This year’s annual edition of the three-day Riot Fest in Chicago’s Douglass Park neighborhood saw locally based rental provider Technotrix equip three of the stages with main systems headed by Martin Audio loudspeakers equipped with the company’s proprietary “Hard Avoid” technology and cardioid preset adjustments to help ensure cancellation and rear rejection.
As one of the largest independently owned music festivals, the line-up this year included My Chemical Romance, The Original Misfits and Nine Inch Nails. With a total of five stages set within a relatively small site, tight sound control to avoid spillage into the surrounding neighborhood is paramount. Technotrix audio department manager Brent Bernhardt relies on the Martin Audio platform to help prevent sound bleeding into areas where it’s not required.
For Technotrix was originally tasked with equipping a single stage when they first arrived at the event five years ago and now serves all of the stages under the direction of production manager Grant Simmon. “It was a big win for us, and we were able to form a team that production could trust,” says Bernhardt.
The demands place pressure on their inventory and he adds that they are fortunate to be able to utilize the Martin Audio network when it comes to adding extra inventory, adding “Martin Audio also provides great support where we need it and has done a fantastic job staying involved. But as the user network has grown, we have managed to rely less on manufacturer support and more on partner support.”
For reasons of efficiency, the organizers tweaked the layout of the two main stages (named Riot and Roots), while out around the perimeter the Radical (Stage 3), Rise (Stage 4) and Rebel (Stage 5) areas belonged to Martin Audio. Between them these stages hosted a number of top acts, including Bleachers, Sunny Day Real Estate and The Academy Is (Stage 3), Portugal the Man, Yellowcard and Ice Cube (Stage 4) and Marky Ramone, GWAR and Real Friends (Stage 5).
Radical and Rise were identically configured with MLA, while the slightly smaller Stage 5 mounted a Martin Audio W8LC. Having been running Martin Audio systems since the late 1990s, Technotrix is familiar with their sonic signature, but inter-stage sound containment remains a major issue. “We used DISPLAY [Martin Audio’s optimization control and monitoring software platforms] to its full potential again this year, along with a cardioid subwoofer deployment,” Bernhardt notes. “We use the Hard Avoid as people at the back of the stage will have a hard time if LF energy is booming everywhere. We were able to get good cancellation and rear rejection, and excellent gain on the mics.”
In addition to Chicago’s notorious fast changing climatic conditions, which need to be factored in, the stages mix up many different genres often requiring different volume levels. Technotrix deploys front of house and monitor techs to supervise, as well as two patch experts. Bernhardt: “I work with Joe Mion, our FOH engineer as well as the festival director to come up with presets dependent on the time of day, and produce short, medium and long-throw presets; for example, we coordinate a lot of partitions to draw audiences nearer the stage earlier in the day, using short throw.”
Visiting engineers are provided with a start file, so they don’t have to build up their EQ curve from scratch. On stages 3 and 4 sound engineers mixed through main hangs comprising 11 MLA and an MLD Downfill box at the base on each flank. The subs comprise six stacks of three high MLX, with the middle box reversed, set in a broadside cardioid configuration. Four MLA Compact enclosures are set across the top of the subwoofer clusters for front fill, enabling a reasonable height for projection.
Technotrix also dipped into its inventory of floor monitors, providing XD300s on Stage 3 and 4, driven by iKON iK42, but supplying the larger XD500 for stages 1 and 2. Drum fill subs in all instances were provided by SX218 (dual 18-inch) subs.
At Stage 5, Technotrix fielded six-a-side W8LC and 12 WSX subs in a broadside array, with XD12s set on the stage lip providing frontfill. The subs were designed in clusters of three, set in portrait configuration. And although these were non-cardioid the audio techs were able to carry out arc steering where necessary.
“We know what kind or arc delays and cardioid patterns are working,” he says. “We walk the site constantly and we work with techs at FOH to determine if the sound needs to be turned down, or in some instances turned up. It needs to be up at 101-102 dB(a) to overcome the sound from other areas, but it probably averages out around 99 dB. A couple of dB makes all the difference.
“With genres often mixed on these stages, suddenly a hip-hop band will come on with excess low end and we will have to change the preset, do some sub shading or tweak the cardioid setting. Martin Audio’s cardioid preset works really well and I’m rarely disappointed.”
