Thirty miles outside of the Los Angeles city centre in Topanga Canyon, the annual Reggae on the Mountain festival was staged again in July. Founded nine years ago by the co-founders of Label 27, Brooks Ellis and Amit Gilad, the event called on dBTechnologies to serve up the sound at the Topanga Community Center.
The main stage featured five VIO L210s groundstacked per side, with a gradient array of seven VIO S318 subs. Each side of the stage featured an Ingenia IG3 and a DVA 1518 sub as side fill, while monitors used two DVX DM12THs, six DVX DM12s, a DVA S1518 and a DVX 15HP. Additionally, the VIP area hosted two Ingenia IG1s. The second stage was flanked by two Ingenia IG3s per side, as well as two DVA S1518 subs.
‘This year’s event was history in the making,’ Gilad says. ‘People enjoyed legendary music from Toots & The Maytals, Barrington Levy and more. The music has never sounded crisper or cleaner than through the state of the art sound system provided by dBTechnologies.’
With the event in near-direct sunlight for the weekend, organisers and attendees had to plan for the elements of a sweltering Southern California summer day. ‘We’ve had issues in the past with monitors onstage overheating, but we didn’t have to worry about that with dBTechnologies,’ says monitor engineer Stephane Dumont. ‘Two full days in direct sunlight and no issues. The artists all loved the sound on stage, and the system didn’t require any EQ – just an awesome, stress-free experience with dB overall.’
‘The dBTechnologies speakers were the right amount of everything,’ says Matt Smyrnos of Kilroy’s Lighting and Production, who been with Reggae on the Mountain since day one. ‘The dBTechnologies boxes performed wonderfully with the nature of a reggae concert. We had ten bands over two days, 70 artists on the stage throughout the festival, and no complaints at all. I thought the boxes were small and compact at first, but they have a big sound to them. The mains pushed over 200 feet to the back of the field over with wonderful clarity and presence. It’s amazing how efficient they were.’
