Australian event and PA company DURT has been using Allen & Heath’s Qu and ME systems to manage sound reinforcement for the recent National Mountain Bike Championships in Victoria.
‘The location for a major mountain bike event can be the size of ten football fields, there will be several concurrent events, each with their own audio requirements, plus briefing, meeting and conference areas which require audio but also minimal background noise,’ explains DURT MD, Russell Baker. ‘The trails can be upwards of 8-sq-km, and the audience, often well over 10,000 capacity, can be spread over several mountains, with local areas attracting their own large crowds all needing entertainment, race information and atmosphere.’
A Qu-32 was stationed in a control cabin, with AR2412 and AR0804 I/O racks as two external connection points, an aerial farm and router on the roof, plus iPad and iPhone control to manage longer distance coverage.
‘The Qu managed multiple cable and wireless microphone systems but the large distances and mountainous terrain meant that normal wireless couldn’t always cover it all, so handheld radios, coming in through DI boxes and iPhones plugged straight into the board, were used to get live race reports back from the distant parts of the courses,’ Baker says.
The Qu provided FOH speaker feeds of up to 18 main speakers from six zone mixes, plus feeds to web and broadcast partners, and mixes to control the ducking. TV, web and broadcast had their own dedicated commentary and interview mixes without music due to licensing issues, and a separate phase and delay adjusted music feed was provided to broadcast engineers to help cancel microphone spill of background music.
In each separate sport zone, the local commentators were able to duck the music in their area, plus there was a ‘whole-of-event’ mix, with ducking control of all sources, which was used for major items and as an emergency announcement system. As different events reached climactic stages, the accompanying commentary was patched to the main event centre using scene changes.
‘Recent updates to Qu firmware eliminated my last remaining outboard equipment, and the features just keep on coming,’ explains Baker. ‘The whole system runs with minimal human intervention – mostly scene changes – for up to a week and is almost all controlled from iPads and iPhones. Without a person on the mixer 24/7, automated ducking is very important to keep the music level up for the crowd, while allowing the commentary to be heard clearly when needed.’
Additionally, a ME system was used primarily for commentary and broadcast operators, enabling them to generate their own monitor mixes remote from the Qu-32 and as a PAFL system to check signal sources.
More: www.allen-heath.com
