Part of The Common Man family of restaurants, The Flying Monkey Movie House and Performance Center serves audiences in New England with some of the best contemporary musical and comedy acts. Booking both regional and national artists, the venue’s schedule includes violinist/fiddler Natalie MacMaster, singer/songwriter Judy Collins, guitarist Johnny Winter and Blue Oyster Cult. Providing the sound reinforcement is nothing to be taken lightly...

Contracted to design and oversee installation of the newly renovated theatre’s sound system, full service production/design/build house K Production Services chose DAS Audio’s Aero 12A line array modules and LX-215A subwoofer systems, and an Avid Venue digital console.

‘The Flying Monkey is an old converted movie house,’ says K Production Services President, Gary Agresti. ‘It is very oddly shaped and presented many sound-related challenges for live audio performance. The wanted to offer shows from a variety of genres – from soft acoustic acts all the way through loud rock concerts – so we needed a sound reinforcement solution that would provide dispersion and clarity at all sound pressure levels.’

The Flying Monkey’s main loudspeaker system comprises 14 Aero 12A line array elements – flown six modules per side (stage left/right). Low-frequency support is provided by two LX-215A sub-bass enclosures – one per side, vertically aligned with the overhead hangs. Additionally, there are two Aero 12As mounted from the theatre’s ceiling, toward the rear of the space as an upper balcony delay system. A DAS DSP-4080 stereo/mono processor handles loudspeaker management while an Avid Venue SC48 digital console resides at front of house.

‘With their self-powered design, the loudspeaker systems were the ideal match for this project, ’ Agresti says, ‘In addition to the streamlined cabling and ease of installation the powered systems afford, the DAS equipment provides consistent coverage throughout the space, as well as excellent speech intelligibility and music reproduction. The vocals just pop, while all other mid frequencies stay clear and well-defined. These enclosures handle everything we throw at them with absolutely no distortion.

‘We work with many national touring acts that have used just about every conceivable audio system out there. We’re constantly being told they feel the sound at The Flying Monkey is among the best they’ve encountered. The feedback from the Monkey patrons is just as positive.

‘DAS Audio’s customer service has been immediately responsive to all of our needs,’ Agresti adds. ‘A company representative called to verify that we received everything, asked if we had any questions, verified everything was working correctly, and they continue to check in to ensure all our requirements have been met. In my book, that’s an A++ rating.’

‘As The Flying Monkey expands its lineup for 2013, we look forward to the chance to use the system to its full potential. This was a very gratifying project and all of us at K Production Services hope to continue our success by installing more DAS equipment in some of our other venues as well.’