Closer Inspection


A camera at stage leſt projects the show to a video monitor in the


outdoor sound booth so the engineer


can adjust sound based on what’s happening.


T e outdoor DiGiCo SD8 console was installed at the end


of May and cost from $50,000 to $60,000. Although it’s a digital model, it looks and acts like the analog consoles familiar to most sound engineers.


T e sound console contains three fader banks. T ose on the leſt and right have inputs


for each microphone on stage. A big rock show


typically uses 45 to 70 microphone inputs. “You can have that set up on the console in


less than fi ve minutes,” McVoy says.


T e outdoor


engineer also has to play “sound police” and can


push the third button on the video monitor to measure the


venue’s volume and make sure it stays under Wolf Trap’s 95-decibel limit.


Because it’s approximately 250 feet from the lawn sound booth to the front of the stage, the


sound engineer “sometimes needs to pick up the binoculars and go, ‘Who is that singing? Who is it making that awful noise I need to fi x?’ ” McVoy says.


T e center fader bank is for the console’s outputs. McVoy boils it down: “You have to take the inputs; you have to make them mix; and then they have to go someplace.” T e master output is the one stereo fader that sends the mixture of input channels to the main speakers.


Listen up! Why Wolf Trap sounds good from the cheap seats


BY KRIS CORONADO As the head of Wolf Trap’s audio department, Jens McVoy, 43, wants every patron at the Filene Center to hear the best show possible — whether they’re sitting in the front row or picnicking on the lawn. So although most concert spots have one sound console, the Vienna venue has two: one in the auditorium and another outdoors to


mix the sound for the crowd beneath the starry skies. Each live show is a technological


dance between two sound engineers to ensure that both audiences hear the same thing at the same time. “The sound takes a lot longer to get from the stage to [the lawn] than it does to the front of the house,” McVoy explains. “Electricity’s a lot faster than sound waves. What we have to do is electronically put a delay on it so that before it has a chance to come out of the speakers, the sound wave that is coming off of the stage is hitting the back of the house, so that they’re aligned with each other. We measure that in thousandths of a second.” That


No, that’s not a real fl ux capacitor — just an inside joke. Rather than fueling time travel, the light fl ashes brightly to signal that the indoor sound engineer is trying to call to report a problem.


coordination is especially key for theatrical performances, where natural sound — such as the tap-tapping of a “Riverdance” show — would be diffi cult to hear from the lawn seats. So what does it take to pull off a sound outdoor experience? Listen in.


AUGUST 22, 2010 | THE WASHINGTON POST MAGAZINE


7


PHOTOGRAPHS BY BENJAMIN C. TANKERSLEY


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