New
York, NY (July 19, 2016) — Montreal-based entertainment
company Cirque du Soleil, which currently has more than 15 major shows running
worldwide, recently opened its first musical theater production on Broadway, at
the Lyric Theater. Paramour, a story
set during the Golden Age of Hollywood about a woman who must choose between
love and art, features a cast of over three dozen acrobats, musicians and
singing actors that are exclusively equipped with Lectrosonics’ SSM
Digital Hybrid Wireless micro belt pack transmitters.
“We’re using 36 SSM radio
transmitters with Venue2
receivers” reports front-of-house engineer David Patridge, who is working with
long-time collaborator John Shivers, the show’s sound designer. The equipment
was supplied by theatrical sound reinforcement specialist company Masque Sound
for use at the Lyric Theatre which, with an audience capacity of 1,896, is the
second largest theater on New York City’s Great White Way.
“Every performer who has
any kind of line or is singing is wearing one. We are also using the SSMs to
amplify a wireless guitar, a wireless piano, a wireless trumpet; in fact,
there’s a bunch of instruments that people wander around with on stage that are
fitted with SSM transmitters,” says Patridge.
“Sonically, the SSM is terrific.
From an audio standpoint, it really is a winning product,” he continues. “When
it came out we were able to try it in the field opposite other radio
transmitters. We compared the audio quality on an actor, A/B’ing back and
forth, with two mic elements and two transmitters on the person. We really
liked the quality of the SSM. So it was a no-brainer for this production.”
Almost every SSM on the show is paired with a DPA Microphones d:screet™ 4061
miniature omnidirectional microphone, he reports.
But the SSM offers more
than just superior audio quality, says Patridge. “The actors wearing them along
with everybody in the hair and wig department love the form factor because they
are substantially smaller than other transmitters that are on the market. It
often becomes difficult to hide transmitters, but we heard a lot of positive
comments made by all of the people who deal with hiding these things on the
actors. So that is also a winning factor for the SSM.”
In fact, three of the
principal actors are double-miked, he continues. “They’re out on the stage the
whole time, and it would be very inconvenient to have to rip microphones off
them; just getting them off the stage would be a problem. They each wear two
SSM transmitters and we use a Sennheiser MKE 1 for backup. We set one of the
mic elements back behind the head of the other mic, so it pretty much looks
like one microphone, but we still have a second element in case something happens
to the first one. Due to the small form factor of the SSM, the actual amount of
real estate that the two transmitters take up on a performer is pretty much
what a normal transmitter would take.”
The show’s production crew
has also been enjoying the remote control capabilities of the SSM, Patridge
reports. “We all downloaded the LectroRM application, to be able to send DTMF
tones into the microphone in order to turn LEDs off, lock them, change gain and
so on.”
Adopting the
Lectrosonics SSM transmitter for this show has been an upgrade on several
levels, according to Patridge. “With the SSM, the sound quality is better, and
the manageability with the batteries and the remote functionality are bonuses.
The battery life is also great. All this with the small form factor. The
takeaway for us is that we want to specify them on all of our shows.”
About
Lectrosonics
Well
respected within the film, broadcast, and theatre technical communities since
1971, Lectrosonics wireless microphone systems and audio processing products
are used daily in mission-critical applications by audio engineers familiar
with the company's dedication to quality, customer service, and innovation.
Lectrosonics is a US manufacturer based in Rio Rancho, New Mexico. Visit the
company online at www.lectrosonics.com.