The new home to all Wrocław’s major orchestral and vocal ensembles and festivals, National Forum of Music (NFM) in Wroclaw houses an 1,800-seat concert auditorium and three smaller chamber halls ranging in size from 250-450 seats. In addition to staging jazz and pop concerts, it will double as a movie theatre. Designed by APA Kuryłowicz & Associates, it is also believed to boast one of the biggest and most advanced technical implementations in Poland, with signal distribution and routing over Optocore.

The Optocore system, which provides 768 inputs, was approved by the consultants, Artec and supplied by the German manufacturer’s dealer, M Ostrowski. Installation and commissioning were handled by ESS Audio, who oversaw the audio, video and intercom. The company formed part of a two-way consortium with PS Teatr, who were responsible for the mechanical staging and lighting – with both parties contracted by general contractor, Inter-System.

ESS was working with Optocore for the first time: ‘I was positively surprised as installation and configuration went extremely smoothly,’ Project Manager Adam Pieron, admits

In designing the routing system he consulted Optocore’s Applications Engineering Manager, Maciek Janiszewski. Optocore has provided the mic preamp front end in the form of eight multiple X6R-FX interfaces (all DualMic) and 22 X6R-TP DualMic devices, connected to the X6R-FX via their SANE protocol. Two sets of four X6R-FX and 11 X6R-TP DualMmic modules are in use in the main hall and five DD2FR-FX Madi interfaces handle the FOH, Monitor mixer, OB vans, Pro Tools HDX recording and Madi/analogue/AES converter.

Four separate gain controls are provided to 120 mic inputs – and up to four mixing desks, including the Soundcraft Vi6 and Vi1 delivered with the system, could control gain individually.

In addition, two further DD2FR-FX Optocore devices distribute Madi between the different auditoria. ‘Two DD2FR-FX are used to connect all the halls (Red, Black and Chamber) on a single Optocore Madi network,’ Pieron says.

Soundcraft Vi consoles, with additional Madi cards for Optocore, reside in both In Red and Black halls while in Chamber Hall a Soundcraft Performer 2 is also fitted with an additional Madi card. ‘So with all halls connected to Optocore, you can for instance record a concert in the Red Hall, or transmit a concert from the main hall to all of the venue’s recital halls.

‘The DD2FR-FX enables very flexible control of the Optocore preamps from the portable Soundcraft consoles – the operator just needs to connect to one DD2FR-FX and adjust Emulation Mode mapping – which can be done with a single macro button.’

Pieron confirms that the Artec spec contained several key requirements – notably the four independent analogue gains for each channel – and this is why the Optocore devices, with their DualMic pre modules, proved to be the best choice: ‘There were more expensive options we could have considered but Optocore is very flexible and capable of handling complicated Madi routing – and DD2FR-FX modules are compatible with both Soundcraft and Studer mixers. It met all the requirements and was the easiest system to implement; it all went in very smoothly.’

Although the hall presently operates one big network, according to the ESS Audio man with this enormous channel capacity they can make two separate Optocore networks should they prefer – for example first and second gain only with FOH, monitors and all connections between halls (with 48kHz sampling frequency), and third and fourth with REC and OB Vans (96kHz). They have assigned 120 channels for each Gain – again specified by Artec – fed from a Bantam patchbay.

Pieron believes they have provided an elegant solution for the operator: ‘All they have to do is to choose which Optocore channels they wish to control – with regard to gain and phantom power – and the Soundcraft consoles recognises it just as they would Soundcraft stageboxes.’

For sound reinforcement, one Optocore DD32R-FX interface feeds a Meyer Sound Galileo and Galileo Calisto processors, the second feeds a large ClearCom intercoms system and BSS Soundweb Blu network, which controls Crown amplifiers and 70 JBL speaker zones over Blu-Link; this covers the announcement systems in the concert hall and throughout the entire complex. Premium Meyer systems, specified by Artec – who remained as onsite consultants and engineering supervisors – are found in each of the halls, with Mina and Mica systems providing the main PA hangs in the principal two.

In conclusion, Pieron says he is confident that the Optocore deployment meets all the requirements of the venue and the operators: ‘We have given them a very big, very flexible and hopefully very reliable system.’

More: www.optocore.com