Now in its 27th consecutive year, Miami’s Winter Music Conference (WMF) is one of the most publicized annual music gatherings in the world.
WMC attracts thousands of artists and music industry delegates from 70 countries and over 100,000 event attendees each year for a concentrated schedule of more than 400 events, parties, seminars and workshops.
Audio Formula and CEO Nick Assunto have handled audio production for a portion of WMF and related events since 2002, when Assunto assumed the role of production manager for one of its peripheral shows, the Ultimate Music Festival.
This year, Audio Formula took charge of four simultaneous stages in two different locations at the UMF—at Nikki Beach and the Raleigh Hotel. To handle the multiple locations, Assunto placed a pair of
DiGico SD9s at the Raleigh Hotel and a DiGiCo SD11 and SD8 at Nikki Beach with a pair of DiGiCo SDRacks to run the 2 locations remotely.
“Our responsibility at the event is to make sure we have the latest technology available for the performances,” Assunto explains, “from the PA system to all the peripherals involved. In addition, we’re responsible for tuning the system for the demanding SPL requirements and making sure we get the nicest definition out of the system.
“My favorite feature of the DiGiCo’s is having the ability to have everything separated in the matrix and in different layers. It’s handy to be able to remove all the non-essential buttons from the layers to have easy access of all the required channels in one page without having to flip around.
“Also, the SD9 with remote snake was very small and fitted perfectly under the DJ booth with no problem. That definitely was a winner.”
For Avicii at the Raleigh Hotel, Assunto used a brand new SD9 they’d just purchased for this event, using it in tandem with an AES-outfit DRack with outputs to run all of their L-Acoustics LA Racks driving their PA digitally.
“Being that we were in a pool area and surrounded by sand, it was the easiest way to run a couple of digital lines back to the stage making the setup very simple and secure,” he says. “For our second stage, we used an SD11 because the space was minimal—we were given a little corner on stage behind the PA.
“The SD11 was an excellent choice and gave me the same signature sound I’ve been used to working with on an SD8. For the other two stages, we used an SD8 and with the help of an SDrack, we had a remote MADI line coming in from one of the stages.”
“We have been using DiGiCo since 2010 for all our shows in Miami, starting with the Swedish House Mafia Show in October for an estimated 10K people,” Assunto recalled. “The main reason we spec’d the console was because of the quality and precision of the EQ and processing.
“Another big reason for us was to maintain everything in the digital domain. We don’t plan on doing any shows without a DiGiCo console… the sound is just extremely detailed and they’re incredibly flexible for any situation we put them in to.”
Assunto received a tremendous amount of positive feedback from many promoters and agents during the four-day event.
“The fact that we were able to maintain the same signature sound in all our stages was awe-inspiring.”
