While the Teenage Cancer Trust (TCT) marked 15 years of live performancelive performance at London’s Royal Albert Hall, Entec Sound & Light took the opportunity to become the first company in the UK to use a Beta version of d&b Audiotechnik’s new Array Processing software.
This year’s artists included The Stereophonics, The Who, Paul Weller, Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, plus a night of comedy hosted by Kevin Bridges. Entec Sound & Light has been the audio supplier for the event from the outset. Array Processing enabled Systems Designer and Technology Support Liam Halpin to optimise the low-mid of the d&b loudspeaker system to produce a more even response throughout the soundfield. ‘With more control we needed to pump less low-mid energy into the room,’ he says.
The rig for the TCT event comprised 14-deep d&b J8 boxes with side hangs of eight V8s. The C4 ‘outshooters’ which normally fill the void at the end of the choir stalls were replaced with four of d&b’s new Y8 cabinets a side, improving coverage in the most upstage balconies and areas around the gallery. The choir stalls (each side) were covered by two Q7s and a Q10 for fill, and the rest of the front and close-field fill was cover using other Y series speakers. A flown centre cluster of J-Subs has been a standard in recent years, augmented by four B2 bass elements under the stage.
Everything in the air was driven by the new D80 amplifiers – the Array Processing software is a new inbuilt feature of these products, together with the proprietary D12s powering all the floor speakers, giving a total of 25 D80s and eight D12s driving the system.
Also for the first time, Entec distributed signal via a Dante network, with EQ and matrixing taken care of by six Lake LM44s at FOH, the amplifiers fed AES via Focusright RedNet D16 units, and RedNet 1s provided analogue ‘general purpose’ signal to each location as well. Entec’s system featured 24 network switchers positioned around the venue, with fibre primary connections and Cat5 for the local feeds.
The ‘house’ FOH consoles this year were a Midas Pro1 for the comperes and a choice of a DiGiCo SD7 or Midas H3000 to suit the artists/visiting engineer specs. Some productions also brought in their complete touring control systems. Onstage a Midas Pro2c was specified for its small, neat footprint and the convenience of being able to fit in around some substantial incoming guest set-ups.
The Entec ‘house’ monitor system was a standard RAH designed set-up with d&b C7 side fills, Shure PSM 1000 IEMs and Shure UHF-R series radio mics. All the radio channels and frequencies were co-ordinated using Shure’s Wireless Workbench software.
In conjunction with FX Rentals, Entec supplied a record system based around a 96-channel D-Show Venue console, which was running Madi to two Pro Tools set-ups (Live and hot-backup). This year they chose the Madi system in line with some of the incoming artists.
Liam and the Entec team worked closely with FX rentals’ Matt Phillips to ensure all recording requirements were covered for archival and future use.
The shout system was also upgraded this year. Entec has invested in a myMix personal mixer system which integrates local inputs and outputs into the network, allowing greater degrees of individual control than a centrally mixed shout system. This was aligned with 16 channels of hard-wired comms providing full venue-wide show communications.
The project was overseen for Entec by sound engineer Dick Hayes, who retired from a full-time role after 46 years of active service and adventure in the industry last summer. He worked on all 15 TCT shows since it’s conception, and is very proud to have guided the company through some ground-breaking performances at the RAH during that time.
