Know-how

PRINCO's Project
Claudio Masci's company Princo is one of Italy's best-known distributors and consultants. Together with the SALZBRENNER STAGETEC MEDIAGROUP, Claudio Masci won the contract to build the new audio and communication systems – including the definition of the architecture of the full system, the installation, the training of the staff and an on-site commission for the first three-months at Auditorium Roma. PRINCO will also take care of the whole video system including video control rooms for each theater, allowing a connection to an O.B. Truck.

Piano's Auditorium of Modern Times

»Rome didn't have an appropriate place for classical music performances,« said Renzo Piano, one of Italy's star architects, explaining the origin of his extensive project, dubbed »Nuovo Auditorium di Roma.« Under Piano's supervision, a campus of several concert halls that are architecturally, acoustically and technically innovative is being developed.

Architecture and Sound

An architect specializing in acoustics, Piano devised plans for buildings with shapes, dimensions and precise measurements that provide optimal and natural acoustics. However, had the largest hall been any bigger, electroacoustical amplification would have been needed. To make three concert halls, each acoustically independent of the others, Piano designed three separate buildings, or »containers«, architecturally reminiscent of classical Roman antiquity. There have been exacting research and several tests conducted, starting with laser reflection models and ending with large models in which sound reflection could be measured.

Damit die drei Vortragssäle unabhängig genutzt werden können ohne sich akustisch zu stören, wurden sie in drei separate Gebäude, so genannte Container eingebaut, die architektonisch von außen an Bauten der klassischen römischen Antike erinnern. Eine genaue Planung und aufwändige Tests, erst mit Laser-Reflexionen und später in größeren Modellen mit Schall, stellten von Anfang an sicher, dass die Akustik gelingt.

From the very beginning, Piano made sure, the room's acoustics would be perfect. Each of the three halls was designed with flexible acoustics. For instance, the smallest theater – the most flexible on campus – has a movable ceiling and floor with variable walls. The mid-size hall also has a movable stage and a variable ceiling. That hall is similar to one that Piano designed with the assistance of famous acoustic designer Helmut Müller, who is also participating in the Auditorium Roma project.

More than 30 Routers

Thanks to good room acoustics, individual halls don't need a PA system, but since the city required an archive of performances by well-known artist, Auditorium Roma would require a large recording system. For this purpose, every theater needed its own control room. At the same time another control room was designed for use by all of the theaters. That increases the recording flexibility and making it possible to produce two different recordings of the same concert and also provides a redundancy backup for technical service. Since it was important to Piano to find an integrated system based on a fibre-optic network, the choice was easy: equip all of the Auditorium Roma's control rooms with CANTUS consoles and to connect them via NEXUS audio nets.

The network consists of eight base devices per theater, allowing each hall to have its own system while at the same time being part of one big audio installation encompassing the whole campus! The Auditorium Roma also offers connections for up to three individual O.B. Trucks per theater, supported by three additional NEXUS base devices. But that's not all. Other base devices are planned for satellite uplinks, for central digital video and for audio storage of all recordings, for the rehearsal rooms and even for the dressing rooms. In total, there will be 37 NEXUS base devices employed – this is by far, the biggest NEXUS installation in the world!

Strict rules for the design

Each area – say a hall with its control room – build a separate NEXUS audio net. In total, there will be four individual NEXUS networks. MADI-lines connecting different audio networks need to be routed very flexibly between the control rooms and the other devices of the Auditorium Roma.

That link is best made by a NEXUS STAR. The STAR is equipped only with MADI I/O cards and can switch the individual lines of 24 MADI ports with 64 I/O signals each – the basic requirement for such an installation.

This huge sound system is not just for recordings and on-air transmissions, it can also be used as an intercom, communication and signalization system.

Each hall gets a stage management system of the C.A.S. series, which is also based on NEXUS. Using the system, the stage manager can control the order of events during a performance. For example, artists can be called via light signs or loudspeakers. The manager can also control communication during a show. The rehearsal rooms and even the dressing rooms are connected to the NEXUS net, because those are rooms where the artists are waiting for their cue. There is also an independent intercom and paging system that allows the technical staff to communicate separately.

In several steps

It's always been said that »Rome was not build in a day.« That is especially true for large technical installations. The Auditorium Roma was planned precisely in that philosophy. When the Auditorium Roma opens this April, the mid-size hall, its control room, one connection for the O.B. Trucks and the dressing rooms will be completed. The other stages will follow in sequence. The project should be completed by the end of 2003. The first thing, however, is finalize the central switching system – so that not only the star architect Renzo Piano, but also another STAR will be able to switch and turn on the opening ceremony!