Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival has equipped its Ted Shawn Theatre in Becket, Massachusetts, with a Martin Audio sound system designed around Wavefront Precision WPM Series line arrays. New Jersey-based Audio Inc. specified and supplied the system for the historic venue.
Audio Inc. redesigned the system after modeling the room with Martin Audio’s DISPLAY software. The main system uses six WPM cabinets per side, with a flown SXC115 cardioid subwoofer in each array. A pair of TORUS T820 constant-curvature arrays covers the steeply raked rear mezzanine, while FlexPoint FP6 cabinets provide front fill. Six Martin Audio iKON multichannel amplifiers power the system over a Dante network.
“People are appreciating the upgrades in clarity and tone without it being overbearing,” Jacob’s Pillow audio supervisor Christopher Marc said. “Our rigs in the past have relied on volume for ‘clarity,’ thus eliminating any real dynamics in the room. This system has allowed us a huge improvement in clarity at any level.”
Audio Inc. head of audio Stephan Wojtecki said the delay system addressed longstanding coverage problems in the mezzanine. “The TORUS T820s filled in very nicely in the software,” he said. “When we did our final tuning, we watched the Smaart traces as we blended in the delays and they filled in the gaps perfectly. They are voiced so well with the WPM that the transition is totally seamless, and overall we have it down to a 3 dB variation from front to back.”
The stage-monitoring package includes four CDD-LIVE 8 coaxial differential-dispersion speakers per side, compact SX212 subwoofers and XE500 floor wedges. Wojtecki said the rear rejection of the WPM array helps the audience and stage systems operate as separate but complementary sound fields.
The WPM system can also be reconfigured for individual productions. For the Akram Khan Company, Audio Inc. added a center WPM array and delayed the main system to localize sound to a scenic element onstage. The team also added two SX118 subwoofers per side for the production’s soundtrack.
“As Jacob’s Pillow grows as an organization to facilitate and support all kinds of dance, this investment signifies a huge lift in support for that mission, and the idea that live sound and design is a significant part of dance,” Marc said.
For more information, visit martin-audio.com.
