Installation Spotlight: Madame Tussauds

By Daryl Bornstein of Daryl Bornstein Audio and Bridget Hudzik of TOA Electronics

If you want to meet a celebrity without all of the paparazzi hype, visit Madame Tussauds. With locations in Europe, Asia, Australia, and the United States, Madame Tussauds aims to create distinctive, unforgettable and gratifying guest encounters, realized through the passion of wax. But what would the experience be without great quality sound? Enter David Prentice of Dale Pro Audio in New York who worked hand-in-hand with Kevin Wilkin of TOA Electronics, Inc. to expedite delivery of products which were ordered, literally, at the last minute.

This project was unusual for a number of reasons. Daryl Bornstein of Daryl Bornstein Audio, and his longtime colleague, Roger Jay of Play Sound, were charged with designing and installing a playback system in a pre-existing and relatively small (40' diameter), round, domed room. A truss system, meant to emulate the last U2 tour giant crab stage was installed, from which the speakers would be mounted. The client requested speakers that would look like a concert sound system, but the scale of the room and the limited budget precluded most of the obvious choices.

Initially, they did not consider the TOA HX-5 Variable Dispersion Speaker, which was perhaps the most obvious choice for this type of project considering the look, weight, and cost of the speakers, but because they did not think they would deliver the sound quality or sound pressure level required. They looked at solutions using speakers mounted on the perimeter of the room/truss system, pointing towards the center of the room. This would have been a perfectly acceptable "generic" choice, using small column speakers like the TOA SR-Series Slim Line Array, with additional sub woofers, however they would not address the client's request for the speakers to be an integral scenic element.
More importantly, mounting column speakers on the truss supports would obscure some of the lighting effects in the vertical truss along the wall. It also would have placed the speakers too close to the patrons due to limited height of the truss and the relatively small size of the room, even though the SR-S’s work well fairly close. In short, the column speakers would be intrusive rather than adding to the theatricality of the exhibit. But they did not give up on this solution until fairly late in the design process.

Ultimately, at Roger's urging, they revisited the TOA HX-5 Variable Dispersion Speaker. The client had designed prop line arrays to hang from the center truss. They convinced the client to allow them to substitute the HX-5’s for the props. The HX-5’s fit the scale of the room better than the props, saved the client money because they no longer needed to build the props, and mounting the speakers in the center or the room, facing out towards the curved wall, providing better overall coverage without over exciting the room. Also, the HX-5s came in black, their desired color, unlike the SR-S’s which come in white only. They were thrilled not to have to paint the main speaker system components.

The tight and adjustable vertical pattern of the HX-5 Line Array Speaker, most often used to throw longer distances, was quite effective in keeping sound focused on the guests and off of the walls, even though they were throwing only twenty feet. The wide horizontal pattern allowed for seamless coverage throughout the room. They would not have achieved the same coverage if the speakers had been mounted on the walls facing into the room or if they used conventional, horn loaded (typical trapezoidal) PA speakers. Additionally, having the speakers mounted in the center facilitated having the guests walk into the room and walk directly into the sound from the speakers, creating the effect of walking into a concert in an arena. This is the effect the client had hoped to achieve.

They convinced the client to use more speakers than they had originally considered so that they could achieve better coverage and provide a stereo image throughout the room by feeding alternate speakers with left or right signal content. This was possible because the TOA solution was extremely cost-effective. They used six arrays consisting of one (1) HX-5 Variable Dispersion Speaker and one (1) FB-120 subwoofer flown. They insisted on six (6) subs, rather than two (per the client’s request), because they wanted to have even low end throughout the room. The look and integrated sound of this type of array speaker and sub combination was perfect for this application, and alleviated concerns that they would not get enough extended low end out of just two 12" flown subwoofers flown separately. Using lightweight subs that fly as an integrated part of the system solved a number of problems.

System processing was achieved with a Symetrix Solous 8 and the speakers were powered by three Electrovoice CPS2 series amplifiers. Because of the structure of the center truss supports, the ideal solution would have been eight (8) arrays, rather than six (6), but that was not within their budget, nor would the client agree to that many speakers, when they already thought six were excessive. In the end, the client was thrilled with the look and the sound.

The TOA rigging frames made the job very easy. Combined with the light weight of the array speakers, the installation was far easier than expected. Their biggest challenge, because of how they chose to fly the speakers on the truss, was securing the chain so that it would not move. Ultimately, Jay came up with the solution of using simple hose clamps which worked brilliantly.Bornstein was concerned that the speakers would not sound as good as they needed, or sound like the type of “dance club sound system” that the client had requested for the Music Room, which houses figures of current pop stars.

After entering crossover and EQ data provide by TOA, and then spending time squeezing every ounce of performance quality out of the arrays through additional EQ, dynamics, and balancing hi/mids to lows, they achieved far better results than they could have hoped for. In fact, they were, and remain; astonished that the speakers sound as good as they do, especially in light of Bornstein’s initial listening when the product was first introduced. For a speaker designed to reproduce spoken word in churches, it does a very fine job reproducing loud pop music.

They were charged with providing a robust system that met stringent visual criteria, was within a very tight budget, could be installed within an ambitious (tight) schedule, sounded great both at low and extremely loud volumes, and would function year in and out without failure or maintenance. The HX-5 and FB-120 combination addressed the client's needs perfectly.

Bornstein was also asked to provide a playback system for a stadium crowd sound effect loop in the foyer leading into the Music Room. This space was extremely challenging because it was an odd shape, with a very low ceiling, scenic elements on the walls, and had a very small budget. Again, by choosing a TOA product, the small H-1 Interior Design Speaker, they were able to deliver high quality, focused sound, yet, without an obvious point source, which could be mounted in the ceiling, addressing both the client's aesthetic and budgetary requirements.

After painting the speakers black, they "disappeared" into the ceiling, adding to the overall immerse effect of walking through a pedestrian tunnel into a concert arena. This is saying a lot since the ceiling is only seven feet high! This was a truly inspired solution which Jay came up with. The playback and power for the speakers was provided by a Gilderfluke SD-25 combination digital playback system/amplifier. Once again, the client wanted only two (2) speakers but we felt four (4) were necessary to achieve an immense stereo crowd effect. And this was, indeed, the case. We were able to deliver the four (4) TOA H-1's for less than two of another product we had considered initially. The H-1s were a far better solution.

TOA was chosen over other products because of price, look, ease of installation, and appropriateness of the products. Everything was delivered in time, and the installation was easy due to TOA's clever and efficient rigging and mounting hardware. Bornstein and Jay exceeded the client's expectations with TOA’s solutions.

Multiple Remote Instances on a Budget

By Jim McGuinness, Product Support Specialist

We are always looking for ways to maximize the design for our customers to yield the biggest bang for the buck.  Sometimes customers would like more than one remote.  If your customer is looking for the same functionality, just multiple locations of the same remote and its functions, we have a little trick you can use.  The only requirement is that the ZM-9001 remote is the remote of choice for your project where a scene, page, or volume up and down are the functions to be used.

ZM-9001 Remote

Now we can’t change the programming requirement for the mixer which is a maximum of two 2-wire remote controls being used on a 9000M2 series mixer, and this will not work if the ZM-9002 remote is required for the project.  However, we can wire in multiple ZM-9001s on a single remote port.

ZM-9002 Remote

Now the programming technique will not change for this multiple remote trick.  You would program the remote control the way you always would.  The screenshots are shown below.

First click on Setting to get the drop down menu.

Then click on Remote Setting Wizard

You will then get a display for the remote settings.

Select ZM-9001 for Remote Volume 1

You will then get the options you can set for the remote.  Displayed are the popular settings.
If Page is selected as shown for the ZM-IN2 button below, you will get a drop down menu to select
the contact closure input to use on the back panel of the mixer’s chassis and as a trigger for the Page
Event programming.

As you can see, any of the scenes can be chosen, and any input or output can be selected to
be controlled when Volume is selected as a function.  Additionally, the resolution of the volume change can be set as well.

 So what’s left?  Just wire as many ZM-9001 remotes to the remote port that has been programmed in standard parallel fashion.  Just be sure to connect them all the same way.  DO NOT mix the “E” and “Out” connections.  You can also daisy chain one remote to the next, if home run wiring is not being done.  That’s it!

Now you may have noticed you have a Remote Volume 2 shown above.  This is for your 2nd
2-wire remote port.  You can do the same thing with this remote option as well.  Double bang for the buck!  This option, if your project can make use of it, will save you a few hundred dollars minimum over using the serial remotes.  Now the 2-wire remotes and serial remotes each have their own advantages, but this is a simple cost saving control option where applicable.

Some last thoughts.

This could give you volume up and down for 6 inputs, 6 outputs, or combination of 6 input and output channels in a standard 2-gang electrical box with multiple instances.  You also could use our trick on one port and use a ZM-9002 on the second port.  With this combination, you could as an example, program the ZM-9001 port for volume change for 3 input channels and program the ZM-9002 port so the rotary volume control is used as an output volume control and then program the four buttons for scene change.  This would be a great solution when using an A-9060SM2, A-9120SM2 or A-9240SHM2 where the requirements of the project match the maximum number of channels, pages and volume settings to be controlled by ZM-9001 and ZM-9002 remotes.  An example of this might be a restaurant where the single ZM-9002 would be located at the bar for scene and output volume control and multiple instance input volume controls would be located around the eating area for up to three sources.

Happy installing!

9000M2 Software Part 11 - Paging Settings

In this tutorial you will learn how to adjust Paging settings  with the TOA 9000m2 GUI Software application. 

Click the PAGING Button to open the PAGING Setting View. Here you will find priority input sources, trigger functions and output assignments. All settings are stored independent of scene memory.

Here You can program up to 32 Paging presets.

To program a Paging Preset, first select the priority input Source.

Then, Select the Trigger that will activate the paging preset--this may be a contact closure, a button press from a remote controller keypad, or Vox threshold.

Then, indicate which outputs the page will be assigned.

Also, a page can be used to synchronize a contact output relay, this may be useful to trigger an external piece of equipment. You may sync up to 12 contact outputs when using the C-001 Expansion Card.

Finally, you can assign the priority mode to indicate what happens when multiple sources with the same priority are fed through an output at the same time: Last in First out, First in First out, or all sources mixed at the same time.

Tech Tip: D-901 EQ Settings for TOA Speakers Made Easy

By Jim McGuinness, Product Support Specialist

As we all have heard before time is money, and no one understands that better than the custom integrator or installer.  For many jobs, much time and effort goes into the design and deployment of a new sound system.  Since many electronic products are programmable these days, time spent on setting up a unit, or group of units to finish a system, is always a concern.  Realistically hours can be spent which can burn up your profit ratio on a job.  Even if the setup goes perfectly, time just tweaking a new system is costly.  Ultimately, you’re trying to hit that sweat spot of profitable job and happy client for future business.

So in comes the question of how can we save time when installing TOA speakers in conjunction with the D-901 mixer.  Well we’ve just made it a little easier by taking advantage of some of the flexibility of the D-901’s multi-iteration capable software.  We now have several files which contain the EQ curves for many of our popular speakers which can be used like a template.  These files can be found at the following link.  Having these two files independently opened along with your project file allow you to copy paste the filters from the template EQ files to your project file for the output filters needed.

The first thing you will need to do is download the template zip file from our website to your
Windows compatible computer.  You will then need to unzip the file to obtain the two .d9t files which can be saved to your 'My Documents' folder or any folder you decide to place them in.

The second step you should do is to open your project file and have it ready on your computer.  The screenshot below is a general example to go to a file location and open a file.

The next step is to open two more iterations of the D-901 software on your PC.  Then for each iteration, use the 'Open File' icon again on your tool bar to locate your .d9t template files and open one file in each of your two additional iterations of the software.  
TIP:  If the type or types of TOA speakers that need to be used all reside on one of these template files, then only the template file of interest needs to be open.

Below you will find the screenshots of these steps.  Note that once you open the template files with the software, the speaker names will appear as preset memory names.

Open file example.

Speaker EQs shown as presets once the file is loaded.

To select a particular EQ curve, let’s say the HX-5 in this example, click on the HX-5 Output Filter preset and click on 'Change'.

Then click on the output filter button for any of the output channels to reveal the stored EQ curve.

The output EQ curve will be displayed as shown.

Now that you have the EQ curve of interest loaded, right hand click the same output filter button to reveal additional options and select 'Copy'.

The last step will be to switch over to your project D-901 software, click on the output filter button for the channel that has the HX-5 speaker on it and select 'Paste'.  If you have more than one channel with the HX-5 speaker on it, you will need to past the EQ settings for each channel separately.

You will be able to verify the EQ curve in the graphical display at the bottom portion of the software each time you paste an EQ curve into your project.

Lastly when you go to close the template files it will ask you if you want to save the changes as the software has detected a functional change.  Say NO to Save file for your Template files and YES to your project file as you don’t want to lose your work.

That’s it, simple and easy, especially if you have several models of speakers you are working with.

Happy programming!

9000M2 Software Series Part 10 - Setting Paging Priority and Volume Settings

In this tutorial you will learn how to assign paging priority and adjust paging volume with the TOA 9000m2 GUI Software application.

Before we start, it is important to keep in mind that paging priority is stored in global memory. This means that paging settings will remain regardless of scene changes. This is helpful in many cases--for example, if a user turns down the master volume in a particular room, an important page from a priority microphone will consistently operate with the same programmed behavior and volume no matter what.

First, you may open the priority setting view by clicking the priority button. You can also find this in the Setting Menu.

Next, you may assign a priority with a level 1 through 3 to any input. 1 is the highest priority, and 3 is lowest priority. A blank assignment indicates no priority.
 
Then, you can indicate if this priority input will be triggered by a VOX threshold. This means that the input will be triggered when an audio signal exceeds a certain threshold.

Keep in mind that in order to use the VOX, the channel's Gate setting must be turned on. See our video on Gate settings to learn how to turn a channel's gate on.

Next, set the ducking level: the Ducking Level is  the amount that the source will be reduced when a signal of higher priority is activated. In this example. When a page comes in through channel 1, channel 2 will be ducked by -40dB.

To adjust the paging volume, click the Paging Volume Button. As mentioned earlier, these volume settings are independent of normal output volume settings.