Operating since the 1950s, The Second City in Chicago is an improvisational comedy enterprise best known as the first on-going improvisational theater troupe in the U.S., and it’s served as the training ground for a host of famous alumni, including John Belushi, Mike Myers, Bill Murray, Gilda Radner, Tina Fey, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, and many others.
As part of an upgrade to the facility’s sound reinforcement systems, the venerable nightspot recently incorporated three Aspen SPN1612 16 input/12 output audio processors from Lectrosonics. Lake Forest, IL-based TC Furlong was contracted to handle the upgrade.
The venue produces shows with various scenes and songs addressing local, national, and international issues through social and political satire. Similar in content, the Mainstage provides for a larger, more historical experience while the E.T.C. is a smaller, more intimate room. UP Comedy Club is the newest room at The Second City and is dedicated to producing and presenting a diverse array of programs that include stand-up, sketch, improvisation, podcasts, and other eclectic performances.
“The house needed a capable sound system that could run unattended much of the time while also providing the reliability and consistency necessary for a venue of this nature,” notes Brian O’Connell, sales manager for TC Furlong. “Working with our tech Scott Helmke, we determined that the Aspen SPN1612 would be the right choice for each of the three rooms.”
O’Connell elaborates, “With eight Earthworks C30/C choir mics over each stage and lots of improvisation during a typical show, we needed very good automixing capabilities, since putting wireless microphone packs on the talent was not an option. In addition to clear, natural sounding audio quality, system reliability was another very important consideration because whatever equipment we deployed, it would be used constantly and for many years to come. My past experience has shown me that Lectrosonics equipment sounds good, is extremely well built, and is designed to last.
“The Lectrosonics Aspen SPN1612 has excellent automixing and loudspeaker management provisions. in addition to a very flexible matrix mixer,” he adds. “The fact that we could get great automixing, all of the speaker management options we required, and flexible matrix mixing in a solid, well-built product made the Lectrosonics Aspen units a no-brainer choice.”
According to Kyle Anderson, technical director for The Second City, “The processor allows us to get more out of the microphones and takes some things off the engineer’s plate to be free to mix music and manage various feeds for broadcast and streaming.”
