The Royal Theatre and its sibling the McPherson Playhouse on Vancouver Island host everything from symphony concerts to plays and Broadway tours. While steeped in history dating back to 1913, their wireless audio technology is the very latest, built around Lectrosonics’ D Squared family of digital wireless.
Serving all sizes of theater companies, musical ensembles, and even full orchestras, the current complement includes six DSQD four-channel wideband receivers, 24 DBu transmitters, four DHu handheld wireless microphones, four DPR-A Plug-on transmitters, and two ultra-compact SSM transmitters featuring Lectrosonics’ time-tested Digital Hybrid radios.
Per technical director Warren Busby, the theaters are no strangers to Lectrosonics, having used the its solutions since 2004. In fact, Busbty believes they were the first theater in Canada to deploy the Venue system.
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“Colin Bernard, Lectrosonics’ director of operations in Canada, was looking to increase presence in the theater market. We bought a Venue receiver rack, six belt packs, plug-on transmitters, a whole system for the Royal, which is the larger of our two facilities at 1,416 seats. In 2017, a Venue 2 system was added at the Royal with 6 HHa transmitters and 6 SMQV transmitters to compliment the original Venue system. All of the theatres’ wireless has been supplied by Pacific Audio Works, a longtime Vancouver Island audio production company. In about 2018, we wanted to upgrade the smaller McPherson Playhouse, as it’s home to the majority of the live theatre events, with 772 seats.”
Here, Lectrosonics’ then-nascent D Squared digital wireless proved a good fit for Canada’s changing radio frequency landscape. “The D Squared system was brand spanking new at the time. One of its main benefits was that you could achieve more usable channels within a given range of RF spectrum, while needing less bandwidth of separation between those channels. This aligned with how Industry Canada was selling off a lot of the spectrum, some of which our competitors were using for their wireless. So, we demo’ed a system quickly, and wound up going with four of the DSQD receivers, for a total of 16 channels.”
The transmitter side of the equation is (almost) all digital as well, as Busby details: “We bought 16 of the DBu belt packs, which are used in a number of other theatres, plus four DHu handheld mics. There are also a couple of the tiny SSM transmitters, which are Digital Hybrid, but the DSQD can receive in hybrid mode just fine, so we have these for when an actor requires the smallest and lightest pack possible. We were able to use the entire system exactly one time before the world shut down with Covid. When we got back up and running, we added eight more channels, so now it’s a 24-channel system.”
Frequency coordination at the McPherson has two, sometimes opposing, challenges: The potentially large channel count in a relatively compact space, and a rotating roster of companies and performers. Gordon Heal, who is Busby’s head of audio and assistant technical director, handles both with Wireless Designer software. “Wireless Designer is great for integrating equipment with ours, because via the receivers it will find every frequency in play and quickly set up a plot," he said. "For troupes that do a residency, leave, then return, we can save files of all their frequencies and update them online. As for external interference, there are some areas we stay away from, but the spectrum in Victoria is nowhere near as crowded as, say, downtown Toronto. Once in a great while, we might change some frequencies at intermission because something shows up that wasn’t there before. But again, Wireless Designer makes that easy to do right from the booth.”
The degree of agility offered by the wideband receivers paired with Wireless Designer means that the Royal and McPherson can host any type or size of performance. Busby reflected on the challenges of dealing with a community theater company that is in need of wireless or where some actors might come in with their own gear. “Our role is to do our job while also gently educating, and the Lectrosonics system certainly makes that easier," he said. "On the other hand, for the 2024 holiday season we had the Victoria Symphony performing the soundtrack to Home Alone while the movie was being screened onstage. We simply put packs on the concertmaster and other key players, and we knew that we’d not only have great sound quality, but someone can step forward to perform a solo without affecting what the audience hears.”
Finally, Busby cited Lectrosonics’ personalized customer service as invaluable to keeping his ever-evolving world of live theatre running smoothly. “I have to say Colin Bernard was rather prescient,” he recalled. “Back in 2004 when he was configuring our first Venue system, I asked him, ‘Why are you putting us in the high 400s and low 500s?’ He said, ‘So it won’t become a thing later on.’ Wireless in Canada was mainly in the 700s and 800s at the time, and sure enough, they started auctioning off that higher spectrum, but we were okay. We’ve found that level of attentiveness to be the rule, not the exception.”
