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Thursday, January 12, 2012

Festival Altavoz: Delivering Diverse Styles Across A Huge Coverage Area

The sound reinforcement system assembled for the roughly 80,000 music fans in attendance was no small undertaking

For three wild days and nights, music enthusiasts of every popular genre in Medellin, Columbia recently had the opportunity to enjoy live performances of their favorite artists at the 8th Annual Altavoz International Music Festival, more commonly known as Festival Altavoz.

Key acts at this year’s festival included Mexico’s alternative rock band Plastilina Mosh and Latin Grammy Award-winning rockers Molotov, the English punk band The Adicts, as well as Argentina’s Bajo Fondo Tango Club.

Held at Estadio Cincuentenario, a large multipurpose arena and surrounding grounds that serves as home to a variety of sports and entertainment events, the sound reinforcement system assembled for the roughly 80,000 music fans in attendance was no small undertaking.

Medellin-based event services and production company Hangar Musical designed and deployed the system, along with handling video, lighting and staging.

Hangar Musical’s Santiago Velez, who served as technical producer for the festival, notes that the concert system was developed to serve the wide variation of artists and musical styles. “The acts were able to work with a flat, balanced system that gave them complete freedom to mix however they wanted,” he adds.

Far & Wide
The outdoor coverage area was quite large, measuring roughly 300 feet long by 200 feet wide.

To provide commensurate long throw and broad horizontal coverage, Hangar Musical crew deployed a system headed by 32 DAS Audio Aero 38A 3-way, medium format, powered line array elements - flown 16 modules per side at a height of 33 feet.

Low-frequency support was delivered by a combination of 12 Aero 182 arrayable subwoofers - ground stacked six enclosures per side - augmented by yet another 12 DAS LX-218A powered subwoofers (also six enclosures per side).

The extreme sides of the wide audience area, the Hangar Musical crew flew ten DAS Aero 12A powered 2-way mid-high line array enclosures.

These were positioned five modules per side, 20 feet up in the air and were angled 45 degrees from the house mains.

Meanwhile, the far corners of the stage hosted two Aero 12As per side, stacked, to bolster front fill.

Velez and his crew also added delay loudspeakers to insure coverage reached all the way to the back of the area, flown from towers positioned roughly 165 feet from the main stage.

This portion of the setup included four DAS Aero 50, 3-way, large-format line array enclosures per side, driven by Lab.gruppen FP 9000 power amplifiers rack-mounted beneath the delay towers and which were accompanied by another three Aero 182 subwoofers per side.

Considerable Numbers
Velez utilized Lake processors to dial-in and optimize the main stage portion of the system, with a dbx DriveRack processor deployed for the delay system.

Four outputs of the DriveRack fostered a cardioid arrangement. Another DriveRack signals for TV and radio coverage of the event.

“Antonio Villamizar, our setup engineer, did an amazing job working with the system and the Dolby Lake processors to make the system fully functional for everyone,” says Velez. “The sound system exhibited deep bass, perfect mids for the vocals, and high frequencies reaching all areas. The coverage was excellent at all frequencies.”

Approximately 115 feet out from the stage, the front of house position was equipped with two Yamaha digital consoles primary mix engineer Federico Lopez: a PM5D and an MC7L. These consoles managed a large number of inputs – primarily microphones, both cabled and wireless. A third Yamaha board - another MC7L – was provided for monitor mixer Byron Ospina.

The microphone package included several models from the Shure Beta and SM Series lines. Mics from AKG (D 112, 414, and C451), Sennheiser (MD 421 and MD 441), Audio Technica (AT4033) and RØDE (NT5) were also available in considerable numbers, as were Shure wireless mic systems, including six PGX24/Beta 58 packages.

Up to 10 DAS Road 15A powered, 2-way stage monitors were deployed on stage as needed, bolstered by ground-stacked Aero 12A arrays for stage fill.

“All of the artists told us they were able to give a great show since they were comfortable with the stage sound,” Velez concludes. “The reaction from the crowds was equally gratifying. The hip-hop and electronic fans had all the bass they wanted. while the metal and punk fans heard all the distorted guitars without hurting their ears. The event was a huge success.”

R. Maxwell is a freelance technical audio writer.

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