P.C. Richard & Son Theater in New York

Outline 'Butterflies' for the P.C. Richard & Son Theater in New York

 

New York, USA - SIA Acoustics (www.siaacoustics.com) has recently completed the design and commissioning of the P.C. Richard & Son Theater in TriBeCa, NYC. The 5,500 square foot theater will serve as a live performance, recording, and broadcast space for Clear Channel Radio, which includes New York stations Q1043, Z100, WKTU, Power 105.1 and Lite-fm.

To meet the theater's demanding performance requirements, two four-element arrays of Outline "Butterfly" C.D.H. 483 loudspeakers were specified, powered by Outline T7 amplifiers. Low-frequency reinforcement is provided by six Outline LAB 15 SP subwoofers, arranged as three cardioid pairs under the stage. For delay, one array of three Mini-COM.P.A.S.S. self-powered line array loudspeakers is employed, with additional fill provided by Micra II SP self-powered loudspeakers. Both the Outline T7 amplifiers and the Mini-COM.P.A.S.S. self-powered loudspeaker include on-board DSP and networked control capabilities. To facilitate the flexible nature of the space, the T7 amplifiers are mounted to the rear of the Butterfly rigging bars via custom rigging hardware, designed by McLaren Engineering. For stage foldback, four Outline H.A.R.D. 45 SP and ten H.A.R.D. 115 SP monitors are employed.

"The Butterfly product readily fulfilled the venue's need for an industry-accepted, high-power, robust system in an extremely compact footprint," says Steve Sockey, partner at SIA Acoustics. "A-level touring artists can use this space without feeling like there's any technical compromise because of it's size."

In fact, the unique size of the theater and the need for comprehensive production made designing the technical systems particularly challenging. Careful coordination with the project team was required in determining elements such as loudspeaker suspension points and equipment locations.

"The P.C. Richards Theater represents a trend that we've seen growing in recent years. More and more, we are being approached by clients wanting to do no-compromise full-scale production in increasingly intimate spaces. In these types of venues, the importance of careful coordination between the trades is even more critical -- there is simply no physical room for oversight or error," says Adam Shulman, consultant at SIA Acoustics.

Other notable system components include two complete 64-channel Digidesign Profile live mixing systems in the theater and a Digidesign ICON D-Control ES based Pro Tools HD recording system in the control room, each supplied by a four-way transformer-isolated splitter. Additional infrastructure is provided throughout the venue to support a variety of configurations, as well as any artist-provided equipment (i.e. analog mixing consoles, at each position etc.). Every field connection terminates at over twenty analog, AES, CAT6, fiber, and coaxial patch bays in the control room, allowing the theater staff to readily adapt the technical systems for a number of genres, including live performances, video shoots, and cinema.

The theater opened in early May 2009 with performances by Tinted Windows and Green Day.

For more information about the theater, please visit the website: P.C. Richard & Son Theater