The 2011 edition of the Rock in Rio festival in Brazil featured a bill that included Red Hot Chili Peppers, Guns ‘n’ Roses, Coldplay, Metallica, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Jamiroquai, Katy Perry, Rihanna, Shakira, and many others.
The sheer scale of the event is impressive, with a 150,000-square meter audience area at the Parque do Atleta in Jacarepaguá that can accommodate 800,000 people.
Gabisom Audio Equipment, sound provider for the show and one of the world’s largest audio rental companies, deployed Outline GTO line-source loudspeakers on the “Sunset” stage, featuring a diverse array of acts including Joss Stone and local favourites Sepultura as well as Titãs+Xutos Pontapés, Afrika Bambaataa, Matanza and Milton Nascimento.
Gabisom’s choice of GTO followed extensive testing carried out during the summer with the assistance of Outline technical staff, in order to verify the systems’ performance prior to Rock In Rio.
Faced with an audience of up to 60,000 at the Sunset Stage, the Brazilian rental company installed a 12-per-side GTO system, supplemented with GTO-LOW bass extension and GTO-DF down fill elements. Just eight Outline LAB 21 subwoofers were ground-stacked to provide the necessary low frequency performance.
Sound engineer Fernando Luis Leite had a busy event, mixing front of house for both a ‘classic rock jam’ featuring Ed Motta and Andreas Kisser of Sepultura, as well as Brazilian act Baile do Simonal who produced a unique mix of samba, rap, baião, soul, jazz, afro-beat, pop, funk and rock for the huge festival crowds.
“‘The Outline GTO was a very pleasant surprise for me,” Leite says. “The two bands I mixed are totally different, one playing classic rock with five guitars, and the other a pure Brazilian sound with lots of percussion and horns, but the GTO system handled them both really well. It throws long distances very effectively while maintaining excellent intelligibility even at serious volume.
“The Rock In Rio crowds expect it to be loud and it was – we were working at around 115 dB(A) at the mix position but I was really satisfied with its performance.”
Brazilian metal legends Sepultura were mixed on the Sunset Stage by Stanley Soares, who also handled front of house for French industrial percussionists Tambour du Bronx, and he notes, “I was very impressed with the sound, very clear and tons of pressure, especially for an occasion where I was working with both a very heavy rock band as well as a large group of percussionists.
“I realized right after I played some music through the system that I would have fun – great tonality, amazing high and low frequency response.”
