Continued

"Not many acousticians would have gone through that process without trying to impose their own expertise," says Stickrod. "Not once in three separate tuning sessions did he ever tell me, No, you don't want that... You want this. He listened to me and went way above and beyond to make sure I was happy with where the sound was. His understanding of what the hall was going to do, based on the initial concept, was not what I wanted the hall to be capable of. We didn't start from the same mark. But the final product, where we ended up, is with a system that can do everything. Light jazz is perfect, clear with every instrument standing out. But with a little repatching around some of the processing and changing some EQ's, you have a system that can plain get loud. That's what I was looking for."

Multiple compliments on the system's clarity and power have followed since opening night—including The Urban Funk Spectacular, running their monitors way over 100db, says Stickrod. "We had to get over that with the FOH system, and we did. The performers loved it."

The beefed-up FOH system includes flown Left/Center/Right main arrays of EAW AX-series cabinets , supplemented by permanently-mounted EAW SB180 and SB250 subwoofers and six SL 12Se-JHA front fills. All loudspeakers (both for the reinforcement systems and electronic architecture) are driven by Crown CT Series amplifiers. The under balcony electronic architecture loudspeakers do double duty as delay fills in the sound reinforcement system; otherwise, the two systems are completely separate.

At the front-of-house mix position, a Midas Heritage 1000 provides the mix horsepower needed for a house that supports a different kind of event every day. "We gave serious consideration to using a digital console," says Stickrod, "but I wanted to be sure that road show engineers could step up and get a show running with a familiar interface, and the Heritage fit the bill well." The basic FOH package also includes a complement of Klark Teknik gates and compressors and XTA graphics, along with CD playback from Tascam and effects processors from Lexicon, Yamaha, and TC Electronics.

The monitor system, as designed by Stickrod, is based around a 40-channel Crest LM 40/20 console, supplied by Professional Audio Designs. Stickrod matched the EAW FOH system with four EAW 200i wedges, two SM 84 wedges , one SM 500 wedge, one SB 330 Sub, two SB 850 Subs, and two JFX 260 side fills.