L'annonce faite à Marie

The electronics part for “L’Annonce fait à Marie” is made up of a lot of 12 channels fixed electronics soundfiles.
The soundfiles are then spatialized in the hall, through a 6 speakers ring, placed around the audience. The frontal speakers are also doubled on the façade, in respect to balcony in the theater., in order for the electronics to have a good acoustic image for every spectator.
The cues for the electronics score are triggered by a musician sitting in the orchestra pit, following the conductor’s gestures, along with all the other musicians of the ensemble.

Since the score for this opera is very difficult and highly demanding for the singers, a special REAPER session with a complete simulation of the instrumental, electronics and sung parts, is provided, in order to speed up the learning and rehearsing process of the singers, making them more familiar with their parts, before the ensemble comes in for the final rehearsals. Every Act in the opera is represented and playable with a different REAPER session.

Audio and Loudspeakers Setup

The patch for the electronics of this piece has 0 inputs and 6 outputs.
Outputs 8 to 10 in the patch are not used (they were only there in case of necessity, for eventual over dimensioning to 8 or 10 output channels, in some bigger theaters).

Global Sample Rate : 48 Khz.

MIDI / OSC Setup

The musician who triggers the cues, via a small USB MIDI keyboard in the orchestra pit, will need an additional computer, in order to send midinotes (whatever notes) via OSC, which trigger the cues in the main (and spare) computer - located in the regie. As a consequence of the triggering of the cues in the main and spare computers, the resulting triggered cues, are sent back via OSC to the orchestra pit computer, for display. For all that, an additional ethernet patchbay, connecting the regie and the orchestra pit must be installed.
The Main, Spare, and the orchestra pit computers, must be configured with : no wifi, and a dedicated manual adress for the OSC network.
For example : Main 192.168.0.2 ; Spare 192.168.0.3 ; Orchestra pit 192.168.0.4.
Values must then be set appropriately in all max patches.

Software Installation

• download and install Max 9.1.2 (or later).
• download and install IRCAM SPAT 5.3.7 (or later).
• download and install Antescofo for Max 1.0-599 (or later).
• Launch MAX, open the File Preferences panel, set the path for the folder containing the Concert Patch.
• Open MAX 9 Audio Status panel, set the chosen proper audio input and output driver for the audio setup you're using (for ex. Digiface Dante). Set sampling rate to 48Khz. Set « I/O vector size » and « Signal Vector Size » to 512 samples. Check « overdrive » on, “Audio Interrupt” off.
• Click on "open I/O mappings" and set the correct inputs and outputs for the chosen audiocard.
• Quit and relaunch Max

Patch Presentation

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****MIRA Interface on the iPAD

Initialization Routine

• Open « 0-DSP_LANNONCE_06.4a.Chatelet.maxpat », wait until it's loaded and then Launch « 1-MIRA_LANNONCE_03.maxpat».
• Click on the purple button "ALL.INIT" and wait 3 seconds.
• Turn the DAC ON and click the red "RESET" button. Wait 3 seconds, again.
• For both the Main and the Spare computer, open the antescofo file “LANNONCE.01.asco.txt” in a text editor. Write then "master-or-slave 0" for the Main computer, and "master-or-slave 1" for the Spare computer. Then save the file in both computers.
• On the Antescofo panel, under the “Load Score” popup menu, select the correct score for the piece : “LANNONCE.01.asco.txt”.
• In the OSC panel (top right), check that “Master" is shown for the main computer, and "Slave" for the spare computer.
• In the MIDI keayboard panel, check that the popup menus are correctly set to : "OSC" and "trig"
• Click to open the subpatchers "keayboard" and "UDP" and make sure that the correct ip adresses for the Main, Spare and Orchestra Pit computers are set.
• in the patch, verify then, that the toggle named “Key-Input-Enable” is well checked. This allows keys pressed by the musician in the orchestra pit to be effective in triggering the cues.

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• In the Orchestra Pit Computer, open Max 9, and launch "2-MIDI-OSC_AFM_01.maxpat".
• Connect via USB the small MIDI keyboard.
• Connect the ethernet cable to the patchbay.
• In the global preferences/network, set a manual ip adress, coeherent with the Main and Spare ip, like 192.168.0.4
• In the Max patch, set the MIDI Keyboard panel to connect to the USB kayboard, than click on "RESET / PANIC".
• Press any key, and verify that the midi note is well received in the main and spare computers in the régie, and that the cues in the antescofo score change accordingly (every note is ok, and the cues are triggered following their order in the cue list).

• Make a noise test with MAX’s Audiotester, to make sure that the 6 channels going to the loudspeakers are well configured in a circular clockwise fashion, from 1 (front left) to 6.
• connect the iPad via USB to the computer and open MIRA. Set the MIRA interface in the iPad in order to visualize the SOUNDFILE panel, which is the correct one to handle the faders for the piece. Press the red RESET button again in the main MAX patch.
• Then, finally, in the MAX concert patch, in the antescofo panel, reload the score, by selecting it again from the “Load Score” menu. Wait 4 seconds, then press the computer keyboard right arrow once, in order to trigger the dummy event "m00_READY! " in the antescofo score.
• On iPad MIRA interface, set the Master fader to the desired level for the beginning of the piece. You are ready to start the performance.

Performance Guidelines

The electronics part of this opera is quite important, since there’s not a complete orchestra playing, but a small ensemble. The electronics add a lot to the instrumental part. This means that it has to be audible, but always way behind the sound of the ensemble, which is the main thing.
Pay attention to make Paul Claudel vocal interventions always well audible, with slight increases of the master volume.

For rehearsals purposes, you can download here the special REAPER sessions which were made to train the singer well before the arrival of the ensemble for the final rehearsals.