The NAC Renewal at a Glance
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Approx. 600,000 ft. of cable pulled
More than 9,000 connection points
More than 100 network switches
50 km of new electrical & AV conduit
200 km of new electrical wire, AV cable & fibre
300 new speakers
1,300 new light fixtures
19,000 sq. ft. of veneer on the orchestra shell
32,500 sq. ft. of isolation material to minimize sound transfer backstage
works, with each of the three main perfor-
mance venues having its own dedicated
network. As well, there is a mix of perma-
nently-installed Optocore network devices
and mobile racks that can be moved be-
tween connection points in a room or from
one venue to another to accommodate
larger shows that need additional I/O. The
Optocore units are run at a 2 GB network
speed and 96 kHz sampling rate for pre-
mium audio quality and optimal channel
count.
There are network connections at all
FOH and monitor console positions in the
venues, which allow guest consoles to tie
into the network via analog or AES and
distribute audio to any network device.
With the pre-programmed macros in the
Optocore control software, users can easily
change the network’s routing to feed AES or
analog from any location to the PA, monitor
amplifiers, or installed monitor speakers.
At the core of each Optocore network
is the company’s new Route66 AutoRouter.
“The Route66 is a welcome product, be-
cause Optocore is a ring network and, obvi-
ously, if you’re going to bring Optocore into
a big facility with multiple networks, trying
to establish a ring is very difficult, and main-
taining that ring without somebody break-
ing it is even more difficult. They just need
to unplug it and they could possibly bring
down all three venues,” explains Van Dijk. “So,
the Route66 allows us to wire what I would
call ‘subrings’ within each venue. The gran-
ularity is dependent on a number of optical
ports and things like that, but you can have
small rings, even within the venue, that
can loop back to the Route66 and all come
together there. So, it’s almost like going to a
star network, which is a fundamental design
principle typology behind IT… The Route66
also keeps the venues isolated, so you ba-
sically have a Route66 talking to another
Route66 in another venue and if one goes
down or you lose that link, the venue can
still run, whereas conversely, if somebody
unplugged something in the studio, they
could possibly bring down Southam Hall.
That was a big issue for the client.”
Being one of the NAC’s head audio
engineers and experiencing the Optocore
network on a daily basis, Holmes is thrilled
with its ease-of-use. “The advantage is it’s
easy to have another device put onto the
system at any moment. It’s very, very easy
to accommodate the need for, say, an
extra monitor system or an extra rack for
more I/O. Transporting audio from room to
room has never been this easy. You could
easily have a console with an I/O rack in a
separate room and have it communicating
instantaneously,” he says. “At the moment, it
is our way of communication for audio, but
it’s also ready for future applications. We’ve
basically created the infrastructure for future
applications in audio transport where we
would be able to, say hypothetically, do a
full multitrack recording in a separate room
without even slightly interrupting a perfor-
mance that’s happening.”
Holmes says it’s made troubleshooting
issues easier, too. “Everything is seen all
within one network, so you can stay in one
location and remotely troubleshoot another
aspect of the system. That is another thing
we haven’t had before is the ability to see
problems that are quite far away,” he adds
before mentioning the new Riedel wireless
communications system that works hand-
in-hand with the network. With the comm
system on the network, a technician wear-
ing a comm pack can enter one venue, join
its network, and then wander down the hall
to another venue and join that network.
“I’m able to use this system to com-
municate with anybody,” continues Holmes.
“So, if you’re wearing a communications
pack, you’re now wirelessly communicating
throughout the entire facility with no drop-
outs or issues whatsoever. Hypothetically,
if I’m trying to locate a problem within an
amplifier rack and it happens to be in a
completely separate remote location within
the facility, I can have another technician
in that position while I remain at a console
or maybe another rack to actually source
down what the issue is.”
Commenting on the network, Radu
adds: “With pretty well every piece of gear
having a network port now, I think the
amount of networking that goes on in
there is pretty remarkable. I think it’s close
to 100 Luminex switches in there. There are
basically five complete networks in there
with a couple routers that can access all the
networks, but everything is sort of discrete
on its own.”
“From an installation point-of-view, they
didn’t really have pathways to the building,
so the conduit system and everything that
needed to be installed to enable all of this
was substantial. It was quite an undertaking
and Solotech and everybody really stepped
up. Mark Radu and his team, they did a
great job at sorting through all of that,” says
Van Dijk at Engineering Harmonics, noting
that everybody was working under an ex-
tremely tight deadline. “The venues were
only shut down from June through August
of last year; the rest of the time, everything
was being done while the building was
operational, so things had to be done over-
night and it was crazy.”
The project being a renovation instead
of a fresh build also introduced unforeseen
hiccups. As Van Dijk points out, the electri-
cians encountered many problems because
the power and grounding systems had
been compromised, and the mechanical
infrastructure also had to be redone in many
areas. “It was an incredible undertaking with
a lot of pressure on everybody to get that
project done. It is actually quite remarkable
in hindsight, but they opened on time and,
again, credit to Solotech and everybody – all
of the other contractors, too – they didn’t
lose a show.”
“I believe the National Arts Centre is
now Canada’s leading performance space
in both flexibility and technical abilities,”
Holmes adds in closing. “We have an infra-
structure that I think will easily handle any
technology that will be offered in the next
20-plus years.”
And so, at the end of its expansive Pro-
duction Renewal Phase, the National Arts
Centre is well-positioned to continue being
the beacon of Canadian performing arts for
decades to come.
Michael Raine is the Senior Editor of
Professional Sound.
PROFESSIONAL SOUND 29