Proving
last year that London’s
controversial Hyde Park festival site could be uniquely protected from noise
leakage into the surrounding neighbourhood by deploying Martin Audio’s
award-winning MLA technology, promoters AEG Live adopted a similar solution for
this year’s Barclaycard
presents British Summer Time Hyde Park festival
— but with significant enhancements.
While Capital Sound, again deployed MLA and
MLA Compact to guarantee coherent site coverage, Martin Audio’s R&D
Director, Jason Baird, was determined that new optimisations would enable them
to eke out as much as an additional 3dB at front-of-house without increasing
offsite pollution.
As a result, 102dB(A) was achieved for
McBusted, with 73dB(A) recorded offsite, comfortably within the maximum
allowable of 75dB(A), while both Tom Jones (during his more strident numbers)
and Black Sabbath nudged 103dB(A).
Baird explained that the journey to
accomplish this had begun three months earlier, with the concept tested and
proven on the Glastonbury Festival delay rig, the week before.
“We conducted the propagation tests based on
what we learnt last time around,” he said. One of the key offsite measurement
points identified by both Westminster Council and acoustics specialists,
Vanguardia at Hyde Park was on top of flats in Mayfair’s nearby Upper Brook
Street. “When I visited the property last year I was able to look at the
complete spectrum of the signal,” says Baird. “You could hear there was only LF
and low mid that was contributing to the A-weight measurements and we realised
that if we could reduce that frequency band we could have a better
differential.”
And so his R&D team set to work on the
optimisation routines across the full frequency range to improve the
differential between on- and off-site levels without extending latency — and
this trial optimiSation will in time feature in new data firmware. While Baird maintains that testing will
remain ongoing he says the success at Glastonbury gave him the confidence to
deploy it on additional arrays in Hyde Park including house left side hang and
the two delays nearest to Park Lane.
He describes these early tests and the
additional increase of around 2-3dB in max FOH levels over the previous year as
“encouraging and significant”.
Capital
Sound’s Technical Manager and Systems Designer, Ian Colville, confirmed, “It
all worked well and there were no issues with the three arrays we used the new
optimisation algorithm on.”
His
site design replicated last year’s when the stage was reoriented through 30° to point it away from
sensitive offsite areas, and included 10 delay towers (in two rings of four
plus one ring of two). However, there was one exception. “We dropped a delay
position [in Ring 3] which didn’t need to be there because the design of
the back of the field changed,” he said.
For
the main PA Capital deployed two hangs of 16 x MLA and 1 x MLD Downfill per
side, with 12 x MLA and 1 x MLD Downfill for the sidefills. The sub array
consisted of 21 x MLX in a broadside cardioid array, with a further 11
enclosures back facing.
The
three delay rings comprised between seven and nine MLA element hangs (supported
by MLD Downfill and MLX subs). Ring 3 featured eight MLA Compacts. These were
set at distances from the stage of 90m, 160m and 210 metres (for the MLA Compacts). Distance from FOH to
stage was 50 metres.
Capital
and Martin Audio deployed a team of technical heavyweights, including Chris
Pyne, who handles Martin Audio product support for SE Asia, and has worked
closely with Capital since piloting Kylie Minogue’s mix in the 1990s; Capital
had Dave Roden babysitting consoles, the accomplished Toby Donovan once again
acting as system engineer, while Martin Connolly was the account manager.
With FOH
engineers no longer worrying about trading offsite noise pollution with
audience sound levels, it meant they could really focus on the mix they wanted
and at the same time appreciate the musicality of the system.
One
visiting sound engineer Chris Madden (working with Little Mix), had nothing but
positive comments. “I used the Martin MLA system about two years ago with
Jessie J and I enjoyed it then,” he said. “But I think it was even better this
time. It’s a very interesting and remarkable piece of equipment …I didn’t EQ it
at all at BST and it sounded great.”
Matteo
Cifelli, FOH engineer for Tom Jones, who performed on the final Sunday, was
equally effusive. “I was very happy with the results we achieved, the mix
immediately sounded just as it was conceived,” he says. “This is the sign of a
good cabinet, and also of a well tuned system.
“I
was very pleased with the purity and musicality of the cabinet. I also
appreciated the consistency in frequency response at different levels. The
sound image was amongst the best I have ever heard on a large system. Even
mixing off centre, I could hear all the reverbs and details of my mix clearly
and the presence and sweetness on the vocals was great, in your face and never
harsh.”
Jason
Baird added, “What FOH engineers want at festivals is plenty of headroom and
not to worry about offsite restrictions. Having reduced the low mid and
LF spectrum this year, we’ve been able to further ensure this, and that means
the power, depth and definition of the system can also really shine too.”
And summing up the Festival’s success, AEG Live event
director, Jim King, confirmed, “We have been able to achieve further increases
in sound levels over and above the significant improvements we already made
last year.
“Headliners at Hyde Park are now performing at levels
well in excess of 100dB which was unthinkable only two years ago. This has
been achieved whilst maintaining even better control at off site
monitoring location and with consistently lower number of complaints from the
community.
“Capital and Martin have done an excellent job and the
system data and know-how about the site is there for visiting FOH engineers to
get the very best levels and sound coverage for their artists.”
Pics:
McBusted onstage; Personnel (left to right): Martin Audio’s Jason Baird and
Chris Pyne and Capital Sound’s Ian Colville
