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US: One of 21 missions originally built by the Spanish in California, Mission San Luis Rey church, known as the ‘King of Missions’, was founded in Oceanside in 1798. Today it stands as one of the finest examples of Spanish Colonial architecture, a national historic landmark that Franciscan Friars call home.

San Diego-based AV company Sound Image Integration, now part of Clair Global Integration, have been servicing the Mission’s audio, camera, and video distribution requirements for the past 20 years. Business Development Manager, Scott Coyle, explained that to keep the Serra Center worship space fully operable as it carries out vital community work, previously sympathetic budget decisions were undertaken.

That was until a decision was made to reorientate the interior, from its traditional long rectangular shape, through 90°, to bring the congregation—which can reach 1200—closer to the altar. Coyle recognised that “While it made more sense that way, the sound was compromised due to a succession of ceiling speakers.”

When administrators recognised that a more serious and permanent approach to their sound was required, it was the Martin Audio TORUS T820 constant curvature solution that Coyle proposed, bearing in mind that with the reconfiguration, the church now had extraordinary width but little depth.

“We knew the focus needed to be principally the spoken word,” he said. “However, at the same time they have large congregations attending their weekend masses when a full choir and band perform.”

THIS WAS A PERFECT PROJECT FOR THE TORUS 8.

They looked at the space, and reviewed the types of speakers that would serve best for clarity, coverage and budget. “Having undertaken several projects with Martin Audio over the years in the house of worship space TORUS was our recommendation. Based on our long-standing relationship I knew we would have their trust,” he added.

An approach was made to Martin Audio Product Support Engineer, Will Harris, who duly set to work on a design. “When [the church] saw the visualisation and coverage map of how the speakers would react within the room, they were truly wowed,” said Coyle.

Harris himself recalled, “With such a beautiful and historic building I knew that the minimal visual footprint would be needed to get this done right and the TORUS T820 really fit the bill. We were able to get them well tucked away within the architecture of the building.”

Delivering high output from an 8” speaker within a compact footprint, it is the 100° horizontal and 20° vertical dispersion pattern that make it so ideal for the short throw requirement within this space. Left/Right flown pairs flank a central cluster of four T820 elements, while out wide on each wing wall-mounted Martin Audio CDD10’s provide optional outfill reinforcement, generally depending on whether the choir is in session. SX112 subwoofers warm up the sound and fit snugly into the existing cut-outs in the ceiling, while the entire rig is powered by a pair of matched iKON iK81 eight-channel amplifiers.

Finally, working in such historic buildings—this unique space enjoys classical and baroque architecture—as the integration experts at Sound Image often do, this installation was undertaken with great sensitivity. “Once our engineering team had purpose manufactured good rigging points, the system went up easily.”

When it came to fine-tuning the system, Coyle said they were fortunate in that the room was not as ‘live’ as is typical in what he terms as “an A-frame type of scenario.”

Will Harris undertook final commissioning. “When he fired the system up, he looked at his screen, smiled and said, ‘This is why I love these boxes!’” reminisced Coyle. “Testament not only to the box but to our installation craftsmanship.

“This was a perfect project for the TORUS 8. The constant curvature systems just work so well together delivering even and seamless coverage across the entire room, while handling the entire frequency spectrum with very little effort.”

Kerey Quaid, The Mission’s Music Director, agreed wholeheartedly. “The new speakers and amplification system are a great improvement for both music and spoken word in our worship space. We have both clarity and bass (for the first time), and equally good sound for the whole congregation. Great equipment!”

INDONESIA: Satulapan Group recently opened OPUS Karaoke in North Jakarta’s PIK area, following the success of its Mantra Club. The new venue was equipped with a state-of-the-art audio system by professional audio installer Music Art and Goshen Swara Indonesia, focusing on Martin Audio speakers to enrich the karaoke experience.

OPUS Karaoke features 11 rooms, including a VVIP Penthouse, two VIP rooms, four medium rooms, and four small rooms, each designed to offer a distinctive singing experience. The project faced challenges such as varying room acoustics and integrating the system with the venue’s design, especially in the VVIP Penthouse, which was prone to sound reflections due to its glass surfaces. Here, Martin Audio’s speakers and subwoofers were deployed to ensure immersive sound quality.

The setup was completed in time for the venue’s grand opening in early March, with both Music Art and Goshen Swara Indonesia acknowledging the success of this collaborative effort. This installation demonstrates the adaptability and excellence of Martin Audio’s products, ensuring OPUS Karaoke delivers a premier audio experience for its patrons.

UK: Having supported Michael McIntyre tours for many years (as Capital Sound) with Martin Audio solutions, Solotech UK have again been entrusted with providing sound reinforcement on the stand-up comedian’s current Macnificent 2023-24 arena tour.

MLA had successful graced the last two tours, but this time Solotech switched up to the British manufacturer’s newer flagship large-format line array, WPL.

The Off The Kerb production team behind the tour remains the same, with Neil McDonald once again overseeing the tech. “It’s a pleasure to be working again with Neil and the team at Off the Kerb,” stated Solotech UK Senior Account Manager, Robin Conway. “We discussed the tour back in late 2022 and the only thing we’ve changed is the model of PA. The design is very similar, and Wavefront Precision is a newer and more lightweight cabinet than the MLA,” he adds by way of explanation. “I was 100% confident it could achieve the same success as MLA has on the previous tours.”

Conway, himself masterminded the system design that the new FOH sound team would be entrusted with, knowing it would need to be scalable. He knew it would be in safe hands with system tech Rylan Machin, who is vastly experienced in working with the Martin Audio platforms. “Once out on the road he and Tim [crew chief and monitor engineer Tim Paterson], Sam [PA tech Sam Brazier] and Jason [FOH engineer Jason Barton, mixing on a Yamaha QL5] have been fine tuning the deployment.

The PA is scalable, depending on venue size, but in all instances is driven in the optimum 1-box resolution from Martin Audio’s multi-channel iK42 DSP amplifiers.

THE ONSTAGE REJECTION OF THE PA IS GREAT, SO THE FOCUS CAN BE MORE ON THE QUALITY OF THE VOCAL SOUND.

“For instance,” continues Conway, “by the time the tour hits the big rooms including the O2 and Manchester Arena in 2024 we will be fielding the full inventory.” This comprises 22 WPL (per side) for the main hangs; 18 of the smaller WPC per side (for the outfills, with an additional six WPC at The O2); eight WPS delays at each of three positions and four SX218 subs per side. Filling other gaps in the coverage are four of the obligatory Martin Audio XD12 (outfill) and eight DD6 for nearfill along the front. Providing monitoring duties on stage are TORUS T1215 and T1230 constant curvature enclosures as sidefills, along with four wedge monitors.

It was a design that Robin Conway had thought long and hard about. “Providing full range power at the front end is something we’ve long practiced with on the comedy circuit. MLA was a killer at delivering a great vocal without exciting the room, and over previous tours for Off the Kerb, we realised that carrying delays for the entire tour wasn’t as important as it had been with the previous system … the complex optimisation really does work with spoken word.”

Solotech UK had to balance achieving optimum sonic performance with a cost-effective solution that would make best use of their inventory. “Scaling the PA up and down allows us to do this. By supplying sufficient, but not too much PA, we’re able to be creative while keeping trucking space low. Nobody wants to be carrying around boxes that are not being used.”

Barton and Machin have worked well collaboratively, as shown in the results achieved. The latter, for instance, has been using Martin Audio’s proprietary DISPLAY control software to productive effect, depending on how the sound is contoured for each venue.

He explains: “While WPL is a really good system, enabling us to get really consistent coverage throughout the audience area, speech has to be intelligible everywhere … you have to keep it off the walls and avoid the reflections whereas with music you can cover it up more easily.”

He cites Cardiff’s Utilita Arena as an example.“There are big bits of glass at the back of the arena which reflects all the sound straight back to the FOH position—so we’ve been able to optimise that out of the prediction and reduce the level on the back wall.

“I’ve been using [the ‘Non-Audience’ feature] in all the places we don’t want it, like the glass at the back of the room, and focusing ‘Hard Avoid’ on the stage, because he is using a DPA headset mic so we’ve been able to reduce that feedback quite considerably.”

Robin Conway flags up a further benefit—for example when McIntyre is lying down next to the monitoring. “The onstage rejection of the PA is great, so the focus can be more on the quality of the vocal sound, rather than cutting it to pieces by looking for more gain before feedback.”

In conclusion he says the Solotech UK and Martin Audio packaging of the PA, amps and cable system and control has resulted in a rig that is “super quick to deploy … and Wavefront Precision and the iKONamp racks are a big part of this.” Now he is looking forward to the dates in 2024 when they can roll out the larger systems into the bigger-cap venues.

Finally, Martin Audio Global Marketing Manager, Jamie Gomez, also assessed that “having seen the set up at Cardiff, Wavefront Precision very much delivered on what it says on the tin. Controlled sound with richness and clarity of vocals ensured everyone in the audience heard the punchline.”

HK: As Hong Kong’s biggest and longest running outdoor music and arts festival, Clockenflap was again held over three days recently at the Central Harbourfront, overlooking Kowloon. Operating over six stages, it featured an all-star line-up including Pulp, Joji, Yoasobi, Caroline Polachek, IDLES and many others.

MSI Japan were appointed as the production partner for the event’s largest Harbourflap stage, where they deployed a Martin Audio MLA array.

Responsible for the sound system design were MSI’s Bunshiro ‘Bun’ Hote, Yasuhiko ‘Yasu’ Watanabe and Yukio ‘Eddie’ Tanada, who explained that one of the biggest challenges faced at the event is noise control. It is not so much about controlling the noise out the front of the stage as limiting the audio coming out the back of the stage.For at the rear of the stage are several government buildings, residential properties and hotels.In past years there have been complaints from residents and so MSI needed to focus on rear rejection.

It immediately became apparent that in order to control the sound across the entire frequency waveband, their only choice was to deploy Martin Audio MLA, with its advanced DISPLAY control and optimisation software.

And by further adding a full cardioid subwoofer array, using 30 x MLX, they could achieve close to 30dB rejection at the rear of the stage.

The two hangs of 15 x Martin Audio MLA and a single MLD downfill box were addressed by DISPLAY, the software enabling MSI to control the coverage for the audience. At the same time, by utilising the ‘Hard Avoid’ feature at the rear they could eliminate audio from on the stage, and therefore also from the residents behind the stage. Limits were also placed at the edges of the audience areas to ensure maximum focus on the audio where it needed to be, without escaping across the water to the Kowloon side.

Clockenflap sound director, Sem Cigna, has been working on the event since 2016, and has seen several sound systems on the main stage over this time. Sem used MLA for the Gwen Stefani concert in Hong Kong in 2019 as well as the Rugby Sevens, and familiarised himself with MLA in a similar configuration to this show (although with slightly fewer subs).There were similar demands back then and after that show Sem commented, “I was able to experience just how MLA could reduce the audio outside the audience area without losing any impact for the audience itself.”They experienced the same thing at Clockenflap this year.

Sem has worked alongside the event’s production manager, Peter Gorton, since 2019—and it is the latter who is ultimately responsible for managing the noise thresholds, which all six stages have to conform to.

He explained, “When the venue moved from Kowloon to Central [Hong Kong] several years ago, one of the biggest requests from the Government was to manage the noise for the residents.They subsequently endured several years of trial and error, testing different options, from hiring cranes to fly and evaluate different line arrays on site, to craning in large sandbags to sit behind the subwoofers in order to block sound from the rear of the stage.

Over the years various solutions were evolved without using sandbags, and this year they selected Martin Audio’s award-winning MLA to eliminate the noise at the back of the stage area entirely.

Noise levels are monitored at four points around the city, three in Central and one across the water in Kowloon.Residents may have adapted to having the Clockenflap Festival in the city; however Peter and the team never take this for granted, particularly as Clockenflap continues to expand. “In 2024 there will be a festival in Singapore, in addition to the original one in Hong Kong,” he explains.“We also have plans for other shows and festivals in HK.”

Having worked with MSI over the years they were delighted with the deployment and performance of MLA, which delivered the punch and impact they were hoping for, especially for bands like Yoasobi, the Japanese J-Pop band who were playing for the first time in Hong Kong.They sold out the Friday night and blew away the excited audience with their energy.

The final word came from Fujita Kengi, Yoasobi’s FOH engineer, who has mixed on MLA many times. He described the resolution of MLA as being a “standout feature” making it easier for him to focus on the mix, and thereby create maximum impact for the audience.