where the Pro6 has 24 . Overall , the amount of handles is what made it the winner .”
As far as the sonic quality of the dLive S7000s , McMillan describes it as warm and very musical , noting they ’ re not using any external EQs and that he is running his DCAs in almost the exact same places he had them on the analog consoles . “ Another big benefit for us now that we ’ ve moved out of analog is the number of outputs has increased . So we ’ ve now been able to zone the theatres via matrixes , whereas before we were using our [ dbx ] DriveRack to do a lot of the distribution ,” McMillian adds . “ It ’ s allowing us to tailor our mix specifically for the boxes , the balconies , the front fills , and enter the level of detail and control that we now have .”
Regarding the house PAs , most of the theatres are on Electro-Voice speaker systems , except the Drayton Festival Theatre , which uses EAW speakers . The St . Jacobs Country Playhouse and Huron Country Playhouse recently converted to bi-amplification while there are plans for King ’ s Wharf Theatre to do the same . “ Most venues are a standard front fill , balcony , left-centre-right configuration , and sub ,
SENNHEISER 2000 SERIES WIRELESS RECEIVERS
and as of this year , we ’ re putting front fills in Drayton ,” adds McMillan .
To go along with the three new dLive consoles , Angus Audio also outfitted Drayton Entertainment with a huge complement of new Sennheiser 2000 Series wireless systems to augment their older generation Sennheiser inventory and replace some items that had worn out .
The new systems consist of two racks of 24 channels for 48 total channels and was selected with help from Sennheiser ’ s Daniel Durbin and Jameson Criswell .
“ We had 48 channels of Sennheiser G2s spread between A and B band and they were near the end of their lifespan . The e-connectors were getting very worn on them and we were having connector issues , so it was time to change ,” reveals McMillan .
As David Angus , owner of Angus Audio , explains , one of the unique features from Sennheiser that makes the manufacturer ’ s RF systems particularly valuable to theatres is that each new generation is compatible with the previous one . “ What they allowed you to do was replace a set of belt packs and make them compatible with the generation before , which meant that the receiver ’ s life was extended as Drayton has receivers that look like they just came out of the box because they sat in the rack , but the belt pack , in the theatre situation , lives a rough life , especially with a musical or a dance troupe like they have . This is very , very active and they get sweat out , they get rolled on ,” he says , before McMillan jumps in , laughing , to add “ kicked across the stage ” to the list of hazards that the belt packs endure . Angus continues , “ Sometimes it makes more sense to just replace the set of belt packs and Sennheiser was the only company that we were aware of that could do this one generation back compatibility , which adds the value of really , really extending the life of these packs .”
Of course , Sennheiser ’ s MKE 2 lavalier microphones are a theatre staple , so Drayton purchased 60 new units . “ Right now we have in our inventory probably about 110 MKE 2s and we try to keep that level and we ’ re split between LEMOs and the e-connector ,” adds McMillan . Another added bonus of the 2000 Series receivers is they ’ re compatible with Sennheiser G-band handheld microphones , of which Drayton owns 14 , in addition to the eight A-band and four B-band handhelds in its inventory .
When Professional Sound spoke with McMillan and our other interviewees in early March , Drayton ’ s new Sennheiser gear ( and the new dLives , for that matter ) was getting its first real-world test on Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat . “ I ’ m not noticing any colouration at all ,” reports McMillan . “ They sound tremendous , and very good signalto-noise , as well . I ’ m loving the LEMOs , especially with Joseph because it ’ s a very physical show . I ’ ve got my lead rolling down stairs and with the LEMOs , I don ’ t have any fear that I ’ m going to get any connector noise . I ’ ve got people doing acrobatics as well , and everything is holding up great .”
“ The frequency agility [ of the Sennheiser units ] allows us to use 40 channels of wireless and 12 channels of radio com ,” notes Blair . “ Angus Audio does the frequency coordination in-house for each season . For example , in Grand Bend at the Huron Country Playhouse and Playhouse II , we used 50 channels of wireless last season . The two spaces are within 100 ft . of each other , so the RF coordination is very heavy . The two stages actually share a common lobby ! The RF spectrum has gotten a lot smaller with the loss of the 700 mHz range and the 2000 Series can fit way more channels into a smaller spectrum . The channel counts on the shows are only going up , while our available RF spectrum is going down . The selectable RF output power feature is great for when we are running shows physically close to each other . We could not do that in the previous set up using Sennheiser EW500 G3s .”
Another bonus of Sennheiser 2000 Series belt packs is their battery life ,
40 • PROFESSIONAL SOUND