I believe I’m in love, and this time I imply it. A couple of days in the past, I blended a present at Capital One Hall in Tysons, VA, and it could possibly be the best-sounding venue I’ve blended within the States. Ever.
Opening its doorways on October 1, 2021, Capital One Hall is a part of Capital One Center, a brand new mixed-use city redevelopment constructed on 24.5 acres. Capital One Hall options 4 areas able to internet hosting quite a lot of occasions, starting from Broadway productions and live shows to not-for-profit arts features and enterprise conferences.
There’s the Main Theater, a 1,600-cap seated venue with stage, orchestra pit and fly system; The Vault, a black field theater with a capability of 225 supposed for smaller performances and displays; The Atrium, a four-story, open house with most capability of 1,000 individuals standing or 500 individuals seated; and The Perch, a landscaped public rooftop park 100 ft above the road that’s accessible to the general public by means of the inside of The Hall.
Viewed from the road, it’s apparent that this was an formidable undertaking. The exterior facade of the constructing contains 7,000 slabs of imported Italian Carrara marble; every slab has dimensions of roughly 16x48x2 inches and weighs roughly 150 kilos.
Inside the lobby, granite flooring and walnut paneling convey the sensation that this isn’t simply one other theater. The foyer staircase is created from marble slabs 6×54 inches, with a mixed weight of roughly 40,000 kilos. Walking in or out of the auditorium offers you that feeling you get once you open the airlock door to a well-designed recording studio: you may really feel the load of the doorways underhand, even when it doesn’t take a Herculean effort to maneuver them, and you’re feeling assured that undesirable sound isn’t getting in or out.
Once you’re within the seating space, the outside world promptly fades away resulting from room-in-a-room development that options vibrational isolation of the construction utilizing rubber pads and employs 60,000 cubic ft of concrete with a weight of 9 million kilos (!). Eighteen-inch-thick concrete partitions underneath the steel-framed “outer-box” areas (the atrium, lobbies, mechanical methods and back-of-house areas) dampen vibration, whereas a six-inch air hole eliminates any acoustic bridging to the “interior field” of the principle theater.
The inside partitions of the theater function a perforated metallic “pores and skin” that conceals acoustic remedy combining absorption and diffusion, which controls the quantity of mirrored sound contained in the room. It’s one of the vital dead-sounding massive rooms I’ve blended in.
I’m completely satisfied to report that the oldsters who accepted the development price range additionally accepted a wholesome price range for the audio system. The important P.A. cling consists of 10 d&b audiotechnik V12 cabs (three-way passive line array) per aspect with matching V and SL-G subwoofers. Stage screens and aspect fills are additionally from d&b, consisting of (12) M4, (4) M6, (3) B6-Subs and (2) V7P three-way loudspeakers for sidefill. d&b D80, 30D and D20 present amplification for the mains, fills and screens.
Control is by way of Yamaha Rivage PM5 at FOH and Rivage PM3 at screens, with one RPIO 622 and three RPIO 222. The microphone locker would make most studios blush, with choices from DPA, Earthworks, Miktek, Neumann, Sennheiser and Shure, plus the theater has 24 channels of Sennheiser EM6000 digital wi-fi microphones.
Most excursions passing by means of the world will play the Main Theater at Capital One Hall, the place mixing is on the similar time a deal with and a problem. It’s a deal with because of the consideration paid to the room reverb time, which is unusually brief and tight for a room of this measurement—so that you don’t battle the mirrored sound as you’ll in a room with longer reverb instances. Those similar attributes make the setting much less forgiving acoustically talking.
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The P.A. gives a excessive degree of articulation, that means that dialing in your combine will take slightly longer than in rooms the place you merely can’t hear the distinction resulting from poor acoustics. I’d examine the expertise to that of blending in an unforgiving studio management room the place good, dangerous or ugly, you’re going to listen to the reality. I’ll take that any day.
The coronary heart of any venue is the home crew, and I’ve to acknowledge that they’re completely top-notch.