Originally designed for classical music, L’Auditori de Barcelona in Spain has turned to a more inclusive program, even welcoming
international pop stars to its stage, with the expanded programming requiring more extensive sound reinforcement capability.
“We already had a point source solution, and some delays due to the long size of the auditorium,” explains head of sound Toni Vila. “Yet for international artists this system was far away from actual rider expectations and could not provide the immediacy audiences expect in such type of shows.”
At the outset of the upgrade process, the venue set aside three days for evaluations, inviting demonstrations from the three brands that appeared most regularly on audio riders.
“The tests were exhaustive,” states Enric Esteve of Imaginamusica (a local d&b audiotechnik sales partner). “We were asked to
demonstrate a system using sung vocals with handheld and lavalier mics, a woodwind section, and playback material from contemporary artists.
“The room is long and lively,” Esteve continues, “so as a partner company we consulted with d&b audiotechnik Spain, with Juanma deCasas providing his always excellent technical support. Juanma determined a left/right V-Series system, with V-SUBs flown between the main V8 / V12 arrays, and joined by T10s in point source mode for front fills. All were configured to provide the most contained directivity control.”
The primary priority was keeping energy off the walls while still being able to deliver the presence, power and musicality demanded of contemporary artists. Esteve and de Casas also added a discrete pair of outfill V12s rigged upstage behind the mains and subs.
“There are some very lateral balconies relative to the stage, we could never cover these seats before,” notes Vila. “That and the well-behaved cardioid performance of the flown subs has transformed the listening experience.”
Josep Andrada, technical director for L’Auditori, listened to the decisions of his sound team, and following the tests in July 2013, a one-off live show was undertaken with David Byrne and his band in September.
“Both the demo day, and that live show test with David Byrne were very tight schedules,” says de Casas. “With a mix of line arrays and point source, aligning and correctly EQing such a system can be time consuming, but the simple workflow of using d&b ArrayCalc at the planning stage, and then being able to convert this quickly and easily to a full system setup in the
D80 amplifiers via the d&b R1 Remote control software, meant that we could have the rig running and tuned almost immediately on both days after it was rigged.”
“Imaginamusica made a permanent installation in July of 2014. “The consistency of voice through to the far-field, and the fact we
no-longer need any delays to reach there are a real benefit,” Vila concludes. “They also arranged for myself and my colleague ‘Tole’ to attend a line array workshop at d&b in Backnang, Germany, before commissioning. As such we were able to
manage our first concert ‘flying solo’ with U.S. legends Chicago, who played shortly thereafter.”