The Music Power Rock China 30 tour has set out to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Chinese rock music, opening at the same venue on the same day as 30 years ago.
In 1986, Cui Jian – widely regarded as the ‘father of Chinese rock’ – marked the official birth of Chinese Rock & Roll when he performed ‘Nothing To My Name’ at Beijing Workers Gymnasium. Now, with some of China’s top rock artists on the bill and an EAW Anya Adaptive Performance system for PA, engineer Jim Ebdon has joined the entourage using Allen & Heath dLive digital mixing systems at FOH and monitors, and ME personal monitor mixing.
A total of 11 bands performed at the opening show, using two drum kits, two sets of keyboards, Chinese drums, ten guitar amps, two bass amps and various vocals. Two dLive systems, each comprising an S7000 Control Surface and DM64 MixRack, were selected to manage the diverse audio requirements at FOH and monitors, and six ME-1 personal mixers were employed for band members to control their own mix on stage.
Ebdon, has worked with a host of top artists, including Maroon 5, Aerosmith, Sting, Annie Lennox, Matchbox Twenty and the Pet Shop Boys. Now he had hands-on with the dLive system: ‘I love the effects in here,’ he says. ‘I love the dynamics and the compressor – so, for a show like this, there is no need for external effects or compressors.
‘I tend to do some parallel compressions of the drums, so I have to set up with the 16VU compressor on a separate drum bus and I can fade that in just to get some more weight and punch to the drums as when it is necessary.’
Delivering the music
‘The arena building made up of concrete, glass and metal, with a festival-like stage set up in one end of the floor, which cut down on available floor space and limited seating to almost half of the arena’ Ebdon says. ‘Our job was to give the fans the best music experience possible, which meant keeping the sound off of the walls and ceiling.’
To do this, four EAW Anya columns and Otto subwoofers were used for the main PA – LR hangs of 12 Anya boxes per side, with out fill from two further hangs of eight Anya modules each. Six Otto subwoofers were flown behind the main PA, with eight more stacked on the ground. ‘There is no doubt that it was a challenging space, but Anya performed perfectly,’ Ebdon says. ‘We did soundchecks for two days. Initially we focused the PA on the floor seating area. When we opened it up to cover the entire venue the sound characteristic was identical. It was quite impressive.’
The seating area dimensions for the Beijing Workers Stadium were plugged into EAW’s Resolution software, which determined the ideal three-dimensional wavefront for the desired area. From there the software communicates with the Anya modules to provide precise coverage.
‘This was incredibly useful in this space,’ Ebdon reports. ‘If the sound had started bouncing off of the walls, it would have been a mess. Resolution was key to the clarity and audio quality the event required.’
Otto subwoofers provided perfectly balanced low-frequency coverage to suit the concert. Each module includes two high-power 18-inch cones that use Offset Aperture loading to generate four optimally-spaced acoustical sources; one in each corner delivering exceptional efficiency and minimising harmonic distortion.
‘It was a sold-out event that features many different styles of rock and roll,’ concludes Ebdon. ‘The quality of the musicians was exceptional. The Adaptive system really delivered for the fans.’ The show continues to tour another five cities in coming months.
