Thirty-three years after its founding and now resident in its third location, the 550-seat CupOJoy live music venue in Green Bay, Wisconsin, has finally committed to its first permanently installed sound system. A Martin Audio Wavefront Precision WPS line array is now resident in the larger hall within the two-auditorium venue as part of an extensive audiovisual fit-out delivered by local system integrator CCCP (Camera Corner).

The non-profit facility’s mission is to offer ‘music that inspires’, and is run by volunteers. The new technical installation follows a two-year fund-raising programme. ‘When we fired up the PA for the first time before the launch event I was flabbergasted by the quality of the sound,’ says CupOJoy Technical Director, Mark Berg. Fellow Director, Jan Oettinger, was moved to tears.

In view of the size and scope of the room, the installation presented a major challenge, and saw three potential vendors interviewed. ‘When we compared the proposals, we felt Martin Audio offered the expediency of delivery, was rider friendly and provided better value for money,’ Oettinger says.

CCCP had been more transparent than the others, she says. ‘They also took us to another venue where they had installed WPM we could hear the sound.’

CCCP had previously worked with Martin Audio point source systems for a couple of years with the WPM installation marking the company’s first Martin Audio line array experience. The tender included alternative, rider friendly brands for evaluation prior to the Martin Audio solution being adopted.

‘We had done our own research, both online and talking to FOH engineers we know, and received a lot of positive feedback,’ says Oettinger, who has been at CupOJoy virtually since the beginning. ‘Besides, having experienced other sound systems in the room with touring artists’ own production we felt like the Martin Audio sound was superior to anything we had heard in the room previously.’

CCCP’s Steve Littlepage was tech head and system designer, and detailed two WPS line array hangs, seven elements per side, driven in single-box resolution from two Martin Audio iKon iK81 amplifiers (with Channel 8 of each iK81 used to drive DD6 front fills). These are set either at the edge of the stage, or operate on a thrust with a different system preset. Four SX218 subwoofers, driven by the iK42, are flown in an end-fire configuration and aligned with the arrays.

Berg points out further advantages of reduced real estate in having the iKon multichannel, process-controlled amplifiers. ‘It means we can run the entire system off just three amps instead of many more required in the rack with the other two systems we reviewed. It was one of the main selling points of the system.’

But given present supply problems, the fact that all this ordinance was delivered to site for the opening benefit concert, says Littlepage, had been due to the efforts of Martin Audio’s Martha Callaghan. ‘She was amazing – she went above and beyond to get everything to us in time.’

For system set-up and optimisation, the CCCP engineer used Martin Audio’s Display 2 and Display 3 software (for 3D modelling of the space). This was backed up by Ease plots, which lined up with Martin Audio’s modelling.

As part of the requirement, CCCP also provided a new projector, screen and PTZ cameras, and created a flexible infrastructure for touring productions to patch into the system with their control. Crucially, this will also be networked to CupOJoy’s smaller 200-capacity venue, where an appropriate PA is installed. A Q-Sys backbone provides system flexibility between Performance mode for concerts and a Presentation mode via touchpanel or iPad app, for corporate events.

Reflecting on the installation, Mark Berg summarises as follows: ‘Anyone that’s already heard [WPS] loves it. I can’t imagine anyone not being enamoured.’

This sentiment is endorsed by Jan Oettinger. In conclusion she says, ‘The new sound system means the world to us and will make a huge difference to our programming, as I can now plan bigger. When [acts] walk into the room now, they know they can leave their production on the bus.’

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