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May 2013 l 53
installationreport IRELAND The Concert Hall now boasts a futureproof wireless solution Axient
Ireland’s National Concert Hall recently revamped its radio microphone system ready for the RF spectrum shake-up, reports James McGrath
THE NATIONAL Concert Hall (NCH) in Dublin, the principal national venue for classical music concerts in Ireland, has invested in a Shure Axient solution ahead of the imminent RF spectrum shake-up. As in the UK, the 790 to 862MHz (the ‘800MHz’) band in Ireland is set to be relinquished to mobile phone network providers later this year, with major implications for users. Any systems operating within the 800MHz band will not only be subject to interference from the 4G mobile data – they will also be illegal.
The NCH plays host to 500
shows a year and provides residence for the RTE National Symphony Orchestra, which rehearses at the venue throughout the week and performs every Friday evening. The venue consists of four performance spaces: the main auditorium which seats 1,200; the John Field room with space for 450 standing and 250 seated; the Carolan Room (110 standing and the same number seated theatre-style); and the Upper Balcony (200 standing, 90-100 cabaret style). However, there are plans to renovate unused spaces (one of which could give the main auditorium a run for its money) as the NCH looks to diversify its programming with more contemporary productions. Therefore, as Paul Kohlmann, chief technical manager at the NCH explains, any new radio microphone system would eventually need to expand into these areas.
Purely by chance, Patrick O’Brien, managing director at Audio International, which has been supplying the hall with AV equipment for 30 years, met with Tuomo Tolonen, application and production planning manager at Shure UK, at the 2012 NAMM Show and was introduced to the Axient system, launched the previous year. The Shure team followed up with a visit to Ireland in spring 2012. The NCH had been depending on a Shure UHF-R radio microphone system, but the team wanted to upgrade with a future-proof solution that could handle the challenges of an uncertain RF spectral future. “The NCH needed a system
that could be integrated within the hall so that everything could work independently and then if need be – if there was a huge
Paul Kohlmann with Shure beltpack transmitters
production here – they could bring everything back to one position and have a huge system,” explains Tom O’Brien of Audio International. Also, because the venue has performances that run simultaneously, the new set-up needed to be equipped to handle potential interference. Audio International installed the Axient system, in the latter part of 2012. The new set-up is designed to
operate alongside the NCH’s UHF-R system to provide six channels of Axient supplemented by 10 channels of UHF-R. This can be expanded to 28 wireless channels when the entire system – which also includes Shure’s digital wireless ULX-D microphone system and in-ear personal monitoring PSM1000 system – is pulled together.
“We didn’t develop Axient to be a standalone system because UHF-R has become an industry standard for systems in high- performance venues. So with the amount of UHF-R out there, you couldn’t just have Axient. You had to be able to blend the systems and supplement it with UHF-R,” explains Tolonen. The Axient portion of the system incorporates three AXT400 dual-channel receivers, six AXT100 body packs, and six AXT200 handhelds with KSM9 capsules. Meanwhile, a spectrum manager (AXT600) controls all frequency assignments and monitors on air as well as backup frequencies. One of the features of the system is its ability to provide a real-time communication link between transmitters and their respective receivers. This is made possible by the use of five Access Points (AXT610 ShowLink) dotted around the NCH, which give Kohlmann and his team the necessary flexibility to access any of the transmitters’ parameters even when the artists are, say, being mic’d up in the dressing room. For instance, they can monitor which mics are on, adjust audio gain settings or frequencies, battery life and even whether the mic’s transmitter is locked or not. “This takes any guess work
out of pre-performance checks,” says Kohlmann. Probably the most crucial
parameter the team has access to is the operating frequency.
is so well connected, the technical team can co-ordinate other guest systems that come into the NCH. Another specification of the
upgrade was that it needed to provide some rooms in the venue with radio microphone use on an ad hoc basis. For instance, the foot of the staircase in the piano bar is sometimes dressed with a stage for more intimate performances. To ensure radio mics were available to just about anywhere in the venue, Audio International constructed three mobile racks. These consist of two ULXD4D dual-channel receivers, a battery charger, four ULXD1 bodypacks and four ULXD2/SM58 handhelds. Kohlmann concludes with a further winning factor of Axient: “We have a radio studio here – they broadcast live on Friday nights and broadcast concerts. They’d often take a split of our microphones for announcers and over the years they’d always be complaining about the background noise: ‘oh it’s too hissy, it’s too noisy’. But once we put the Axient in they told us: it’s quiet! They have such a low noise floor these days.”n
www.audiointernational.net www.nch.ie www.shure.co.uk
Portrait of the as a good plan
“The spectrum manager continuously monitors the RF environment; should it detect interference, the transmitter and receiver will simultaneously change frequency and the show can carry on without a problem,” clarifies Tolonen. In addition, because the system
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