Several years in the making, Western Connecticut State University’s new Visual & Performing Arts Center comprises three wings – Theatre Arts, Music and Visual Arts – and houses a multitude of spaces including a Concert Hall, Studio Theatre, Recording Studio, rehearsal rooms, as well as an Art Gallery, Painting and Sculpture Studios, and numerous other creative spaces.
‘It’s definitely an adventurous architectural space,’ observes Ben Bausher, Senior Consultant at Jaffe Holden, and designer of the centre’s audio and video systems. The project presented a number of challenges, not the least of which was the unconventional architectural design of the venues themselves.
The 350-seat Veronica Hagman Concert Hall is a case in point. One of the centre’s more interesting spaces, it features unconventional architecture with tri-level, in-the-round seating, variable acoustics, and an audio system featuring Fulcrum Acoustic TQ Series loudspeakers.
‘It’s fairly well-behaved, acoustically speaking,’ says Bausher, ‘but he unique seating pattern called for a considerable number of distributed fill speakers to provide uniform coverage across the entire space.’
Six Fulcrum CX1565 12-inch coaxial systems comprise the main arrays, with ten RX599 compact 5.25-inch cabinets providing front fill. A second fill ring of 14 RX599 boxes and a third fill ring of eight more RX599s completes coverage, with four Sub215 subwoofers stacked in a cardioid configuration to reduce low-frequency build-up. A DiGiCo SD9 console handles FOH duties.
The more conventional proscenium-style 350-seat MainStage Theatre is fitted with LR arrays, each with two Fulcrum GX1295 and two GX1265 12-inch coaxial systems, along with a centre array of two CX1265 cabinets. A pair of Sub215 subs covers low end punch. Front fill and under balcony fill are both handled by RX599 boxes A DiGiCo SD10-24 covers the live mix.
All rooms are connected via Madi using an Optocore network to the recording studio, which is outfitted with an SSL Duality console. A pair of portable recording racks with remote-controlled microphone preamps can be positioned in any of the halls or rehearsal rooms as needed, connecting directly with the studio’s Pro Tools system to capture performances in any room in the house.
Bausher points to Fulcrum’s unique coaxial design as a critical factor in the systems’ design: ‘To achieve the performance of Fulcrum’s 12-inch, two-way cabinets in a non-coaxial design would require a box around 30 inches tall,’ he says. ‘Plus, it runs on a single amplifier channel and only needs a single processing output. It’s smaller, needs less power and processing, and that ultimately means a lower budget. It was the perfect fit.’
The installation was performed by Masque Sound.
