Fame, originally a film directed by Alan Parker and released in 1980, was turned in to a long-running TV series, then a stage show, which has performed in theatres all over the world and in a multitude of languages.
DiGiCo plays a major role in the show's audio success for Barcelona-based rental company Tour Serveis, which provides all the sound equipment, maintenance and logistics for the Spanish tour.
The Cádiz production took place at the Great Falla Theatre, which was built in 1884 by Adolfo Morales de los Rios on the site of the original Great Theatre, a wooden building that was constructed in 1871 but destroyed by a fire in August 1881.
Carles Aulí, sound designer and technical manager for the production, specified a DiGiCo D1 console for the front of house position. Aulí utilises 64 channels on the D1 and126 snapshots, of which 50 were automatically fired. Five onboard effects are used during the show, two dynamic (multiband compressors) and the others for reverbs and delays.
"The sound design is based in an LCR loudspeaker system," he explains. "We use a central cluster, front-fill and down-fill. The central channel helps me to create the correct image for the voice, with the left and right cluster sent via a matrix. With the down-fill and front-fill, I avoid the sound image staying up in the air, so the audience feels that what they are hearing is in the right place as they are watching the show."
(Jim Evans)
