Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford

Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford

The Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, home to The Bard’s great works, has once again opted for TiMax SoundHub to assist with spatial audio control and timing in its theatres. The RSC first introduced TiMax to its 450-seat Swan Theatre over a decade ago and now, as the opportunity arose, they have upgraded that system to the latest TiMax FPGA spatial audio core and added an extra TiMax SoundHub-S64 with MADI to the main 1200-seat Royal Shakespeare Theatre’s sound control, to provide further dimension to this unique world-famous venue. The installation was supplied, supported and installed by digital audio experts, HD Pro Audio.

TiMax plays an important yet unusual role at the RSC, in place as a multi-channel speaker management system which is controlled separately from the sound designer and the sound desk by the production sound technician. That separation is vital.

The Royal Shakespeare Theatre’s thrust stage is the reason TiMax plays such an important role. Whilst affording the audience incredible sightlines for the performances, the thrust stage is challenging from an audio perspective. With the seating effectively wrapped around the stage in rows up to 80 seats wide, delay times to the circa 65 delay speakers in the auditorium need to be accurately managed to ensure proper alignment and accurate spatial localisation.

Equally, a thrust stage offers endless possibilities for set design. As sets change, however, so do the speaker positions and their time alignment.
The TiMax has bestowed ease and simplicity upon the complex function of system and spatial management in the unusually shaped Royal Shakespeare Theatre spaces.

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