Up including Groove Armada, Jocelyn Brown, and DJ Todd Terry headlined the Glorious Day festival. Delivering high-quality sound reinforcement alongside optimized noise control in a sensitive residential environment was a Martin Audio WPC system, deployed by dBS Solutions. The scalable system comprised 10 x Martin Audio WPC array elements per side as the main hangs. Providing significant low-end performance was a castellated array of 10x Martin Audio SXH118 subwoofers, configured in a cardioid set-up.
“Hove Lawns on the seafront is a very long, thin area with the beach to the audience’s left and rows of flats and shops along the road to the right,” describes Chris Bogg of dBS Solutions. “The nearest residence is in line with one side of the stage, at a distance of only 60m. Fortunately, the Martin Audio broadside cardioid subwoofer array is fantastic at being able to control noise off to the sides, and we were able to use Hard Avoid features within the software to dramatically reduce noise behind the main array.” A greater challenge for the team was a residential and commercial area situated on one side just beyond the far reaches of the 80m-long site, requiring careful placement of the delay systems.
“We had two MLAC delay systems along that left-hand side happily firing almost across the audience and out towards the sea,” Chris continues. “The city-facing delay was angled in more than you ordinarily would, specifically to keep those high frequencies from spilling beyond the boundary of the site.” Across the event, dBS Solutions utilized Martin Audio’s DISPLAY optimization software to create multiple levels of coverage predictions.
By experimenting with different optimizations and collaborating closely with the local noise control team, they delivered a perfect balance of on-site impact within the stringent off-site noise limitations. Chris praises the performance and accuracy of these Martin Audio processes: “Our journey has always been towards being able to do our biggest work, which is the festival work, and to be able to optimize the systems-and I think Martin Audio do that better than most. They are the originators of that process, level of control, and scalability.” The scalable nature of the Wavefront Precision platform has proved invaluable to the rental company. “One of the major things for us when comparing Martin Audio against other products on the market was the scalable resolution,” notes Chris.
“As a rental company, I can own lots of amplifier racks; one day I can deploy them in a one-box resolution for a premium audio system, and the next event, if we don’t have off-site noise problems, I can deploy it in a two-box resolution and use those amplifiers on another site.” At Glorious Days, the system performed exactly as expected, with Chris concluding, “Once again, Martin Audio delivered a fantastic result for us and the client, not to mention the festival’s neighbors!”
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