Rave Reviews
The DME64 Festival Matrix is in its second year. Delicate Productions has now deployed it twice for KROQ’s “Almost Acoustic Christmas” at the Gibson Universal Amphitheater and for their annual summer “Weenie Roast” at Irvine Meadows Amphitheater.
Rat Sound Systems used it for the Christian Fish Fest at Irvine.
Adamo’s favorite quote came from its maiden voyage at the 2009 Weenie Roast. Delicate was using two PM5DRH consoles and a DM1000 production console, all running at 96 kHz and feeding the Dolby Lake processors for their Martin Audio Longbow line arrays. Head system tech Bryan Bazilsky finished running pink noise through the system and shut it down to listen for noise floor.
“The venue was very quiet but we could hear some noise. We muted the PA and it was still there,” Bazilsky says. “Figuring it might be the side fills, we asked for them to be muted and it was still there.
After some running around the stage listening we discovered the source. It was the ambient sound of the fans on the two moving lights that were located one each side next to the sidefills. Pretty darn quiet!”
The most ringing endorsement so far is the fact that after using the Festival Matrix for Fish Fest, Jon Monson of Rat Sound requested it for the main stage at Coachella coming up this spring.
The DME system was also deployed again last month by Delicate Productions for Christmas festivals in southern California, including the KISS FM “Jingle Ball” at the Honda Center in Anaheim, the KLOS Christmas Show at the Nokia Theater, and the KROQ “Almost Acoustic Christmas” at the Gibson.
Feedback from all these events was unanimously positive. The combination of an all-digital path from console to processors all tied together with the Apogee Big Ben word clock clearly provides a sonic advantage.
Andy Turner, who mixed My Chemical Romance on one of the provided Yamaha PM5D consoles at the Gibson, described the sound as “clean, accurate and punchy, with great subs. I thought the rig sounded amazing.” It looks like there’s a new standard for concert festivals.
Finally, it’s worth noting that for almost half the price, a smaller matrix for merging two digital consoles and a pair of analog desks can be made using a Yamaha DME24N.
Mark Frink is editorial director of Live Sound International.