London nightclub fabric has collaborated with Pioneer Pro Audio and Powersoft to over the sound system for its first outdoor event. Set for July in London’s Victoria Park, the Lovebox Festival will feature the fabric stage – the only stage at Lovebox to boast an exclusive pro audio partner. The partnership between the two brands has already proved itself in leading dance venues across the world, including the clubbing hotspot of Ibiza.
The fabric arena is a 2,000-capacity, 38m circular tent recreating fabric’s Room One. Here, Powersoft’s class-D switch-mode K Series has been used by Pioneer Pro Audio Manager, Alex Barrand, to drive Pioneer 4m x 3m GS-Wave dancefloor surround stacks, eight XY-218 18-inch twin bass reflex subwoofers and 12 XY-122 two-way loudspeakers. In addition, it will exploit the Italian company’s Armonía Pro Audio Suite software for remote control and monitoring of the system, and advanced DSP.
‘Powersoft has been my preferred amplifier partner from Day One,’ Barrand says. ‘We know we can rely on K series, because the power consumption is phenomenal, the capabilities are amazing and it just gives you peace of mind. The excellent damping factor on the subs, in particular, is unbelievable.’
With a condensed 1U form factor, six K10 (2 x 2kW/8Ω) and four K2 (2 x 1kW/8Ω) amplifiers have been chosen to drive the fabric 4.1 system. ‘Extra subwoofers will be brought in to create more low end for the Friday drum ‘n’ bass night, and we will be using another eight K10 for the additional in fill,’ Barrand says. ‘We will also run all amplifiers in AES/EBU which is a more elegant and cleaner way of doing things in terms of redundancy. Our aim is to create a real club feel environment, designed to keep people in there for extended periods.’
The installation will also take advantage of Armonía software and DSP, which will run the system live: ‘We have access from front of house, so we can drop in the fills and subs as the atmosphere in the room starts to build,’ Barrand says. ‘We are working direct with the DJs, since we are all on radios so thanks to Armonia, we will introduce additional sound and step it up bit by bit. We don’t want a massive SPL peak when the room is empty.’
Pioneer Pro Audio has also designed a drum ’n’ bass preset for Armonia: ‘This gets us ahead of the curve as we can switch in the preset at the start of the festival. It will be tuned to drum and bass on the Friday, whereas the more typical fabric club sound on the Saturday requires a greater boost in the midrange, so we will switch to Preset 2.’
‘In an outdoor applications, K series is perfect in fabric’s attempts to create the feel of a nightclub,’ says Powersoft Brand & Communication Director, Francesco Fanicchi. ‘And, of course the efficiency of the amplifiers, in an environment where power is scarce, is vital.’
Add this to the fact that a birch wood floor, similar to the one in fabric’s Room One is being installed to give the right kind of feedback, and the fact that the tent’s walls will be double draped with damping material to control sideways reflections and contain low frequencies, and the simulated fabric Room One environment will be complete.
It is perfectly set-up for Lovebox to host live acts and DJs, including Ricardo Villalobos, Jackmaster and Kano.
