A larger Outline for a growing Experience
A larger Outline for a growing Experience
Nigeria:
CyTech World Communication has supplied a range of Outline sound reinforcement solutions for the world’s largest gospel concert, The Experience, for a number of years. For the 2017 edition of the Nigerian event run by House on the Rock church, the rental company’s owner, Cyril Utomoibor, decided to invest in additional stock from the Italian manufacturer, purchasing a new GTO system due to an anticipated attendance exceeding 750,000.
‘I started with the Outline OpenArray1 file containing the system design used in previous years, which I sent to Steve [Davies, FOH supervisor from UK-based Subfrantic Production Services] before we flew out and he was happy with it,’ says Outline’s Vinnie Perreux, who was on hand in Lagos as system technician role. ‘The 2017 project was designed on OpenArray2 and helped us to figure out in advance the correct location of all the loudspeaker positions so that we could achieve the correct coverage in both planes and the average SPL he was looking for across the venue. Additionally it allowed us to blend the areas being covered by different types of Outline cabinet so that there was seamless audio everywhere. We knew what the results would be before we even turned the PA on, which was a massive advantage for an event like this.
‘From a system viewpoint, Steve sent me an L-R feed and a mono auxiliary send to drive the system controllers,’ Mr Perreux continues. ‘They in turn provided the stereo and mono feeds for the various loudspeaker locations: main FOH L-R, each comprising 18 GTO, 12 GTO C-12 and two GTO-DF down-fills; main FOH side hangs of 18 GTO C-12 left and right; rear L-R ground stacks of eight Butterfly; 16 DBS 18-2 front subs; eight SubTech as front centre subs; and four Lab 21 for main FOH subs; plus six delay towers, two comprising 18 GTO C-12 cabinets each, two with 20 Butterfly each and two using 16 Butterfly plus a stereo mix for the sound system outside the stadium.’
Mr Davies was part of a team of nine technicians from Subfrantic and has worked at The Experience several times. ‘Cyril from CyTech added to their inventory for the 2017 event with a healthy amount of GTO, meaning that the rig performed completely differently from the last few years where we were using only the GTO C-12,’ he explains. ‘This meant that the main PA had plenty of headroom, and never struggled to reproduce anything that was asked of it from the aggressive tonal attack of the talking drums through to the more laid back and smoother sound created by Don Moen and his band. We had more bass end, and a rig that felt like it was working well within its tolerances for a show that size. Much credit for our success must also go to Vinnie from Outline, the way he tuned the whole massive rig and generally looked after us was fantastic.
‘We look for a minimum even coverage of 115dB across the whole site, and then aim to mix much lower than that, usually 95 to 105dB depending on the act, time of the night, and of course who’s running the console at the time,’ Mr Davies concludes. ‘This year the addition of the GTO meant that we could move the C-12 around and bolster the rest of the rig, so we didn’t have to work the FOH too hard in order to cover as much ground as possible – consequently I was sat at around a comfortable 95 for most of the event.’
www.cytechworld.com
www.outline.it
www.subfrantic.com
www.theexperiencelagos.com
‘I started with the Outline OpenArray1 file containing the system design used in previous years, which I sent to Steve [Davies, FOH supervisor from UK-based Subfrantic Production Services] before we flew out and he was happy with it,’ says Outline’s Vinnie Perreux, who was on hand in Lagos as system technician role. ‘The 2017 project was designed on OpenArray2 and helped us to figure out in advance the correct location of all the loudspeaker positions so that we could achieve the correct coverage in both planes and the average SPL he was looking for across the venue. Additionally it allowed us to blend the areas being covered by different types of Outline cabinet so that there was seamless audio everywhere. We knew what the results would be before we even turned the PA on, which was a massive advantage for an event like this.
‘From a system viewpoint, Steve sent me an L-R feed and a mono auxiliary send to drive the system controllers,’ Mr Perreux continues. ‘They in turn provided the stereo and mono feeds for the various loudspeaker locations: main FOH L-R, each comprising 18 GTO, 12 GTO C-12 and two GTO-DF down-fills; main FOH side hangs of 18 GTO C-12 left and right; rear L-R ground stacks of eight Butterfly; 16 DBS 18-2 front subs; eight SubTech as front centre subs; and four Lab 21 for main FOH subs; plus six delay towers, two comprising 18 GTO C-12 cabinets each, two with 20 Butterfly each and two using 16 Butterfly plus a stereo mix for the sound system outside the stadium.’
Mr Davies was part of a team of nine technicians from Subfrantic and has worked at The Experience several times. ‘Cyril from CyTech added to their inventory for the 2017 event with a healthy amount of GTO, meaning that the rig performed completely differently from the last few years where we were using only the GTO C-12,’ he explains. ‘This meant that the main PA had plenty of headroom, and never struggled to reproduce anything that was asked of it from the aggressive tonal attack of the talking drums through to the more laid back and smoother sound created by Don Moen and his band. We had more bass end, and a rig that felt like it was working well within its tolerances for a show that size. Much credit for our success must also go to Vinnie from Outline, the way he tuned the whole massive rig and generally looked after us was fantastic.
‘We look for a minimum even coverage of 115dB across the whole site, and then aim to mix much lower than that, usually 95 to 105dB depending on the act, time of the night, and of course who’s running the console at the time,’ Mr Davies concludes. ‘This year the addition of the GTO meant that we could move the C-12 around and bolster the rest of the rig, so we didn’t have to work the FOH too hard in order to cover as much ground as possible – consequently I was sat at around a comfortable 95 for most of the event.’
www.cytechworld.com
www.outline.it
www.subfrantic.com
www.theexperiencelagos.com