Delta Portfolio
RMT 2000
RMT 2000 Horse Guards Parade July 2000.
DELTA BRINGS THE SOUNDS OF THE ROYAL MILITARY TATTOO TO LIFE IN A PRODUCTION TO DWARF MOST OTHERS
Charge of the sound brigade
UK - The Royal Tournament, held for many years at London's Earls Court, may have blown its last bugle in 1999, but Her Majesty's forces were not going to let the Millennium year pass without a show.
Indeed much more than a show, Royal Military Tattoo 2000 was a theatrical extravaganza recounting the defence of the realm over the last 1,000 years. Fireworks fly past, motorcycles, even a Charge of the Light Brigade - the Royal Tournament was going to be tipped into a cocked helmet.
The mid-July 90 minute music-driven performance, staged at Horse Guards Parade, Whitehall, had one hoof on the fast-forward button - the Battle of Waterloo lasted 2 minutes 50 seconds - so it was to be an exhilarating, and technically challenging occasion.
Caribiner International, the producer, had awarded London-based audio specialist Delta Sound the contract to add live and recorded sound to the visual firepower of RMT2000, with what was arguably one of the most complex and demanding sound installations ever created for a live event.
Delta Sound director Paul Keating, the show's sound designer, says, "We have been involved with this project for over a year. The brief (from Major Michael Parker, the creative producer and former Royal Tournament producer) incorporated 2 main challenges. Firstly, to achieve a greater level of reinforcement for the various marching bands, especially as they counter-marched; and secondly, finding a way to keep a more disciplined time-line to the show. The initial concept was to have the bands playing /marching to 'half-playback', but trials with the Royal Marine Band in Portsmouth proved to be unsuccessful." Keating resorted to mic'ing up and recording the Marine Band: 40 channels of Sennheiser 1046 with SK50's were employed to this end. The marines performed the music exactly as it would be played during the show; this recording would be used to give the main conductor in-ear monitoring, providing him with pre-recordings and click tracts, for rehearsals and the actual event.
A total of 48 tracks of pre-recorded elements were stored on two of Delta's new Tascam MX2424 hard-disk recorders - Delta Sound is, in fact, the UK's first customer for the machines. The 48 tracks broke down into two lots of 24 (one machine duping the other for back-up): 10 tracks of the original band recordings, 10 tracks of FX, plus four of clicks, voices and cues. "The conductor follows the hard disk and keeps the bands in time," said Keating. "We have carried out extensive tests using the new Tascam and trials went well".
The hard disk material was pre-mixed in the arena during rehearsals for pre-balancing purposes. This was achieved by using a Yamaha 02R digital mixer and the SAW RPO software editing package, data from which was relayed via the main control area, on a 50m-fibre optic, to the MX2424s.
Whereas most of the sound would be live, some FX and pad sounds were routed from hard disk straight into the PA. One of the hospitality boxes would host a small band - keyboards, bass, and organ - which would further bolster the sound.
Keating's greatest task during RMT2000 had been designing the system's arrival times across a large outdoor area, coupled with the constant movement of bands around such a space. The solution was to use BSS Soundweb. "Soundweb allows us to build a number of 'image definitions", says Keating, "where the whole system is time-aligned according to the position of the bands on the parade ground".
Out Board Electronics' TiMax system had been used at the Edinburgh Tattoo, but Keating thought that on this occasion it wouldn't offer the EQ manipulation he was looking for. His design for a multi-source PA system took on three major elements: a left/right V-DOSC system (for the two moving choir stages); a distributed D&B system (for the grandstands); and an EAW system (for spot and special effects).
The choir is given traditional wedge monitoring, mixed from a Soundcraft SM24 console (located backstage), which would provide them with the elements from the Tascam machines, plus some live performances. An incredible 30 miles of sound cabling was in place for this reinforcement.
The V-DOSC arrays used 20 loudspeakers occupying two positions set against the Horse Guards Building, and it provided for the choir and large-scale effects to accompany images on the giant screens. A further 18 D-VDOSC were used to give coverage to the side seating blocks, known as 'Downing' and 'Admiralty' after the buildings they back on to, while a total of 50 cabinets, combining D&B C4s and C7s were installed on the cantilevered fingers over the main grandstand.
EAW KF850 and SB850 cabinets provided the main effects positions. Located under the seating blocks, these were sited in order to fulfil Major Parker's brief that the show should have a sense of space, with effects enhancing the mood of battles and so on.
Additional delay speakers, fed from Soundweb network, were mounted within hospitality boxes. Even the Royal Box, occupied by a different dignitary each night, received the full force of the drama.
On the cloudy and drizzly night PSNE saw the show, the cannons boomed, the charges charged, the marching bands sync'ed to the pre-prepared tracks near perfectly, and the Red Devil skydivers made it into the Horse Guards arena without landing in nearby Tony Blair's back garden. We can't confirm whether the crystal sound of Delta's hard work kept young Leo Blair awake…..
COMMUNICATIONS CORPS
FOH for RMT2000 was Delta Sound's Simon Honywill behind a pair of 48-input Midas Heritage 3000 consoles, with the majority of audio signals running via the BSS Soundweb network using CAT-5 cabling. "Because many of the signal runs are over 300m long, we're using our internal network to distribute the audio around the arena," adds Paul Keating. George Hogan (along with Tristian Bickerton) of Delta Communications, designed the large site-wide communications trunked network, to provide 150 users trunks, as well as in-ear monitoring for certain positions on the parade ground These relay verbal information and click tracks to the Drum Majors, giving the team the ability to communicate and provide foldback. RF technology is heavily employed for the event: 40 radio microphones, and 40 wireless intercom stations make it Paul Keating's biggest RF task ever.
RMT 2000 Horse Guards Parade July 2000.
