Meyer Sound M'elodie is the Perfect Fit for Tacoma's Pantages Theatre
The Pantages Theatre in Tacoma, Wash., was opened in January, 1918 by
Alexander Pantages, a Greek immigrant with a colorful history that
included a business and romantic association with the legendary
"Klondike Kate" Rockwell. Eventually, Pantages owned or controlled more
than 70 theatres nationwide, a number of which bore his name. Designed
by Seattle architect B. Marcus Priteca and modeled after the ornate
theater in the Palace of Versailles, the Tacoma Pantages hosted live
vaudeville for 11 years before Pantages sold his circuit of theatres to
early Hollywood media giant RKO, which converted the theatre to a movie
house and rechristened it the Orpheum.
The classic 1,169-seat theater fell into disrepair during the 1960s,
along with much of the city's historic downtown district. In 1975 a
coalition was founded to save the celebrated building, along with the
smaller Rialto Theatre, both now a part of the revived downtown area's
Broadway Center for the Performing Arts. A major remodeling in 1980
included widening the proscenium and adding a number of unseen
structural reinforcements to the building, as well as a fair amount of
acoustical treatment. The Pantages reopened in 1983, and is now home to
Tacoma's opera, symphony orchestra, philharmonic (once an orchestra, but
now an event production company), city ballet, and concert band, as well
as numerous other cultural and performance events.
The resurrection of the Pantages was recently crowned by Federal Way,
Wash.-based Point Source Inc.'s installation of a revamped audio system
built around Meyer Sound's self-powered M'elodie(tm) ultracompact
high-power curvilinear array loudspeaker.
"The theatre's board of directors placed a priority on achieving
high-quality sound and good coverage with minimal visibility," says
Point Source's Curt Hare. "I brought in four M'elodie cabinets, stacked
them up on stage and played a CD through them. That was all they needed
to hear. When I showed them how the M'elodie's self-powered design would
allow them to expand the system in the future, they were even more
impressed. Then they checked with the engineers for a few of the artists
scheduled to perform in the coming months and got an overwhelmingly
positive response, saying they'd be more than happy to see Meyer
speakers in the house."
The main portion of the Pantages's new system comprises two arrays of
eight M'elodie cabinets per side. "We typically fly all eight boxes,"
explains Scott Painter, the Pantages's production stage manager, "but we
can easily split the arrays in half, groundstacking four on either side
of the proscenium and flying the other four just off the top of it. With
the wide range of programs we host, that flexibility is invaluable. The
M'elodie is small enough that four of them on top are covered by the
valances, and the floor stack is covered by the borders. They're
practically invisible."
Four UPM-1P ultracompact wide coverage loudspeakers are used for
frontfill, while a pair of 600-HP compact high-power subwoofers covers
low frequencies.
As Painter explains, aesthetics and audio performance were the two major
concerns in selecting the new system: it needed to be powerful enough to
provide adequate coverage, but small enough not to interfere with the
hall's classic architecture. "We have 10 resident arts organizations
performing here, and each of them have their own set of priorities," he
notes. "Some, such as the ballet and the opera, don't want to see
speakers hanging at all." The system's design provides for the hanging
arrays to be raised out of sight by chain motors when not in use.
The hall is relatively wide and shallow, with only 80 feet from the
proscenium to the back wall, and the majority of systems were simply too
much for the space. "Of the few systems we seriously considered, most
were just too large," Painter observes. "The M'elodie was the only
system that was small enough to fit the bill, but had the power and
coverage we needed."
Using Meyer Sound's Galileo(tm) loudspeaker management system, the sound
system can be easily configured to meet a wide range of performances.
"My sound man can come in here by himself, push some buttons on the
Galileo, push some buttons on the chain motors, and the room is
immediately tuned for different configurations," says Painter. "We can
go from what we call a high-fidelity array position to a hidden array
position in less than half an hour."
Galileo was also instrumental in deploying the subwoofers to accommodate
the limitations of the space. "The stage area itself is somewhat
limited, and it was a challenge to find a good location for the subs,"
Hare explains. "The orchestra pit has a big, open space with concrete
behind it, and we needed a low-frequency configuration that would be
effective in reducing that energy buildup on the stage. Using two
outputs from the Galileo, we took the two 600-HPs, placed one behind the
other on a platform under the pit, and introduced a time delay to one
box to create a cardioid response. As a result, the low frequency
content on stage is far less than that in the house."
The design is succeeding handsomely. "We had Joan Baez in recently,"
says Painter. "That was challenging, in a way, because she's got such a
distinctive voice, and everyone knows what she's supposed to sound like,
so it's difficult to be perfect. But we did it - it sounded like the
words were coming right out of her mouth, not projected out of speakers.
The M'elodie has such great imaging quality, it sounds like it's not
there at all.
"The M'elodie is ideally suited for the Pantages," he concludes. "It's
truly versatile; it's not just a rock system. We can use it in any of
several configurations, depending on the demands of the production, and
they sound amazing."
