Theatre
Barcelona, Spain
Roc Mateu (sound design) + Guiu Llusá (Amate Audio Industrial Designer)
Case study
Teatre Akadèmia
The recent infrastructural renovation of a renowned fringe theatre in Barcelona's Eixample district included a comprehensive audio installation, providing new production possibilities for the venue and revolutionising its technical capabilities. Award-winning sound designer Roc Mateu collaborated with Amate Audio's Industrial Designer, Guiu Llusà, on the project.
The challenge
What the venue needed.
Teatre Akadèmia's particular layout — a semi-circular thrust stage with raked seating on three sides, 100-seat capacity — required a sound system that could match the performance of a large auditorium while remaining nearly invisible from the audience's perspective. The system needed to support any scenographic proposal without imposing creative limits on directors or sound designers.
The system
What was deployed.
Sonic continuity throughout the installation was achieved by exclusively using models from Amate Audio's Nítid loudspeaker series. Six N12P cabinets are hung in three groups of two in front of and on each side of the stage, flown high enough to cover the entire auditorium with near invisibility from the audience. Twelve smaller S6P cabinets handle EFX surround in three configurations: a group of four for front-row seating and two groups of two for each side tier. System management runs on three LMS 206 and one LMS 608 DSP processors. The control flow uses a Midas DL32 stage-box connected via AES50 to an M32 console at the auditorium control position, integrated via Dante to QLab automation — meaning the entire room is operable by a single technician.
From the install team
“The design objectives were those required to provide a room with the particular layout of the Teatre Akadèmia with sound equipment of appropriate scale, but with comparable performance capabilities to that used in large-scale auditoria, so any type of scenic proposal could be realized. The system had to be totally configurable due to the many and varied forms of scenography that may be required, and so that neither directors nor sound designers should encounter any creative limitations.”
— Guiu Llusà, Industrial Designer, Amate Audio
Installation team
Sound design: Roc Mateu (theatre sound designer). System design: Guiu Llusà, Amate Audio Industrial Designer.
Gallery
