Yamaha Brings Better Sound To Historic German Open Air Theatre

Performances at the outdoor theatre in Ötigheim, near Karlsruhe, attract up to 100,000 visitors each year, thanks in part to their excellent production values. Maintaining a high standard is very important to the ‘not for profit’ owning company Volksschauspiele Ötigheim, which is why a brand new Yamaha mixing and audio management system was installed in time for the 2018 season.

Volksschauspiele Ötigheim has been staging productions for 112 years. Throughout the summer, shows are staged at its open air theatre, a former sand quarry which has 4000 covered seats and, it claims, the biggest permanent outdoor stage in Germany.

For the past 15 years a pair of Yamaha 02R digital mixing consoles have been the reliable backbone of the theatre’s audio system. This year, they were replaced with a new system comprising two Yamaha CL5s, an MRX7-D matrix processor, Rio3224-D I/O unit and an RSio64-D audio/Dante interface, fitted with Yamaha Mini-YGDAI cards for additional inputs and outputs. The system was specified, supplied and installed by Karlsruhe-based Rock Shop GmbH.

“Technology has moved on a long way since the 02Rs were installed in 2003,” says Rock Shop’s Mario Schmidt. “Staying with Yamaha was an obvious choice, because the equipment is so reliable and the workflow is familiar to most engineers. We chose the CL5s because they gave us better features and greater functionality, including Dante, along with excellent sound quality and all the benefits of Dan Dugan automixing.”

The productions are complex, so two consoles were installed to separate the mixing of orchestra and other musicians on one and singers/actors on the other. They also provide full redundancy, a wise precaution with the unpredictability of outdoor productions.

Inputs to the system comprise 52 wireless microphone/instrument channels, plus further wired mic and instrument feeds. The Front of House mix is routed to line array PA, while a Yamaha Nuage Nio500-A16 acts as output device for delivering up to 16 analogue wedge and in-ear monitor feeds. Signal distribution is managed by the MRX7-D, which also controls the time alignment for the different PA zones. A four input, eight output analogue broadcast feed is also provided.

“Delivering high quality sound outdoors is always a challenge, but here there is the added difficulty that the performance area is open, but the audience seating is roofed,” says Mario. “Having enough headroom before feedback, weather resistance and wind stability of the speaker system are all challenges to providing a neutral, intelligible, evenly-distributed sound. On top of that, the sound design for different productions needs to be clear, with a straightforward workflow and both home and guest sound engineers need to be accommodated.

“The new system has enabled us to deliver all that, taking advantage of all the most recent developments in Yamaha audio technology to make a big improvement to the quality and distribution of the sound. Volksschauspiele Ötigheim is very happy and all the engineers that are using the system appreciate the workflow and ease of use, as well as the great audio quality.”

CL 시리즈

Yamaha CL 시리즈 디지털 믹싱 콘솔은 한차원 높은 세련됨을 보여줍니다. 접근성 있는 믹싱에서 진화된 경험과 함께, 상상력이 풍부한 엔지니어에게 전례없는 창조적 자유를 줄 수 있는 사운드 형성 기능과 음파의 순도를 제공합니다. CL 시리즈는 가장 앞서나가고 표현력이 풍부한 형식으로 라이브 사운드 최고의 표준을 구현합니다.

02R96VCM

02R의 후속 제품으로 나타난 무결점 프로덕션 콘솔의 표준인 이 제품이 이제 VCM 및 기타 플러그인 이펙트와 함께 표준으로 제공됩니다.

MRX7-D

간단하면서 유연하게 제어할 수 있는 고성능 다기능 사운드 시스템

R 시리즈(AD/DA)

R 시리즈 I/O 랙은 설정과 배치에 있어 탁월한 유연성과 자유를 제공하는 Dante 네트워크 오디오 프로토콜을 사용하는 한 편, 믹싱 콘솔과 다른 시스템 구성 요소의 가장 자연스럽고 음악성 높은 사운드를 이끌어냅니다.

R Series (SLOT)

RSio64-D는 Dante와 Mini-YGDAI 형식을 최대 64개의 입력과 64개의 출력으로 변환할 수 있는 오디오 인터페이스입니다.

Ötigheim, Germany