The track slopes that gave the last Motocross World Championship Grand Prix of the season its thrills presented quite a challenge to the sound system used for the two-day event. In keeping with the comevent’s competitive spirit, audio engineer Andrea Salvioli, was definitely up to the challenge, however, making use of dBTechnologies’ latest digital line array, the DVA T12, dBTechnologies.
‘We used three clusters each comprising ten T12 modules, flown from a crane at a height of 16m,’ he says. ‘Beneath these were a further two stacks of DVA S20 subwoofers, six facing one way and six the other, to get the best possible low-frequency coverage for the area. One stack of subwoofers was delayed by 4.5ms to compensate for the gap between the two stacks, which was easily adjusted by RDNet remote control.
‘The starting line – the highest point of the track – was served by two clusters of four T12s, each coupled with four S20s. The difference in height between the lowest and highest points of the track was 150m, so it was hard to organise coverage for all the public, but using the three clusters at different angles turned out to be the perfect solution.
‘The total area of the track was about 500m x 400m and with the dBTechnologies DVA system, we were able to spread the sound almost everywhere,’ Salvioli says, clearly pleased with the outcome. ‘We were all impressed by the efficiency of the system and especially the ease of installation, despite the peculiarities of the place.’
Sending audio signal between the three clusters and the control room was exceptionally slick, using dBTechnologies’ MS120 (directive transmitter antenna) and a PU920 (receiver). ‘We used two different radio frequencies rather than signal cables for the total distance of 350m, and two repeaters for safety. There weren’t any drops in transmission though,’ says Salvioli.
Both the event organisers and dBTechnologies customer/rental company Bebo Service were extremely satisfied: ‘They told me that previous races during the championship didn’t sound as good as this one,’ he enthuses.
More: www.dbtechnologies.com
