CHATEAU DE Versailles

Jean Jacques Aillagon, the ex culture minister nominated as the new president of chateau de Versailles, took an introductory walk in the Versailles Park but quickly became agitated. The source of the irritation was, in his words that “Versailles sounded like a supermarket”. He immediately commissioned a new sound design, to be finished before the new season began. Laurent Brunner was appointed by Aillagon to manage the project, and his mandate was clear: “To design a new high quality system which would recover the reputation of the park and meet international expectations.”

Didier Dal Fitto who is contracted for 3 years as a consultant and sound designer for the new Versailles outdoor installation, had the privilege of specking his favorite gear for the project. Replacing the existing L’Acoustics equipment with Adamson, Dal Fitto commented: “There was nothing wrong with the speakers themselves, but the sound design was simply atrocious.” Chateau de Versailles had organized a tender to provide Dal Fitto with the requested sound equipment, and the Paris based LAGOONA won the contract.

The summer season quickly approaching, and with limited time to finish the design and installation, the project was a massive undertaking. Le Grand Perspective, which starts at the back of the Palace and continues 500 meters down to the Apollo Chariot Fountain, was the largest with 6 other groves to cover. The Ballroom Grove, The Colonnade Grove, The Dome Grove, The Enceladus Fountain, The Three Fountains Grove and The Neptune Fountain were all getting an overhaul. France was experiencing one of the worst springs in history, with wind storms, heavy rains, and short daylight with the sun setting at 6pm. Considering the weather and size of the park, Lagoona dispatched a team of 6 full time employees for a 3 week-long installation, and 2 people from a separate cabling company to lay down audio cabling and power assistance.

Metrix Series was chosen for the sonic quality which matched perfectly the music program broadcasted in Versailles. Exclusively baroque music from Lully, Desmaret, Rameau, and Boismortier, needed  natural sounding speakers. “The Metrix sounds great for this kind of program. The highs are smooth and the midrange is very clean. The SPL capacity is 3 dB less than the Adamson SpekTrix, but that is not what one is looking for in Versailles.” Adamson Metrix enclosures were used as much as possible, but when the locations were too small, other smaller enclosures such as NEXO were used, because Adamson did not yet have the Point Series available. Both Lab.gruppen amps and XTA processing were chosen for reliability, and because according to Dal Fitto they sound “incredibly good”.

Pascal Guillaume, the designer of the Adamson Shooter software lent his design knowledge and on-site verification for the main arrays consisting of Adamson Metrix enclosures. This was the first major installation being done with the brand new line array series and Guillaume’s fluency with Shooter, as he was adding the Metrix Series to thenew version of the software was imperative.

The main and only requirement from the Versailles architecture department was that all sound equipment must be hidden. Physically this meant that all speakers had to be installed behind the trees and plants, and that any single speaker or array not covered by foliage was to be housed in a green RAL 6003 color protective PVC cover. The front face of the cover uses net material similar to “rain drop” used in front of the PA’s for big outdoor festivals, which gives acoustic transparency and protects the box from rain. Even the trussing for the hangs was painted in the same RAL color. Dal Fitto accepted some compromises on truss height during the design period, but when spring is arrived some the boxes disappeared entirely behind the trees. The problem was solved by problem asking the gardeners to cut the trees 2 or 3 times during the season. All speakers and part of the cabling would be removed for the winter and re-installed in the spring.

The main difficulties were not on the acoustic side. Such a project, with multiple sounds systems dedicated for different spaces and broadcasting different music programs, the key point was the way to control and tune any given system. DalFitto’s rule is to “spend the maximum of time with your ears and the minimum with the technical issues such as computers, interfaces, and configuration.” It’s why he decided to use an innovative solution for sound control: any system installed had a local WIFI access point, which gave the control to a master XTA processor. The result is that one could walk with a PC tablet through the entire park, connect to the specific access point, and tune the specific system one was listening. On the paper it looks fantastic, but in Versailles due to the distance, foliage, and radio conditions, it took a lot of time to make it work properly.

From a technical point of view, the main acoustic challenge was in the “Grande Perspective”. The goal was to have a constant SPL thru the area, and no or limited time smear. Two arrays of 11 deep METRIX boxes had to cover 200 meters with an acceptable SPL consistency. 2 additional arrays of 7 Metrix were used as a secondary system and another 32 PS8‘s were used distributed. Except for the 4 main arrays, placed at 6 and 9 meters, not many compromises were made. One had to consider the sound of the fountain during the tuning. In some groves as Ballroom or Colonnades, the sound of the water is very high and the PA had to be tuned to leave space for the water sounds, considering the water as a part of the music. In the groves, using mainly small or medium size cabinets, it was easy to place the boxes where needed as long as they were hidden. Each system in every area had been designed with maximum directivity control in mind, however the groves were vast and the trees provide acoustic insulation, so at the end it was just a question of balance. An exception was the Encellade grove where a thunder sound EFX is broadcasted, as the story of Encellade tells of a monster fighting the elements. For it, two Adamson T21 Subs in cardioid mode were carefully oriented to avoid to disturbing the rest of the park.

Music was played through a Tascam CD running through a Yamaha DME 24 feeding the signal to each area. Every area has a closet with amps and processing. The DME 24 includes 3 programmed scenes corresponding to music without water (due to water availability, the fountains run only for 2 or 3 hours at a time), music with water and a night program for July and August with a different music program on weekends.

As a back-up, two people are in charge of the system during each show day. They check the entire system (speakers, amps, processing) two hours before the public entrance. If some trouble is detected, they’d make the necessary repairs with spare units.  This first year, during the 8 months of work, they encountered very few problems. The most surprising was related to the Lab.gruppen amps which got invaded by ants transforming a couple of amp units into a disgusting barbecue.

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