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Hi,
I'm composing and directing the music for a Christmas musical (a panto, as they're known here in the UK) in a 1000 seat professional rep theatre for a commercial production company. There will be about 65 performances over 5 weeks.

The usual setup for this company's productions is a live trio (keyboards, bass, drums/perc.) augmented by prerecorded backing tracks (instrumental and chorus) and prerecorded vocal 'safety' tracks for the principal actors/singers in case of vocal problems. The usual medium for these backing tracks has been CD or minidisc, the format being a click on one side and a mono mix of all the musical elements on the other.

I'm not too happy about the mono mix!

Would it be practical to use a surround mix in DP to create a stereo pair plus a separate mono click channel on DVD, and use a multichannel DVD player for playback in the show? I've never used surround mixing, so I'm not sure whether this is technically a possibility or not.

If it is, this would be the least radical path for the production crew who are all used to the old procedure.

At this particular venue it isn't possible to run the show from computer/multitrack (my preference), but any other suggested solutions for this '3 track' dilemma would be gratefully received.

Many thanks

(I know you mentioned a computer isn't possible... But not sure why? Is it illegal or something there... The reason I ask is because I had the same problem as you until we realized how reliable MacBooks were...see below)

We use stereo click tracks every weekend at my church and I have found that the best solution is just using a stereo mix and sending the click track(as an audio render) through a third output. Example:

MOTU 828mk3:Output 1=Left
MOTU 828mk3:Output 2=Right
MOTU 828mk3:Output 3=Click Only

This setup of course we run simply from a MacBook with the 828 but it is amazingly reliable and professional.

If you don't have the Option of using a DAW setup, then I would say it's not worth the hassle for a stereo mix.

The benefit of this setup is that you could then feed the vocal dummy track through another output and allow the Front Of House to mix and EQ it as needed.

It's a small investment for the scale of what you're doing.

I would be glad to discuss this more with you if you have any more questions. Believe me, we tried a lot of things before we landed on this solution:)

Good luck

Fuller

I need to know a little bit more about the venue and the context to know what to recommend.

Also, is it the relative naturalness of the mono mix, the depth, separation of instruments, or how it blends with the live instruments, that is at issue? You might just need a better mono mix. Or is it the presentation, in terms of how the loudspeakers are laid out at the venue?

First, to the context: is there a conductor or director, who hears the click, or is it softly monitored by all the musicians using wedge monitoring (e.g.)?

Based on the size of the theatre, I am guessing that the musicians are in a pit or in a balcony above the stage, and that it might be possible to monitor the click without in-ear devices, but I can't make much of a guess about whether the live musicians are piped through the sound system, and if so, merged with the backing tracks.

I haven't yet presented my theatrical material in a theatre that large, but have played in venues of that size with my 80's cover band, so can draw upon the slightly different experiences of both projects if I know more about your circumstances.

For the 80's band, I did what you're doing, with click (for the drummer) on one track and a mono fold-down of the audio backing to the other track.

For the live theatrical work, which currently is playing in venues too small to have room for live musicians (we hope to change this soon), we are strictly using backing tracks with live vocals. But we are doing stereo, as in many cases I have important "stage cue" panning, such as a horse that enters at stage left and exits at stage right. So I can see how this sort of issue may be critical to what you are doing as well, and that you might need to move beyond dual mono and hence use a computer (as there are few multi-track options in standalone devices -- though Roland/Edirol has one).