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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowCarmel’s Palladium was built with sound in mind. And this month, the 1,600-seat Italian Rennaisance-style performance hall is receiving the first major audio upgrade in its 13-year history.
Workers with Greenfield-based Force.Tech are installing a new $830,000 public address system that officials with the Center for the Performing Arts hope will help lure new and bigger acts to Carmel.
It’s the second of two major recent investments. Earlier this year, the Palladium also received a new $660,000 lighting system to provide a more vibrant viewing experience.
“[The PA and lighting systems] are absolute needs,” said Jeff Steeg, chief operating officer for the Center for the Performing Arts. “They have to happen for us to stay relevant and stay on pace with everything else in the industry.”
Because the Palladium’s acoustics were designed to create a perfect orchestral music experience, a top-shelf sound system for styles of music that require amplification was not a priority. The venue’s original sound system made the Palladium a hard sell for many country, pop and rock artists starting about a decade ago, Steeg said.
He said many musicians sent riders that detailed audio requirements the Palladium could not meet.
Ringo Starr, the legendary drummer for The Beatles, for example, bypassed the Palladium because it could not offer him the sound system he requires. Singer Harry Connick Jr. brought his own speaker system when he performed at the Palladium in 2015 and 2018.
“And that was a very specific request: ‘The only way we’re going to play here is if we bring all of our speakers in, because yours just aren’t what we need,’” Steeg said.
The pandemic delayed the process of getting a new sound system for the Palladium, but efforts ramped up in 2022 when the Carmel City Council approved $1.5 million in improvements for the concert hall. The overhauls are funded by bonds taken out in 2021 by the Carmel Redevelopment Commission, which maintains the Palladium.
The Palladium’s new LED lighting system features a central console and server, and an increase from 36 to 47 intelligent features that have remote-controlled movement, positioning, color and texture.
Along with the new sound and lighting systems, Steeg said, there are plans to install an electronic message sign outside the Palladium that will display upcoming shows and advertisements.
To find the right audio system, Center for the Performing Arts leaders studied venues around the country, such as the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville, Tennessee, which Steeg called an “unofficial sister venue” to the Palladium. The Carmel and Nashville venues were both designed by Washington, D.C.-based David M. Schwarz Architects Inc.
The $126 million Palladium, which opened in 2011, is the main venue of the Center for the Performing Arts campus, which also is home to The Tarkington, which seats 500, and The Studio Theater, who seats 200.
The fourth floor of the Palladium, known as the Gallery Level, also contains the Great American Songbook Gallery, the Great American Songbook Foundation’s offices and library, and the 1,400-square-foot Shiel Sexton Songbook Lounge. The Great American Songbook Foundation plans to construct a museum in Carmel north of the Center for the Performing Arts at the northeast corner of City Center Drive and Third Avenue Southwest.
The Palladium’s concert hall acoustics were designed by New York-based Artec Consultants Inc. specifically for classical music. In fact, before construction, the vision for the Palladium was that it would primarily be a place for weekly classical music concerts, according to Scott Hall, communications director for the Center for the Performing Arts.
But that was not a viable business model, so the venue’s schedule was broadened to include a wider variety of music. Acts such as Tony Bennett, the B-52s, B.B. King, Wynton Marsalis, Willie Nelson, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Yo-Yo Ma have performed at The Palladium.
“The interior structure of this building was tailor-made for classical music, but when you start having rock bands and stuff in here, it’s a different game,” Hall said. “You’re no longer counting on just the natural and physical acoustics of the room. That’s when your PA becomes really important.”
Two 14-foot curved stacks of speakers will hang above each side of the stage, providing most of the sound system’s volume. (IBJ photo/Eric Learned)
Andrew Simmons is part of the installation team from Greenfield-based Force.Tech. (IBJ photo/Eric Learned)
The Palladium’s new $660,000 lighting system—which increased the number of intelligent features with remote-controlled movement, positioning, color and texture—was installed earlier this year. (Photo courtesy of the Center for the Performing Arts)
Preparation and technology
Installation of the new audio system required months of preparation.
Gavin Haverstick, owner of Carmel-based acoustical consulting firm Haverstick Designs, first led an acoustic analysis of the Palladium.
Haverstick Designs has worked in 44 states and 22 countries, with 70% of its work spent in designing high-end recording studios for musicians. The company also analyzes acoustics in churches, performance halls, auditoriums, gymnasiums and “basically, anywhere sound is produced,” Haverstick said.
“The Palladium held the record for the closest project to us ever,” he said. “It was a walk down the Monon Trail to get to it.”
To conduct the analysis, Haverstick placed microphones in 18 locations throughout the hall to learn where sound reflected off surfaces and to calculate how long it takes for sound to fade away, known as reverberation time.
Haverstick’s analysis was complemented by a light detection and ranging (LIDAR) scan and 3D model created by Indianapolis-based Immersaf Media. The model provided views from every area of the concert hall, accurate to a quarter of an inch, which Steeg said will be useful in the future, as well.
“We have kind of the added benefit after the fact of, now we have a really cool 3D rendering of this space,” Steeg said. “It’s an asset that we can send out to potential artists who are coming in and going, ‘Here’s the space; move yourself around in it.’”
Haverstick said it is important to study a room in its current state before installing a new sound system.
“Depending on where you sit in a space, it’s going to change your experience, and obviously you want to have it as consistent as possible from seat to seat,” he said. “But the relationship of the speaker to the listener is always changing depending on where you’re at, so we wanted to get a good scattering of locations throughout the auditorium.”
What makes The Palladium ideal for classical music is also what makes it challenging for any type of amplified music.
Haverstick said orchestra halls tend to have a reverberation time of 1.7 to 2.8 seconds. For amplified music like rock ’n’ roll, the time should be around 1.2 seconds to help an audience discern the vocals in a performance and to avoid the sound becoming “muddy.”
That made it all the more important for Haverstick and his team to understand the acoustics inside The Palladium so a new sound system could be most effective.
“You want a lot of decay and echo in the space [for classical music], but that’s not desirable for a rock act or some sort of musical performance that’s amplified,” Haverstick said. “And, so, it’s always a challenge in spaces where you’re doing multiple things to get it just right for multiple things.”
Installing the system
Components of the new sound system were manufactured by France-based L-Acoustics and supplied by Greenfield-based Mid-America Sound. Force.Tech won the bid to install the system.
It is highlighted by two 14-foot-tall line arrays, which are curved stacks of speakers, suspended above either side of the stage, that provide most of the volume. The line arrays both have 12-speaker cabinets on each side and are expected to provide better coverage from the floor to the highest boxes.
“That allows for a smoother arc of sound vertically,” Steeg said.
Two subwoofers will also be placed on both sides of the stage for bass frequences, while fill speakers will provide additional coverage in the first few rows and in the upper levels of the concert hall. In the future, acoustic materials will be installed to deaden reflections from walls and other surfaces.
“It’s very much an older-style opera hall that we’re trying to put rock ’n’ roll music into,” said Nick Olson, senior sales engineer for Force.Tech. “If I had to summarize in one word the entire space, the word would be meticulous. Everything is so precise.”
L-Acoustics speakers are in place locally at Everwise Amphitheater at White River State Park and nationally at venues like Red Rocks Amphitheater in Boulder, Colorado, and the main stage at the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago.
Force.Tech, founded in 2009, performs design, engineering, installation and integration in audio, video, lighting, acoustics and broadcasting.
Led by CEO co-owners Jennie and A.J. Fager, Force.Tech has 50 employees in offices in Fort Wayne, Greenfield, Indianapolis and South Bend. It is currently involved in a multiyear audio renovation at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and has installed public address systems at Gainbridge Fieldhouse, French Lick Resort & Casino and West Baden Springs Hotel.
Alex Moon, director of engineering for Force.Tech, said the scale of The Palladium was the most interesting and challenging aspect of installing the audio system.
“The whole construction of the building is very, very particular,” Moon said. “It’s beautiful, and it’s just hard to work around sometimes, but it makes it worth the challenge.”•
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A few years ago we went to see Dwight Yoakam at the Palladium, which I call America’s finest cul-de-sac community center. (Whenever I’ve gone there, I keep waiting for those old guys from the Muppets to pop out from the upper wings.) Dozens of people were walking out because of feedback. Unacceptable in a modern hall. I heard later that Dwight Yoakam is almost deaf, so he runs the monitors so hot that feedback is almost inevitable in a poorly designed room. Kind of shocking that Carmel spent all this money to build the wrong thing. A rare Brainard mistake, I suppose.
The Palladium’s concert hall acoustics were designed by New York-based Artec Consultants Inc. specifically for classical music. In fact, before construction, the vision for the Palladium was that it would primarily be a place for weekly classical music concerts, according to Scott Hall, communications director for the Center for the Performing Arts.
But that was not a viable business model, so the venue’s schedule was broadened to include a wider variety of music.
Bringing in more big acts is a joke? Bigger acts cost more and the place only has 1600 seats. They are continuing to lose money because the acts costs more than ticket revenue. Carmel is subsidizing the Palladium with $3-5M of tax payer money. Bigger acts will require more subsidy by Carmel taxpayers. The place if just too small.
The place should be razed and more apartments built.
Those are the same speaker stacks they have at Ruoff. You can hear those loud and clear from a half mile away. Sure to blow the roof off along with a few eardrums in the Palladium.
Carmel leadership continues to forget that it’s actually a suburb of a vibrant city with a full range of world-class concert venues. Why waste money on trying to be something you aren’t?