Marking the third high-profile Liverpool-centric event for Adlib in as many months, the 2014 Creamfields EDM festival saw the company providing lighting, sound and rigging to two main arenas and the Hospitality/VIP area. It also saw its first use of sound spatialisation at the new Departures stage.
Both main stages (Arena 04 and Arena 05) required major overnight lighting/visual changeovers, with typical UK weather making working conditions tough on site. Leading the Adlib team on site was Crew Chief Kevin Byatt, with everything support from the office/warehouse end by Dave Eldridge – this and detailed advance planning were key to its smooth operation.
The production values at Creamfields 2014 in all arenas were raised this year, reflecting the global success of the event and the concept, which attracted a capacity crowd of 70,000. ‘Naturally we were thrilled – in our 30th year as a company – to be involved in another amazing event for Cream, an absolutely iconic name in Liverpool and a phenomena right at the heart of the city’s vibrant musical culture and history,’ says Adlib’s Dave Eldridge.
The sonic ambience, bass and sub levels are key to the EDM sound experience. For these, Adlib specified Coda and JBL VerTec systems. To bring a touch of rock attitude to Pete Tong’s Saturday night set, the ten-per-side JBL VT4889 main hangs were used together with 24 VT4880 subs for some incredible low end rumblings, fine-tuned with Adlib’s Lake processing systems for EQ and time alignment.
The consoles used were a Yamaha PM5D for FOH and a Midas Pro 2 onstage, with Adlib FD2 hi-packs and Adlib DF415 subs providing no-nonsense DJ monitors and eight Adlib MP3 wedges along the front of stage. This Arena was engineered for Adlib by Vidmantis Baleisa and Rui Feio.
In Arena 05, the main hangs comprised 12 Coda Airline LA12s a side, with 12 Coda ViRay for in fill and out fill. A sub arc array was formed by 24 Coda SC8 subs ground stacked and eight SCP subs forming the centre of the array, all driven by Coda Audio’s new Linus amplifier and DSP platform.
A Soundcraft Vi6 was provided for FOH and another Midas Pro2 for monitors, together with the full Lake processing system. Onstage were more MP3 wedges and the same combination of two each Adlib FD2s/DF418 subs for some serious DJ monitoring!
The Coda systems’ versatility suited PA duties in the hospitality area, with eight Airline LA12s and six Coda SCP-F subs ground stacked for the main arrays and eight ViRay and SCV Subs to cover the side areas of the tent. This was driven by Coda’s DNC amplifier platform and a Soundcraft Si Performer 2 console. Adlib also supplied mics packages for all three areas. ‘We have a lot of experience of the basic sound parameters needed for different genres of EDM, so we can offer a variety of solutions,’ says Phil Stoker. ‘Having proved itself ideal for theatre and regular arena venues, Coda is once again excelling in the EDM environment’
TiMax 3D surrounds Axwell & Ingrosso
This year’s festival also claimed an EDM ‘first’ in its use of TiMax 3D audio spatialisation for Axwell & Ingrosso’s set. Dubbed ‘360’ in deference to the moving lights and PA system that encircled the crowd, Departures was new arena to Creamfields, inspired by the A&I Ibiza club night born last summer. Axwell & Ingrosso’s were joined by Alesso, Dirty South, Deep Dish and Otto Knows in the 10,000-capacity tent.
The 360 production was specified by A&I’s sound engineer Wayne Rabbit Sargeant, who also handles shows for Aviici. He designed an eight-channel surround system with audio provider SSE Audio Group Project Manager, Dan Bennett. It comprised two hangs of ten L-Acoustics V-Dosc elements with SB28 Subs on stage, plus four side and two rear groundstacks of four V-Dosc cabinets each. The system was managed by FOH systems technician, Willie Klein and on stage by monitor technician, Kevin Sparkes.
The TiMax SoundHub-S16 Audio Showcontrol matrix received a stereo DJ mix via AES from the DiGiCo SD10 racks on stage. Eight TiMax outputs were sent via Dante into SSE’s fibre signal distribution network to L-Acoustics LA8 amps. The first two outputs from TiMax were summed into the Lake LM26 Processors driving the main LR system, alongside the main stereo mix bus outputs from the SD10. This allowed Rabbit to treat the TiMax spatialisation as an effect laid over the main end-on stereo PA mix, blended and crossfaded using the SD10 DJ mix input faders and pre-fade aux send faders to the TiMax inputs.
Ethernet control of the TiMax unit at stage from FOH was via a dedicated VLAN also on SSE’s fibre network. At FOH, this connected to a TiMax 1602MiniServer WAP, which hosted an iPadMini app webpage for triggering pan cues and trimming front, side and rear group levels of surround PA.
Also connected was a MacBook running the TiMax software, to monitor and edit playback of cues. Programmed by Out Board’s Dave Haydon, these offered a range of slow, medium and fast spins – a rotating stereo image to make the sound float above the crowd – and a similar range of chase effects, both clockwise and anti-clockwise. The timings of these effects were adjusted to be multiples of the tempo of the set to sync with the performance.
The spin and chase effects were programmed in the TiMax TimeLine showcontrol screen, and other front/back ‘wave’ and slow/fast ‘zig-zag’ effects were created in the TiMax PanSpace. All were triggered wirelessly by Rabbit from an iPadMini running the browser-based TiMax SoundHub app developed in conjunction with technology and marketing associates, 1602Group.
Wayne Rabbit Sargeant enjoyed the added dimension TiMax brought to the show: ‘Mostly what I’m doing at front of house for an artist like this is live mastering – with external tools and plug-ins for bass enhancement and things like dynamic EQ and multiband compression, so TiMax spatialisation is a powerful and welcome addition to the palette. The visual side of the team were very impressed as they had never heard anything like it before and it has inspired future collaborations: to link up and work together midi triggering lights from the TiMax; so it was a really positive experience.’
More: www.adlib.co.uk
More: www.codaaudio.com
More: www.jblpro.com
More: www.soundcraft.com
More: www.midasconsoles.com
More: www.outboard.co.uk
More: www.l-acoustics.com
More: www.digico.biz
More: www.lakeprocessing.com
