Lab.gruppen powers and processes new mobile monitor system at BC’s world-renowned Chan Centre for the Performing Arts
Chosen for their versatility, ease of use and superb power handling, Lab.gruppen PLM 10000Q Powered Loudspeaker Management systems were simply the best choice to power and process the monitor system at this internationally recognized, multi-purpose venue in Vancouver, British Columbia.
While there were a number of products under consideration to address the Chan Centre’s needs, ultimately it was a combination of Adamson M15 wedges and Lab.gruppen PLMs that won out for both sonic quality and ease of use, says Jay O’Keeffe, the Chan Centre’s Head Audio Technician. “That was one of the great things about choosing the product, they’re so flexible and we were able to train guys up in no time at all.”
With three discreet and uniquely purposed venues; the Chan Shun Concert Hall, the Telus Studio Theatre, and the Royal Bank Cinema, the Chan Centre is truly a landmark venue – Its distinctly sleek, cylindrical design offering a modern counterpoint to the lush surrounding grounds of Vancouver’s University of British Columbia campus.
Since opening in 1997, the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts has earned international praise from visiting performers, critics and patrons alike – as much for its stunning design as for its acoustics. Commissioned in the early 1990’s and designed by the team of Bing Thom Architects, ARTEC Consultants of New York and Theatre Projects Consultants, the Chan serves both UBC and Vancouver’s community at large, providing a venue for an ever-evolving cast of performers that cut across virtually all stylistic, cultural and musical lines.
When welcoming a range of artists that run such a wide gamut of musical styles, and feature such dramatically different instrumentation, flexibility is of paramount importance. “We can have anything from Gamelan to the Afro-Cuban All Stars to who knows what,” O’Keeffe says; a dynamic range of performers and performances which figured heavily in choosing the components of the Chan Centre’s new monitor system; a suite of seven Lab.gruppen PLM 10000Qs, mounted in a portable rolling rack, and paired with Adamson’s M15 multi-purpose wedges.
Serving both the main Chan Shun Concert Hall and the smaller, ‘black box’ Telus Theatre, the monitor system needed to be concise and transparent for users; requirements the four-channel Lab.gruppen PLMs spoke to admirably, offering powerful amplification and the added benefit of integrated Lake Processing in a decidedly compact package.
“To work and be successful in this venue you really have to have a strong understanding of a wide range of instruments; many of them non-western,” O’Keeffe continues. “In the main hall they’ve had everything from contemporary classical and world music to Sigur Rós and Joe Jackson.” In the Telus Theatre performances also cover a wide range; from local indie artists’ concerts, to multi-disciplinary installation works. That was a major factor in the choice of the both the Lab’s and the boxes they power. “Part of the reason we chose the Lab.gruppen is that we’re a road house. We have, and we’ve had, numerous touring groups through here, bringing in all manner of systems.”
The main concert hall also offers certain challenges, O’Keeffe explains; “It’s hard to mix, because it’s super live. It’s kind of like mixing in a stadium. One of the reasons we actually went with the Lab product was because two or three times people had come through who were using the Lake Processing and it sounded spectacular – Watching how fast they could use it and what they were capable of doing was one of the deciding factors when I started to do comparisons.”
“Fidelity was one of the key issues for us,” O’Keeffe says. The choice of the Labs and Adamson M15 wedges was the result of a two-tiered shootout during which O’Keeffe, who had no prior preference for the Lab’s, worked closely with dealer LTS Worldwide. The process was aimed: first at finding the best sounding monitor for the venue and its needs; secondly, at ensuring all system components were well-matched and optimized for use with the speaker boxes they ultimately chose; and finally, at achieving both goals in as cost effective a manner as possible. “When we started to look at high quality analogue graphs and outboard processing it ended up being pretty much the same, dollar-for-dollar, and this solution makes it much more compact.”
Although amplification and processing wasn’t O’Keeffe’s primary concern during the initial selection process, he says that he’d identified the PLM 10000Qs as a potentially ideal choice prior to completely settling on the Adamson system. Simply put, in every case the combination of amplification and DSP offered by the Labs won out; providing both the power to optimize sound in the Chan Shun Concert Hall’s exceptionally live environment, as well as saving time and effort on show days in the face of widely varying requirements from incoming performers and their crew.
Though only five PLM 10000Qs were required, two additional units were purchased to replace other existing amps in the venue. O’Keeffe hints that Lab.gruppen could also potentially be an important part of the package for future upgrades to the Chan’s main audio systems.
After O’Keeffe narrowed his choice of wedges down from an initial field of seventeen different boxes by eight different manufacturers, multi-instrumentalist and ethnomusicologist Randy Raine-Reusch was brought in to put the remaining shortlist of gear through its paces; an exercise to determine how the various systems would respond in some of the challenging situations routinely offered up by the diverse artists the Chan’s stage hosts.
“He came in with a collection of about thirty of the hardest instruments in the world to mic,” O’Keeffe says; the Japanese Shō and Ichigenkin, nose flutes from Borneo, all dramatically different instruments and all capable of incredibly complex harmonics and overtones. “Because our room has dramatically variable acoustics (reverb decay times ranging from 2.6 to 4.9 seconds), and because the expectations for clarity of tone by the artists who grace our stage is so high, it was important to have products that not only provided a clear and concise frequency response, but were flexible, so we could adjust numerous parameters in very subtle ways.”
Using the Smaart Analysis program in tandem with the PLM’s software allows the Chan Centre’s techs to quickly contour the monitor’s sound to match the changing room tone on any given area on the stage. “The variable acoustics within the concert hall means that we can alter the rooms early reflections and reverb decay to best suit the music and because of that degree of variation we needed a monitor system that was as equally variable.” When the Labs were employed during Raine-Reusch and O’Keeffe’s testing, they also noticed definably less smearing in the high harmonics, particularly when compared to the Chan’s previous house amps.
The Lab.gruppen PLMs also allow O’keeffe the option of providing multiple variations on the same mix, he explains; “It’s not uncommon for the horn section of a big band to share the same mix. Invariably, however, it is too loud for the saxes and not bright enough for the trumpets, and the trombones want a little more low end. Since we have the PLM 10000Q, which has four amp channels, we can use a common EQ at the input stage and vary the EQ, level and so on at the output stage, allowing us to contour the mixes to better suit the individual needs of the horn section.”
The final piece of the puzzle, however, was ease of use. “What finally convinced us it was the best choice was how quickly our staff was able to understand and take advantage of the flexibility the Labs provide.” Even people who were most likely to gravitate towards a more tactile approach to doing sound; “Even our stodgiest, old school, ‘gotta-have-a-graph-I-can-grab’ guy was convinced after using the software and hearing the PLMs.”
The end result; high marks for the Lab.gruppen PLMs for meeting all the Chan Centre’s needs and O’Keeffe’s criteria, and a net benefit in the sound of the venue overall. “We’re actually using less overall SPL to get a better stage sound, which means there’s a lot less energy in the room, which means the room is much more controllable to work with.” And because of the Labs power handling capacity, he says; “We’re never worrying about running out of headroom, we’ve got lots of power.”
“It’s phenomenal, we’re really happy with the product.”