essentially what the space becomes). Getting good sound from a few room mics takes skill from both the audio technician and the music director. Placement of instruments and mics has to be right. The results would tend to be pretty consistent.

Micing individual instruments or sections also works. It increases the amount of equipment and size of console greatly. It also greatly increases the workload on the person mixing. The results may be less consistent if you have different people at the controls night to night because mixing a large number of channels will be a challenge.

Monitoring is a tough thing. I would prefer to not use monitor speakers due to the unwanted bleed and coloration it would add to the results. Some shows would probably get away with just the director wearing cans. Other shows might have solo and ensemble parts where the musicians must hear the singers to get it right. I have to tell you that when I mix live radio, the thing that scares me the most is monitor mixes. When something isn't right with the broadcast mix, I can hear it and correct it. When the artists aren't grooving to what they are hearing in the headphones, it can turn a into a bad performance very quickly. I don't have sight lines to see any indications of discontent. Monitor mixes are almost more important than the house mix in a normal situation, and an isolated room just makes it even more so.

I would worry about having enough really skillful technicians to pull this off night after night. You'll need an exceptional sound crew.

By the way, I just realized we're talking about Tacoma Musical Playhouse. Tell Maria that Lowell from KPLU says hi. I know her from her work at the Weather Service.


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## museav (Apr 25, 2012)

FMEng said:


> I'll try to answer a few of your questions. Micing the room could work fine, but it'll depend on the room acoustics being very good as a recording studio (that's essentially what the space becomes).


Which also shows some of the challenges as what is good as a recording studio from the electronic signal perspective is not necessarily good as a performance space from the musicians' perspective. From a recording/signal gathering perspective you may want to essentially remove the environment so that you have full control. However, from a performing and listening perspective the acoustics of the performance space is often a desired component. So you can end up with two somewhat conflicting goals that may have to be reconciled and that can be even more challenging if you are using 'found' space rather than a space you can design and construct specifically for the application. Unless you have a space like a studio or rehearsal hall that provides a desirable acoustical environment for the performers and supports the use of distant or area microphones, you may almost have to go the route of making the room 'dead' and using close miking and heaphones or personal monitors.


FMEng said:


> I would worry about having enough really skillful technicians to pull this off night after night. You'll need an exceptional sound crew.


I agree, this is a very critical element.


Another possible consideration but will you always have the same musicians for every performance? Changes in the musicians even from illness or other unexpected causes might be more difficult for both them and the techs, especially if thay have not performed that way before.


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## cleighton (Apr 25, 2012)

I have seen and been in this discussion many time. This is what it comes down to for me if you cant hear them live and want to but them in another room why not just lay down tracks..There presents is part of the musical experience. 
One of the performing spaces we use we become quite creative as to where the the orchestra goes on roofs of sets in basements of sets behind scrim windows.


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## DrPinto (Apr 25, 2012)

cleighton said:


> One of the performing spaces we use we become quite creative as to where the the orchestra goes on roofs of sets in basements of sets behind scrim windows.



Where's the best place to put the orchestra has been an ongoing issue forever. I found this solution interesting. I wonder what the acoustics were like in this space?


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## damjamkato (Apr 29, 2012)

Figured I'd post our current setup for West Side Story. It's a 16 piece orchestra, plus conductor.


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## themuzicman (May 1, 2012)

Each route has it's distinct advantages and disadvantages. 

When considering putting the band in a separate room -
*Does your current audio system have the facilities to support individual micing of all instruments? My current 8 person band setup on my tour uses close to 28 inputs...combine that with mics and sfx, you can quickly max out the capacity of your console. 
*Do you have the speakers to give the actors the sound they need onstage from the band? High side fill speakers on stage give the actors the instrumentation they need to stay in tempo with the music, without this the orchestration could quickly fall apart. 
*Forgoing a class wall, a video system would do just as good. Give the conductor a shot from FOH, give the actors shots of the conductor and you're golden.

When considering to go with a pit:
*Consider that the micing your MD saw was for reasons other than amplification. Maybe the sound he heard in the theatre was at least partially acoustic from the pit, and that those mics were feeding signal to backstage program feeds or helping amplification in other places in the theatre (maybe the orchestra section is unamplified, but the upper balcony is amplified)
*Consider the size of your orchestra - if you are using a 20 piece orchestra in a converted movie theatre space will be at a premium and the musicians may make too much noise to effectively amplify the actors over. Then again, an 8 piece band might sound perfectly natural in a pit. 
*Is the pit liftable? When you aren't doing musicals are you going to have 10' downstage that is now effectively dead because you can't either lift it up to orchestra level to be seating or raise it up to stage level to provide extra playing space?

On my tour I prefer to always have a pit, but there have been a few notable occasions where I have had to throw the band in a separate room. With the right gear either way is approachable, but when I have them in a room it kills me a little bit. The actors don't get what they need from the band on stage right from the start (it takes a little bit to dial in exactly what the actors need with a remoted band). Either way is approachable, but I think your MD might not understand all the forces that are at play when watching the shows he saw.


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## museav (Oct 19, 2012)

themuzicman said:


> When considering to go with a pit:
> *Consider that the micing your MD saw was for reasons other than amplification. Maybe the sound he heard in the theatre was at least partially acoustic from the pit, and that those mics were feeding signal to backstage program feeds or helping amplification in other places in the theatre (maybe the orchestra section is unamplified, but the upper balcony is amplified)


I know this is an old thread but I should have noted at the time that about a year ago composer Richard Einhorn was involved in a series of interviews regarding his experiences with assistive listening systems and in particular induction loop systems. Mr. Einhorn was kind enough to communicate with me and during one of those discussions noted that he was disappointed that what was published did not place greater emphasis on his postive experiences being a factor of not just the technology used but also the quality of the assistive listening mix. This reminded me that an ALS mix may be another reason for micing something for purposes other than reinforcement to the audience chamber.


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## hamlett22 (Dec 16, 2012)

*Live Pit orchestra in separate room*

HI

Due to space constraints and lack of a proper pit we are considering setting up our pit orchestra for the spring musical in the band room across from the theatre.

I have a few questions as we move forward to run a test on this theoretical application.

- Room microphones; Any suggestions on what type of room microphones we should use? Trim height? 
- Our sound system in the theatre has 16 speakers placed at various part of the house pointed at specific sections. Of course we have been running our show mics through these speakers. Any ideas or advice on mixing live orchestra with show mics?
- Video feeds; we will have to run live video feeds to the band room so the conductor can see and setup a monitor for the actors on stage for cuing purposes; there are always those spots in the show that an actor has to cue in on an orchestra conductor. I thought about placing a monitor in the first row of the house facing the stage but I wonder if the image would be big enough and besides the glow of the screen will affect blackouts which can ruin certain effects. Unless I run a DMX power switch from the monitor into the light board and shut down the monitor with a light cue ??? Are there DMX power switches? 

The cable run for the video feeds would be roughly 100 meters each way. We have one permanently installed fiber video cable that runs 250 meters and that works but it cost 2000 grand to put in. Any cheaper solutions out there?
- Any other details that I should be aware of?

Our plan is to rent a couple of microphones and test them in jan by hanging them in the band room and then testing the output during the band director's classes. I just want to make sure we test all the variables. 

The scary thing is if anything were to fail in the audio feed from the orchestra in another room during a show, the show stops.

Any advice is appreciated.

Chad


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## Footer (Dec 16, 2012)

*Re: Live Pit orchestra in separate room*

Failing to provide the feed is really the smallest detail. 

You have three issues. First, providing a zero latency bi-directional video feed is not cheep in the digital age. If you still have a pile of CRT's and old cameras your in luck. If you are forced to by new digital TV's it gets a bit harder. Houses that do this usually mount a "conductor cam" about the middle of the house on the balcony rail and in each vom, if you have such a thing. You want it to be in line of sight of the actors onstage, they should not have to look down to see it. 

Second, it is probably going to be next to impossible to do room mics and get a quality product. Unless your band room is perfectly acoustically treated, your going to have an orchestra sound like they are in a school band room... playing in a theatre. You will want to do everything possible to deaden the room. On top of that, your going to be better off to locally mic each instrument instead of the "room mic" idea. You will get a much better sound because the acoustics of the room will have less of an impact. Micing each instrument is most likely going to add bringing in a lot of gear that you don't have. Additionaly, it is going to add a whole ton of complexity that could be a challenge for your students to operate. 

Third, monitoring audio is going to become a real pain. You almost need to have a 3rd console just dedicated to sending feeds to the stage from the pit and to the pit from the stage. It is another layer of complexity that could give you massive problems if you don't already have a rather elaborate monitor system already in place. 

My feeling is that unless this is the ONLY way, it is not the way to go. Without the proper gear, room, and staff your asking for a world of hurt. 

Additionally, read this thread: http://www.controlbooth.com/forums/sound-music-intercom/28297-orchestra-pit-orchestra-room.html


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## Stookeybrd (Dec 16, 2012)

*Re: Live Pit orchestra in separate room*

As Footer brought up there is several main issues with removing the pit from the theater, the biggest being visual connections ratter than audio connections. The specification you want to look at is the response time or lag of the display. Other than CRTs every display will have lag and it can be as small as 10mS or as high as 300mS. That can be as much as an 1/8th beat difference between the band and the actors. Plus, the difficulty that many LCD displays have is that their delay is floating and not a fixed rate. If you can get your hands on a pair of CRTs then they should never leave your theater. They are worth every inch of space they take up.

The best place to put these displays is on the front of the balcony. If that isn't possible as high up and as center as possible. Depending on the distance of your first row from the lip of the stage it will be far too low for any singer upstage to see and for any singer trying to sing to the audience either.

There is a gel, I'm actually unsure of who makes it but we call it "Neutral Density." Get a large sheet of it for each screen, and it will help eliminate any glare during blackouts and still maintain a bright enough screen to be seen in stage lights.


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## techieman33 (Dec 16, 2012)

*Re: Live Pit orchestra in separate room*


Stookeybrd said:


> There is a gel, I'm actually unsure of who makes it but we call it "Neutral Density." Get a large sheet of it for each screen, and it will help eliminate any glare during blackouts and still maintain a bright enough screen to be seen in stage lights.



All of the manufacturers make neutral densisty gel in at least a couple of different levels.


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## themuzicman (Dec 17, 2012)

*Re: Live Pit orchestra in separate room*


hamlett22 said:


> HI
> 
> Due to space constraints and lack of a proper pit we are considering setting up our pit orchestra for the spring musical in the band room across from the theatre.
> 
> ...




Without a bit of work, this may not sound the greatest. You'll want tight delay zoning, and some good mic'ing in your band room. How big is your orchestra? The musicals I've done have all had stereo feeds from a digital piano, one mic per brass, an up and a down mic per each woodwind (ex: flute gets up, sax gets down), a fully mic'd drum set, and tight mic'ing on strings. You could probably get away with less, but be warned that two overheads over an orchestra won't get you nearly the sound you'll want. 

In regards to mixing, if you have an analog console I'd go the submix route - have a smaller console sending a stereo feed to your larger console. Your larger console is pumping out vocals and can affect large changes in band volume, and the smaller console is dealing with the minutiae of the band mix. If you have a digital console I'd throw the band on a VCA (if you have them), else I'd route them to their own mix or several mix's to give you large movement control and fine control.

As for the video, to get bi-lateral video this is simple - 75 ohm coaxial cable, or you can use Cat5. You can run composite video straight out of a camera to the source television, or if you already have a long run of Cat5 you can use a coax to cat5 balun 

Energy Transformation Systems ETS BNC Composite Video Over CAT5 Extended Baseband Baluns Composite Video Over CAT5 at Markertek.com 

You run one cable going from an FOH camera to the conductor, and one video feed from the conductor to a large television hung on the FOH balcony rail or somewhere on the apron of the stage - large enough so the conductor can cue all the actors. 

I must warn you that the band trying to take cues off of remoted video is tricky enough for professionals, make sure to budget PLENTY of tech time for both orchestra rehearsal getting them used to taking video cues both ways and getting your mix right with the remoted band.


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## museav (Dec 18, 2012)

*Re: Live Pit orchestra in separate room*


themuzicman said:


> In regards to mixing, if you have an analog console I'd go the submix route - have a smaller console sending a stereo feed to your larger console. Your larger console is pumping out vocals and can affect large changes in band volume, and the smaller console is dealing with the minutiae of the band mix. If you have a digital console I'd throw the band on a VCA (if you have them), else I'd route them to their own mix or several mix's to give you large movement control and fine control.


A detail but a VCA would be associated with an analog console, on a digital console it would be a DCA, but you could do basically do the same thing with either a VCA or DCA so the console being analog versus digital does not necessarily make a difference.

As already noted, the video is not necessarily that simple. If it is newer equipment it may be component, HDMI or SD/HD-SDI from the camera and a LCD or plasma monitor rather than composite video and CRT monitors and in those cases latency can become an issue as might the 100m run length.

Chad, as Footer already covered, you mentioned using a couple of microphones in the band room for the orchestra and when you mock that up you might want to be sure to consider how limited control you have over the orchestra mix and how much the band room acoustics affect what you hear in the theater since what people hear will then reflect both how band room acoustics and the theater acoustics (via the theater audio system).


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## themuzicman (Dec 18, 2012)

*Re: Live Pit orchestra in separate room*


museav said:


> A detail but a VCA would be associated with an analog console, on a digital console it would be a DCA, but you could do basically do the same thing with either a VCA or DCA so the console being analog versus digital does not necessarily make a difference.



Whatever the manufacturer wants to call it, it all has the same function 
DCA on a Yamaha, Control Group on a DiGiCo, VGroup on a D-Mitri/LCS rig, though funny enough Digidesign keeps the VCA moniker on the VENUE lineup.


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## museav (Dec 19, 2012)

*Re: Live Pit orchestra in separate room*


themuzicman said:


> Whatever the manufacturer wants to call it, it all has the same function
> DCA on a Yamaha, Control Group on a DiGiCo, VGroup on a D-Mitri/LCS rig, though funny enough Digidesign keeps the VCA moniker on the VENUE lineup.


It is not a matter of what manufacturers call it, VCA and DCA are the generic names for 'circuits' that modify analog (VCA) or digital (VCA) signal levels based on an external control input. Same functionality with the level affected by both the channel fader and VCA/DCA master but to different types of audio signals and in different manners, for example a DCA could be software that applies a mathematical multiplier to the digital signal level.

But the point I was actually trying to make is that since there are analog consoles with VCA functionality, the different approaches you noted would seem to be a factor of having VCA/DCA functionality or not rather than analog versus digital.


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## TimmyP1955 (Jan 1, 2013)

josh88 said:


> The first thing that comes to mind to me is that even with a wall of glass in the back of the theatre the actors wouldn't be able to see a conductor. With stage lights on and a dark house (not to mention the distance to the back of the house in some spaces) you can end up pretty blind, I feel like that would be a pretty quick problem.



I can't imagine the actors being able to see a conductor in a pit either. Oftentimes they are lucky if they can see the floor five feet in front of them.


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## Footer (Jan 1, 2013)

TimmyP1955 said:


> I can't imagine the actors being able to see a conductor in a pit either. Oftentimes they are lucky if they can see the floor five feet in front of them.



Which is why you always have a top special on the conductor or maestro. 

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk HD


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## kiwitechgirl (Jan 2, 2013)

Since this thread was last active, I've been through this again - a behemoth of an opera called _Die tote Stadt_ which was so massive we couldn't get the orchestra in the pit, so we were in the Sydney Opera House Studio theatre, one of the smaller venues in the building. Same sound engineer as we had for Opera on Sydney Harbour, thank goodness, and even more technology. It was all close-mic'ed and I can't see how it would have worked any other way - general room mics will just not cut it. Somehow we did get away with non-CRT screens without a delay problem - although having said that, the conductor monitors in the theatre itself were CRTs, it was just the conductor's stage feed which was LCD/plasma or whatever (not sure what they were but they were flat screens). We found that we had to have a prompter in the orchestra pit (opera prompter, not a stage manager kind of prompter) in case it all turned pear shaped, which gave us an extra level of security in case we lost visual feed of the conductor at any time. In terms of sound, the whole thing was actually fed through the Opera House's recording studio desk as it is linked throughout the building (I think!) and then to the theatre. Singers were mic'ed, but only so the conductor could hear them - no amplification in the hall.

In a nutshell, it can be done, but it's complicated and expensive and you really need a genius of a sound engineer to get it right, plus a lot of gear. We were constantly on edge in case it turned ugly, but mercifully we got away with it and the end result was pretty amazing. However, we did have six orchestra-only rehearsals, two sitzproben, four stage orchestral rehearsals and a General rehearsal to get it right...below is a panorama of the Studio during one of the rehearsals, you'll notice one of the conductor's monitors isn't working, I'm not sure what had happened there! The chorus are also visible in the gallery.


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