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10
International News
Fez Fest of Sacred Music Celebrates Moroccan Heritage
The Sacred Music festival filled up the city square of Fez, Morocco.
Amps Freshen Crowd
at DecayDance
LONDON — Britannia Row at Frankfurt’s
Prolight & Sound 2007 purchased 84 of Outline’s
new T9 computer controlled amplifiers
for its Butterfly inventory. First outing for the
new amplifier system was at London’s Hammersmith
Apollo for DecayDance. A sold out
multiband line-up featured Fall Out Boy, Cobra
Starship and Gym Class Heroes. Left and
right hangs of 12 Butterfly hi-packs were used
together with 6 x Subtech 218s per side.
“We did a brief ‘A’ and ‘B’ test between
our existing Outline TP6.5s and the new T9 in
the warehouse,” says Systems Engineer Adam
Smith for Britannia Row. “These new amps and
wiring have taken the Butterfly to new heights.
To prove the amount of headroom available,
I am backing off the highs by 12 dB and the
low-mids at 9 dB; subs now run at 3dB.
“Control was via Dolby Lake units with
the new amps and software,” Smith says.
“I now have total control of all the system
anywhere in the listening environment. The
CHESSINGTON, ENGLAND — George Michael
made his return to the world’s arena
stages using two DiGiCo D5 Lives for front of
house sound with a D5T on band monitors.
But for the first Wembley show, a third D5 was
added to mix the sound for a live television
broadcast. Engineers Ruadhri Cushan and
Niall Flynn were in charge of mixing sound
via the DiGiCo console.
“Both Niall and I were a little apprehensive,
mainly because we both come from a
studio background, and the idea of doing
a live mix straight to TV was a little scary,”
BOURNEMOUTH, ENGLAND — Northampton-based
Production Hire provided sound
reinforcement for the newly opened Club
2020 in Bournemouth, a property of the City
Centre Leisure Group.
Production Hire and club owner Mark
Neal went for a combination of Martin Audio
Blackline speakers and ground stacks of
the original Wavefront 8s in front of the DJ
booths on each floor. The 840-person capacity
club has a ground-floor dance room
(and adjacent tented chill area) that leads
down to a VIP mezzanine room and main
room in the basement.
On the ground floor, two stacks of
Wavefront W8 and W8S complement sets
of AQ12 and AQ8s — as well as the F10 DJ
monitors. In the large tented area, guests
FEZ, MOROCCO
— Filali Music recently
deployed
its new JBL VerTec
system at one of
Morocco’s premiere
annual events,
“Festival des Musiques
Sacrées du
Mondeo, Fes, 2007,”
at Bab Boujloud, a
large city square
in the historic Moroccan
city of Fez.
great news is also that with the addition
of a DSP card inserted into the amplifiers,
we can control individual elements within
the arrays, and with a further addition of a
smart card, can actually tailor the amplifiers
for even more power. Because the amps
can operate from 95 volts to 240 volts, this
means we can work anywhere in the world
with no power supply problems.”
The DecayDance event
Ruadhri says. “If we were going to pull it off,
we would need to get familiar with the D5
very quickly, so when DiGiCo invited us down
to their demo rooms to run through it, we
jumped at the chance.”
Although only part of the show was
broadcast live, the entire tour was being recorded.
The existing setup included two stage
racks with 56 inputs into each, those 112 lines
feeding the two D5s and D5T. Adding an additional
D5 into the chain was straightforward.
“A PC-based ADK system with Samplitude
software was used to record the shows, which
chill out with music delivered at reduced
volume through another pair of AQ8s.
“I use Blackline for aggression and cut
on the dance floor — and for DJ monitoring,”
Neal says. “It has that bite anywhere you need
it. The AQs produce a smooth, transparent
sound and are perfect for the bar areas.”
For the mezzanine VIP lounge — where
a permanent DJ booth has been set up
— there are two more AQ8s. The stairway
then leads down to the deceptively large
main club, with its resin-coated floor. Here,
two ground stacks, each with two W8 and
two W8S and a pair of F10s, immediately
announces their intentions, while two more
F10s serve as DJ monitors.
Multiple AQ12s are used for in-fills,
with further bass extension coming from
OCTOBER 2007 www.fohonline.com
The mainstage system setup included 12
VerTec VT4888 midsize line array elements
(six per side) and eight VT4880 arrayable
subwoofers (four per side). System processing
was handled by a dbx 4800 loudspeaker
system controller, in combination
with JBL’s DSP files.
“We were very satisfied with the
first use of our new JBL VerTec system
at the Fez Festival of World Sacred Music,
not only with its output capabilities,
but also with its musical quality,” noted
Yousef Filali, owner of Filali Music. “Bab
Boujloud is a vast area and can accom-
NUREMBERG,
GERMANY — The
Alterna Stage at
the festival Rock
Im Park, which
together with its
associating event
Rock Am Ring is
one of the largest
German rock
festivals, hosting
The Rock Im Park crowd
about 100,000
visitors each year,
was set up with audio by HK Audio Cohedra.
The Alterna Stage was an open-air stage
that played to a capacity of 25,000 viewers
and featured artists of many different musical
styles. In 2007, bands such as The White
Stripes, Machine Head, Type O Negative, Mia,
Wir Sind Helden and Jan Delay played on the
Alterna Stage. For so many different styles, a
multilateral sound system was required.
George Michael Returns to Arena Stage
seems to be one of the few bits of kit that was
capable of recording all 112 inputs simultaneously
for up to three hours at a time,” Ruadhri
says. “This also got a feed directly from the
stage racks, which meant we were able to
play back previously recorded shows to start
building a mix, while getting to grips with the
console at DiGiCo’s premises.”
Perhaps the biggest challenge was “stadium
spill” from Michael’s mic.
“We had some reconfiguring to do for
Wembley — we had added some extra audience
mics, which needed to be sent to
Club 2020 Goes Crazy for 8s
a pair of AQ215 floor-mounted subs, while
a pair of AQ6s service the floor’s dedicated
chill-out bar.
The company has done the same with
the audio in this multizone venue, where
the routing and gain structure are assigned
to line-configured BSS Soundweb
9088iis (with two SW9008 expanders) and
an SW9010 “Jellyfish” wall remote for local
source select and volume control. This provides
a capacity of 24 outputs and eight inputs
— with most channels in use.
“The whole system is correctly timeligned
and EQ’d, and any DJ source can be
sent anywhere in the building,” Neal says.
“We have already had acts like
Babyshambles and Peaches Geldof playing
here — and we have the pedigree of
modate an audience of several thousand
people. Our first event with VerTec was
a real success.”
This year marked the 13th annual Festival
des Musiques Sacrées du Mondeo, or “Fez
Festival of World Sacred Music.” International
artists included Johnny Clegg, Angelique Kidjo
and more. The festival draws thousands
of visitors each year to celebrate Islamic heritage
in Morocco’s ancient holy city. The event
not only features international musical talent,
but also brings together politicians, religious
leaders and social academics to discuss urgent
sociopolitical issues.
German Fest Confronts
Multiheadliner Festival
“Cohedra has
optimally covered
all resulting
demands on the
sound system,”
says Wolfgang
Geisler, CEO of
the rental company
Pave. “The
feedback we’ve
gotten from the
many diverse
FOH engineers
was, except for few exclusions, outstanding.
Positively mentioned was especially
the minor sensitivity for wind,
the high coverage and the high fidelity
also at high acoustic pressures. We
are using the system always at a top
acoustic pressure level of about 108
dB/A at the FOH stand, which is sufficient
for all requirements.”
The load-in for George Michael’s return to arena-sized shows
the broadcast truck separately from our
music mix,” Ruadhri says. “The show passed
very smoothly.”
The DJ booth and dance floor at Club 2020
sound system that will appeal to the caliber
of DJs like Erick Morillo and Trevor Nelson,”
says City Centre Leisure’s Josh Simons. “In
addition, the versatility of the system will
enable the venue to stage the type of different
events they have planned.”