Broadway to Cirque du Soleil: Sound design for the stage

Twenty Thousand Hertz

Dallas Taylor

Music, Design, Arts, Music Commentary

4.8 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 16 April 2018

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Amazing concerts, Broadway musicals, Cirque du Soliel performances, and other live shows live and die on their sound design. This is the story of how sound design for live performances went from zero to speakers in the seats and where the industry might go next. This episode features interviews with sound design legends Abe Jacob and Jonathan Deans. 20K is hosted by Dallas Taylor and made out of the studios of Defacto Sound. Follow Dallas on Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn. Watch our video shorts on YouTube, and join the discussion on Reddit and Facebook. Check out Business Wars here. Consider supporting the show at donate.20k.org Episode transcript, music, and credits can be found here: https://www.20k.org/episodes/livetheater Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Oh, say can you see?
0:05.0	You're listening to 20,000 Hertz.
0:09.0	I'm Dallas Taylor.
0:11.0	Back at the 2013 presidential inauguration,
0:15.0	superstar Beyonce sang the Star-Spangled Banner.
0:18.0	But she didn't do it live.
0:21.6	Beyonce admitted to lip-syncing.
0:23.6	Due to the weather, due to the delay, due to no proper sound check,
0:31.6	I did not feel comfortable taking a risk.
0:34.6	It was about the president and the inauguration, and I wanted to make him
0:39.3	in my country proud. So I decided to sing along with my pre-recorded track.
0:44.3	Beyonce's decision to lip sync acknowledges the importance of taking sound very seriously,
0:50.3	especially during a live performance. Big events rely on great designers,
0:55.5	mixers, microphones, speakers,
0:57.7	and a whole host of other things
0:59.3	in order to sound effortless to an audience.
1:02.0	At least, that's true today,
1:04.1	but it wasn't always that way.
1:10.2	For generations, there was no sound system in the theater.
1:13.6	Everybody strained to listen in those days.
1:16.6	Today, audiences are inundated with earbuds and other forms of mechanical reproduction,
1:22.6	so they don't longer strain to listen in the theater.
	...

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