The recent SãO JOãO DA BAHIA, an annual festival Bahia, Brazil, attracted both regional and nationally recognized musical performers, including Gilberto Gil, Elba Ramalho, Geraldo Azevedo, Candlebox, Dominguinhos, Leonardo, and Alceu Valenca, with Salvador – Bahia-based sound company Arena Áudio Eventos providing D.A.S. Audio line arrays and other D.A.S. components.
“This event attracts huge crowds,” explains Alberto Viana, Managing Partner for Arena Áudio Eventos. “We had audiences in the range of 50,000 people each day at the main stage in Castro Alves Square. Being outdoors, we not only had to ensure adequate sound to cover a crowd this large, we also had to compete with the surrounding sounds of the city.
“These factors made it critical that the SR (sound reinforcement) system not only provide suitable SPL (sound pressure level), it also had to provide even coverage, and this is where the D.A.S. Aero system excelled.”
The left-right mains included a combination of 24 Aero CA-28A 2-way, mid-high line arrays (flown 12 elements per side on the outsides) plus 12 CA-215 subwoofers with dual 15-inch transducers—six enclosures per side flown adjacent to the Aero CA-28A’s.
Sixteen D.A.S. Audio Aero 182A 2K powered, arrayable, high-performance subwoofers provided plenty of low end punch. These units were ground stacked in a 2-wide/4-high configuration on each side of the stage and were vertically aligned with the overhead loudspeaker clusters.
Sidefills included a combination of D.A.S. Audio Compact 2 powered, 3-way, mid-high enclosures stacked atop D.A.S. Audio Compact 218 self-powered subwoofers. There were four such systems—two per each side of the stage.
D.A.S. Audio SML-12A powered, multi-purpose stage monitors and Avant 18A powered subwoofers rounded out the monitor systems. Yamaha PM5D-RH digital consoles were supplied for mixing both mains and monitors.
“The D.A.S. Audio equipment did a great job for us on this project,” says Viana. “We were able to assemble the system with a configuration that gave the technicians the comfort of having all the SPL they required with sound quality that was ideal for everything from rock to jazz. No matter where you stood in the audience, the sound was loud, clear, and very musical.
“Our client was extremely happy with the sound system’s performance and all the technicians, producers, performers, and mix engineers involved with the various acts had nothing but incredible praise for the system. This was a fantastic job from planning to completion of execution.”
