MEYER SOUND SYSTEM USED AT Michael Jackson ONE™ show by Cirque Du Soleil®
After years and years of hustling to get my chubby self to Las Vegas for CES, (the world’s biggest tech show) I discovered that the CTA (Consumer Technology Association of America) ran something called their Scholarship Journalist program. This was where hired public relations teams in territories all over the planet were required to select journalists who would then have their flights to Vegas and hotel paid for, as well as getting special press treatment once there. To qualify, you had to have the right stuff. Mostly a nice chewy audience for your speciality.
I commenced shameless schmoozing and made it to Vegas again but on the SJ program this time. There is a really strange thing about Americans and their approach to ‘˜posh’. For if you book (if you can) a table in a really desirable restaurant in London, like say the Ivy, then you will generally get treated with a real slice of engagement, pukka service and even friendliness. Since friendliness is so deeply ingrained in the admirable American culture, when they get seriously posh, American hospitality becomes haughty and aloof. Likewise their ultimate concert, would be Mariah Carey in your private two storey duplex suite in a high-rise casino hotel. Just for you and your family as a private gig. I have never understood that.
Yet what I truly appreciated, was the magical access to the Emerald Room press facility. This is much smaller than the major press hubs in more than one place at the big CES event. It was one bit of personal privilege that meant I was rubbing shoulders with the great and the good of all of the USA major press outlets. Talk about punching!
Out of habit and good old-fashioned guilt I worked my arse off and found out afterwards that I had produced more quality content than any other scholarship journalist, ever. I think that is how I got to do it twice! And in the years since, I have received an invitation back to the Emerald room. For a show that had 176,000 people swarm into Las Vegas, that makes me feel deeply honoured.
My son’s birthdate makes Boxing day his And-A-Half’th birthday and it reminds me as does the bit twixt Christmas and New Year anyway, of the passage of time. The first year I went to Vegas at CES time, I was sent via a five hour layover in Chicago O’Hare airport where it was five below in Centigrade outside and I stayed in The Hacienda Hotel. That was imploded on New Year’s Eve in 1996 some forty years after it was built. I don’t think it had been redecorated since Elvis died, when I stayed there in 1992 I think?
I do recall my amazement as the immense Mandalay Bay replaced it, full size palm trees outside and all. But that first visit was twenty five years ago and in the time between, I managed to get to ‘˜Vegas for CES (and once for SEMA as a late-included only-journalist-on-a-dealer-trip) about every second year. The only thing I could rely upon was the town changing and building new hotels so rapidly that it looked a bit different every year. I had vowed that eventually, I would take MeJulie, just for fun. And finally, two years back, I did, with us going to see the Blue Man Group and the awesome Michael Jackson ONE™ show by Cirque Du Soleil®™
It transpired that the incredible sound quality was down to the same brand of equipment that Metallica use – Meyer Sound. I was blown to smithereens as separate as the shards of glass at the start of ‘Black or White’ by the amazing, engaging, all-enveloping surround sound experience. So when, two years later we decided to have another visit, I wanted to get access to that sound system and report upon it, just like I did for the WorldWired Tour rig still to be used for a slew more dates in 2018. Thus, I got onto Meyer Sound’s PR and they hooked me up with the press liaison for that particular show and sorted us VIP tickets, Row AA, seats right at the front of the main seating before the single-letter rows down front. This meant nobody in front of our heads but less foot room as there is a wall, so seated peoples’ feet don’t poke into the walkway.
It’s no spoiler to let you know that a bit of theatre starts as you enter the auditorium at any Cirque Du Soleil® show. At this one, there are ‘˜paparazzi’ in trench coats and hats, with huge cameras, wandering around, before converging upon audience members, shouting a bit like a pap and flashing multiple flashguns at them. We were seated in the lovely mid-auditorium yet front row seats – VIP mind – and I was gently trying to find out what the bloke sat right next to me was there for in the same spot. I was telling him about the main ‘˜gag’ at another Cirque Du Soleil® show and at the exact and I mean EXACT instant I had finished and said, ‘I was so surprised, I nearly DIED!’ six of these performers appeared vertically, like ranting jack-in-the-boxes from behind the wall, shouting and flashing their lamp guns! It was hilarious and so well timed I nearly peed laughing.
The six performers must have bent double and commando-scurried some fifty yards so that the ‘˜VIP seated’ herberts got their ruddy comeuppance! Gits. It was brilliant and got the adrenaline pumping for the show, which is breath taking and needs to be seen if you ever possibly can.
SOUND & THE SYSTEM:
Meyer Sound is called that because it is about the end result and not merely their loudspeakers’ quality. So their software products, in this case are just as crucial a cog to the whole works as the physical products. In the auditorium in the Mandalay Bay, this makes the audio technology fully FIVE layers deep. As I was told, the genius sound designer Jonathan Deans, likes to work in layers. He was once an actor, a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. This prithee, let us sally forth and know more what audio doth transpire with yonder stage.
LAYER ONE: THE PROSCENIUM ARCH
For the non-theatrical (‘˜luvvies’) amongst you, the proscenium arch is that gateway to the world of theatre. You sit one side in the auditorium, they play from the stage.the shows at Cirque smash the proscenium, let alone break it, with performers arriving from all directions during any given Cirque show. That said, the ‘˜main’ sound system, like any show, is arrayed around the stage. This is truly muscular. Aaron Beck, head of sound, who I interviewed in the sound control booth within the auditorium before the show, explained, ‘The system started design in 2011 and would probably be Leopards if done today.’ before going on the explain each computer screen on the Meyer RMS speaker monitoring system I was shown, that showed each layer of speakers and locations. The proscenium array comprises a twelve-strong stack of MICA high power curvilinear array enclosures each side, with a quartet of the twin-eighteen inch driver equipped 1100 LFC boxes for deep bass. those who have booked seats right at the front will expect it to be impactful and they will be right, for a row of eight M1D enclosures are aimed right down at them.
Without further ado, here is the video I made inside the the auditorium.
LAYER TWO: NEAR-FIELD FOR ALL
If you have ever been to any big gig or even a theatre show, it is likely that they used ‘˜delays’ or installations of loudspeakers some distance from the stage. These run at about a millisecond per foot behind the ones on the stage, thus ‘˜delayed’ by an audio processor. As a sound comes from the front array, say forty feet from the stage, past some of the audience but with lots left to go, the sound then comes out of the next row of speakers, forty milliseconds later. Thus, each wavefront is coherent and reinforced – louder – as it goes past the ears of the audience.
This is a good way to get the people to only ever hear the best, least diffused speaker energy, as sound spreads like the ripples in a pond with a stone plopped in it. The closer, the more ‘˜near field’ or ideal it is. Recording studios have big powerful professional speaker monitors built in usually but also have a set or two of smaller loudspeakers mounted on the desk, as near field monitoring for ultimate detail. It’s a big known speaker physics principle.
And to that end but with a characteristic enormous generosity of design by intent, this second layer does just what the front proscenium arch stuff does, just that bit later as it washes over the audience. Here, they use the JM1P horizontal array enclosure but also more of the 1100 LFC boxes. There are four clusters of three boxes across the front section of the audience after the stage, then another row further back of four, then five, then four more JM1P, with a brace of bass 1100 LFCs. As if that wasn’t quite enough, the rearmost audience get another full set of four-five-four JM1P plus two more boxes of 1100 LFC eighteens to throb them.
LAYER THREE: UNCANNY SURROUND
So far so huge but for the home theatre fans amongst you, who may have counted subwoofer locations and got to three, the full channel description of the Meyer Sound system at the Michael Jackson ONE„¢ show by Cirque Du Soleil® is in fact 15.3. Meaning that was well as the ‘˜point three’ or three subwoofer locations, there are fully fifteen discrete (as in separate) audio channels to steer the audio around. This is awesome and uses sixty seven surround speakers.
The craziest thing is that since each Meyer Sound enclosure has an intent and throw pattern, they can be specified as close, medium or long throw. This describes the shape of the energy coming out of the box. Cunning design can change this, again another old principle, used especially in columnar speakers in churches to reach the back without needing too much wattage. In this theatre installation, the surround channels are played so that if you are on one side rather than in the middle of the auditorium, the surround information that you are sent will be equal on both sides, coming from different throw loudspeakers each side. The placement of surround elements works a treat, in high clarity and power.
This is one heck of a set of speakers and has elements from all sorts of ranges. MSL4, UPQ/J, MTS4A and Melody as well as M1D and MICA. The MTS4A are pointed directly downwards to slam. when wanted.
LAYER FOUR: LEFT/CENTRE/RIGHT – EACH!
As the ‘˜paparazzi’ wander about and the set is showing all kinds of bonkers things on screens (no spoilers, not even small ones) there are a series of sound effects and tiny audio stings. These are incredible and it took me some time to work out why at first. Each of the 1,804 seats gets their very own three channel L/C/R speaker behind their heads, builded into their seat. A bit like a TV sound bar. Aaron was happy to tell me that Scosche make these for them. Talk about where my worlds collide, for this is surround sound with pro audio and from a company famous for car audio cables and things automotive.
LAYER FIVE: CONSTELLATION AND THE FORTY-ONE MICROPHONES
The final and ultimately most amazing layer is what the Meyer Sound stuff can do to the room acoustics. I have interviewed the T from THX as well as the lovely Canadians from IMAX, who know a damn thing or two about room eq but this is next level, way more than mere eq. The Constellation system – a set of software, essentially – uses high grade microphones to ‘˜listen’ to the auditorium before you are then able to apply corrections. In this room there are forty one, or enough to mic up a gospel choir!
How they are used is to send the room’s acoustic information to the processor that can then do amazing things. How it does it is a bit complex and we would never get fully told, after the Meyer Sound folks were subject to some attempts to copy them by reverse engineering, they clammed up, with less revealed. But the reality was astonishing and what I got to do was as exciting as testing a mic at the O2. As Aaron Beck adjusted it, I was able to clap and hear a DEAD auditorium. He then added more and yet more space until the single clap or odd blurty noises that sound engineers make under bridges or to hear room acoustics (and drives my poor woman spare, like I never outgrew shouting under bridges as a little boy) could be heard in a space like a cave as big as a cathedral. It was epic and so made every follicle of hair stand on end.
The show is of course just fabulous and the sound is so utterly engaging, it takes you and sweeps you up, while the incredible performers of the Michael Jackson ONE„¢ show by Cirque Du Soleil® are thus enabled to take you that other world. Last of all, said performers are also richly equipped with LOTS of on stage audio from powerful Meyer Sound monitors, as after all, they are live performers and if they too are lifted by the music, it all helps to feed the adrenaline that this theatre is so soaked in, you can feel it even when the performers are just training on stage, as they were during my interview.
What a huge privilege this was, it made our entire trip. And as I had travelled on essentially a holiday with a simple work Visa, this one small task of work was all that stopped me from being refused entry to the USA. I had not done my homework. If on a leisure-only break, a work-visa visitor must in fact get an ESTA these days. It was the single scariest experience I have ever had at an airport.
Below, I have embedded the trailer for the show. The sound is dramatic, just within the stereo soundtrack of YouTube. Just imagine the impact of being there.
If you can, GO! Here’s how to book the show link