Three-time Olivier Award winning sound designer Gareth Owen specified a d&b audiotechnik system to support “Mamma Mia! The Party,” an immersive musical theatre show and dining experience that’s been in permanent residence in a specially-adapted venue at The O2 Arena in London since September of last year.
“d&b makes a speaker for every job and the systems complement each other perfectly,” Owen states. “This enabled me to create even coverage and punchy sound across the entire performance area; this does justice to the main musical element of the show but equally ensures the spoken word sections are clearly heard by all.
“Bjorn Ulvaeus, who’s the producer of the show, was insistent that we didn’t compromise on sound quality in favor of set design,” he continues, “so we were able to use pretty much every small and medium box d&b makes, including V-Series, Y-Series, T-Series, E-Series. You name it, you’ll find it on this show.”
It enabled the kind of “pick and mix” approach Owen that undertook, utilizing products from across the range to best suit the varying dynamics of the room. The overall sonic design goals for the production and space are clear reproduction, efficiency, and ease of use.
“The other aspect that makes using d&b attractive to me is that the voicing of their loudspeakers is the same whether it’s a point source or line array box, small or large,” Owen adds. “This means I don’t have to worry about EQ’ing the boxes to sound the same, I just have to worry about EQ’ing for the room — that’s a huge time saver.”
He concludes, “This is a fully immersive musical theater show with the cast performing all over the space, pretty much always in front of the speakers. Once I’ve EQ’d the feedback out of one box, it doesn’t matter whether the actors are performing in front of a line array or point source box, small or large, we are still feedback free. This makes my life so much easier.”
