reborn from rubble, winter garden gets a digital tuning

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26. before 10:28:31 on the morning of the 2002 TH.
2001, all hard
World Financial Center Winter Garden cable audio circuit through a sixfoot-
Wide pipe bank with outdoor sound.
This bonkrish 1,000-square-
The foot control center was and is now hidden under the marble staircase decorated in the atrium.
When the North Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed, the sound room survived, but the pipeline Bank did not exist.
Alan Abrams, technical director of the building, said, \"the sound room is open to elements . \" Abrams closed the door dutifully before fleeing the building.
Coming back three weeks later, he found 4 inch of the water in the room, and each electronic component was covered with a thick layer of dust.
Thus, over a year-long period, the Winter Garden dome was rebuilt at a cost of $50 million, and all audio and lighting circuits were re-invented.
Todd Burlin, audio consultant for the project, said the extent of the disruption \"gives us the opportunity to try something we \'ve never done here before \".
Now, technicians are rapidly working on the digitization and silicification of the atrium to adjust the sound and lighting system for their debut: Art and event projects for free dance, music and drama production.
It starts with the performance of the dance group Ailey II at 12: 15 on Wednesday. m.
The terrorist attack imposed unusual restrictions on the reconstruction: the disaster insurance company paid for everything that was destroyed.
However, as the original equipment installed in 1988 is out of date, the audio and lighting consultant is able to enhance and extend the system ---
But within the framework of the original component.
Thousands of tourists come to Winter Gardens every day and they will not know about these cuts.
Edge semiconductors, servers, digital links and custom networking engineering behind the new $1 in court.
8 million digital sound and lighting system.
But the operators in the sound room will certainly like the upgrade: they can control the entire atrium by clicking the mouse or tapping the keyboard, rather than twisting it hard --
Wire knob and power cord insert.
For acoustic engineers, the challenge facing the winter garden is huge glass
The dome atrium is a public ceremony space in the world financial center.
\"You can\'t design a harder room, Audiowise,\'\' Mr. Abrams said.
Not only is the dome 10 stories high, but also the top 2,000
Glass skylight, but it is completely surfaced with other sounds
Scattered materials including steel, aluminum, marble and granite.
To make matters worse, the room is cursed by an acoustic anomaly: the apselike dome of the skylight captures the sound and releases the sound with a loud echo effect.
The Circuit of the Winter Garden sound system must deal with many contradictory uses, including playing classical music and other background music, resonating through the dome\'s 134 permanently installed speakers.
40 speakers hidden in the air
Ventilation grille, 14 ceilings, 80 tree pits under atrium 16 43foot-
The palm of the tall Washington fan sunflower lop Nosta.
Voice needs to be strengthened--
The expansion of the people who spoke on the podium-
In addition to this, a new portable real-time audio system will deploy up to 28 speakers in the lobby to convey the sound from drama production to rock bands.
Acoustics in large rooms are about decay physics, a measure of the time it takes for sound to fade.
Like in the cathedral, it takes about 7 seconds for the noise to decay in the sound
The reflective surface of the Winter Garden, the reverb time with the Symphony Hall is two and a half seconds, and the reverb time with the Broadway theater is less than one second.
\"The cathedral was designed for the echo of the organ,\" he said. Berling said.
\"But the atrium events here are usually focused on speech comprehension ---
Speakers and singers
The main acoustic engineering strategy for advertising is to adopt a new direction line-
There are few array speakers with vertical scattering: The audio is emitted horizontally to the audience without scattering the sound to the dome.
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According to the size of the room, the second strategy is called acoustic delay.
Because the voice of the singer on the west wall performance stage touching the audience near the east wall is delayed, the computer can reduce the echo by delaying the transmission of sound pulses back to the speaker;
Different delays can be assigned to 16 different regions. A no-
Technical but very effective acoustic remedy is the curtain of the flame
Flame retardant velour, 100 feet long, 30 feet high.
When behind the performance platform on the west wall, it prevents sound from echoing from the glass. A separate 40-foot-
Now it is possible to hang 30 feet wide curtains above the big stairs to prevent the sound from bouncing back into the dome and getting stuck in the noisy \"sound anomaly.
\"Unlike the original manual operating analog audio system installed 14 years ago, the new software-
The system-based operator presents a custom graphical user interface on a computer screen that describes the entire audio layout of the Winter Garden.
In order to manipulate the sound and power the sound through the speakers in the hall, the analog electric shock from the performer\'s microphone and instrument must be converted into digital bits.
Troy Jensen of Altel Systems said that in the three digital signal processor boxes, the converter completed the translation with minimal delay or time delay, and he customized the system for the Winter Garden.
The system prevents the perception lag of the audience from the microphone to the ear.
On the marble floor of the atrium, there is a 48-
Channel mixing console for guiding live performance sound processing.
The sound room operator can also run the atrium system from upstairs by inserting the laptop into the control panel in many locations.
Just as the circuit into the sound room was destroyed by a terrorist attack, the main lighting Command Center--
Mechanical level upstairs Winter Garden--
Disappeared in the collapse.
The reconstructed room now holds 198 stages
Light dimmer and room 150-
Light dimmer-
\"It\'s bigger than the capacity of Broadway shows . \"Berling said.
In terms of stage lighting, 102 new lamps were permanently installed at 60 feet above the Winter Garden floor.
There are also 48 on the portable light tower, including 12 rollers, which can produce 20 colors with rolling gel.
There are also six new lights on the advertisement, each of which can produce the color of the rainbow. These computer-
The guiding unit and its less precocious siblings can be arranged from the lighting grid attached to the truss suspended on 18 motorized rigging points: the hook attached to the steel cord, can be raised or dropped from the top of the skylight.
Digital Leder may want to know that the most crude material in all circuit materials must be installed before digitalization begins: copper wire.
As the original line was damaged, 200 electricians installed 158 miles of new copper for all the power services in the atrium.
Audio and lighting components are a particularly rigorous test.
All new wires must be hundreds of feet in a row from each plug
On the panel in the atrium until the sound room, \"there is no joint,\" Mr. Berling said.
\"Because there can\'t be a fault point.
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A version of the article appeared in print in September 26, 2002, and on page G00004 of the national edition, the title was: reborn from the ruins, and the Winter Garden was digitally tuned.