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UK: Solotech have been servicing the South Facing Festival since the transformation of the dormant Crystal Palace Bowl in South London, back in 2021.

Promoted by Marcus Weedon, and with production duties back in the capable hands of Method Events (in the shape of Mia Barrett and Matt Hendry), Solotech again fielded Martin Audio’s WPL line array, which had last year replaced its long-serving forerunner, the MLA multicellular array. This combination made for an event in which the sound quality — to which daily audiences of up to 8,000 were treated — was generally considered the best yet.

Since this year’s programme leaned more heavily than previous years towards EDM and DJ-oriented acts — with Nile Rodgers & Chic, Basement Jaxx, Skepta and Busta Rhymes among the prominent acts (alongside Mogwai and Morcheeba) — Solotech account manager, David Preston, said that a diligent approach was required when it came to sound containment, in view of the dependence on sub bass. Thus production was fortunate to again have vastly experienced system tech Ryan Bass on their team.

The layout of South Facing is unusual in that the floating Orbit stage sits on a pontoon on the lake. Here Solotech rigged 15 WPL elements per side as main hangs, with four WPC per side acting as outfills and a further five WPS performing front fill duties — all driven in 1-box resolution from Martin Audio’s iKON iK42 process-controlled multi-channel amplifiers.

THE QUALITY OF SOUND IS ALWAYS EXCELLENT, WITH CONSISTENCY RIGHT ACROSS THE SITE.

But it was the low frequencies, and the design and placement of the 15 SXHF218 subwoofers that required an astute technical approach. Ryan Bass justified his preference for a castellated broadside array, by stating, “After utilising the sub array features within DISPLAY 3 [prediction software] I was able to design and tweak the array to ensure solid bass onsite whilst maintaining suitable levels offsite and on stage. In DISPLAY 3 I was able to adjust the sub spacing, arc delay and gain shading to achieve my desired results. This eliminated any guesswork and delivered a great result.”

The fact that the site is in a bowl naturally helps offsite containment. “Care was taken with the design to ensure I wasn’t overshooting, but still hitting all the way to the back of the arena,” he added. “Similarly with the WPC side hangs, one of which was pointed straight towards an offsite measuring point, flying them a little higher and down into the crowd helped to contain the spill.”

The Solotech team, under crew chief Oli Fallon, worked closely alongside noise management company, Vanguardia to ensure “everyone had a great time whilst keeping the local residents happy,” according to Bass. Following their offsite monitoring the PA company realised they had further headroom, and consequently ended up with a limit of over 100dBA at FOH … “which in a park in London is excellent!” he said.

Reflecting on the response to WPL, Bass said, “The reaction has been overwhelmingly positive. Every guest engineer had a good show, comments from production/promoter were positive and the crowds certainly seemed to enjoy it as well. Several engineers commented on just how good the coverage was and how consistent everything sounded across the site.”

Rigging WPL is always a breeze, he says. “Being able to preset angles on their carts means it takes no time at all to get the PA up in the air, a big improvement the 4-point rigging of MLA. Tuning WPL is always an easy task, I never feel like I’m taking too much out of the system or fighting it in order to end up with a great result.”

Working with Martin Audio products is always a joy, he concluded. “From designing a system, rigging and implementing it to hearing the show and end result … the quality of sound is always excellent, with consistency right across the site. Martin Audio products always outperform for their size, while having tools such as Hard Avoid can often be a game changer.”

This was confirmed by David Preston. “The WPL performed brilliantly again this year, and with the use of Martin Audio DISPLAY software and all the optimisation tools they provide for the system we achieved great levels across the site — and importantly also off site — always staying within the dB limits set by Vanguardia at the offsite measurement locations.”

US: The Columbus district of Indiana is known as the architectural capital of America’s Midwest, housing a clutch of unique and iconic modernist buildings.

A good example of this high art is St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, constructed in 1988, and described as “an architectural masterpiece”. But for all its aesthetic beauty, delivering an evenly-distributed sound through the sanctuary to the 750 congregants—sat in a series of rising levels of concentric, but irregular circles—had proved historically difficult before the adoption of a Martin Audio line array.

Tasked with masterminding a sustainable PA upgrade, Alex Moon, Director of Engineering at the locally-based Force Tech, undertook a site survey. He immediately noted the asymmetric and non-aligned interior, with the sanctuary set around a central section flanked by two raked seating wings. He recognised that finding the centre of the room with the PA would be difficult. ”It was a very interesting but difficult space, which required a complete rethink,” he rationalised.

The upgrade contract had originated from an acoustics consultant with whom Force Tech had worked previously. Sensing that the acoustic treatment required to preserve the integrity of the sound would be too cost-prohibitive, Moon drew on all his experience of specifying Martin Audio systems over a number of years, and his deep knowledge of the manufacturer’s proprietary DISPLAY3 acoustic prediction software.

THE DIFFERENCE WAS NIGHT AND DAY.

Historically, the church had been through several PA iterations, starting with a point source system. “This was then replaced by a column array when they were doing mostly speech and voice lift, and then a planar system,” he stated. But the PA never provided adequate coverage—particularly when the church’s needs developed from traditional choir-based service to a more contemporary Sunday worship, incorporating a full orchestra and band; at the same time it needed to meet the midweek needs of the private school to which it is attached.

The sound designer’s solution was to specify Martin Audio’s scalable Wavefront Precision Mini (WPM) line array—which proved to be hugely cost-effective and obviated the need for acoustic cladding. He knew instinctively that WPM would represent his best option, and the DISPLAY data confirmed that his decision for two optimised hangs of 10 elements each side of the stage—with a pair of SXCF115 subwoofers at the top of each hang in end-fire—would meet all requirements.

But prior to adoption, he first insisted on delivering full proof of concept to the client after their rocky SR journey to date. “We knew we could get them to a better place without all the acoustic treatment,” he said. Martin Audio’s North-eastern Regional Sales Manager, Martha Callaghan, organised a demo rig, and support engineer Will Harris set up and tuned the system on site. That was all that was required. “They loved it,” exclaimed Moon. “The difference was night and day.”

To complete the deployment, a further pair of SX218 subs have been ground-stacked either side of the stage and the entire rig is powered by an iK42 and three iKON iK81 DSP multi-channel amplifiers, assigned in 2-box resolution.

Mindful that the church is a thing of architectural beauty, Alex Moon ensured the speakers were finished in white to blend into the décor. “We had warned the client from the beginning that [the PA] would be a lot more visible than previously, and they were fine with that.”

It then came down to the tuning and the precise steering of the system. The designer used his programming skills to apply ‘Hard Avoid’ to relevant areas, while the cardioid subs ensured the necessary rear rejection—thus enabling consistent coverage without unwanted reflections.

Having designed, and commissioned the system, the Force Tech Engineering Director—along with colleagues, account manager Brian Eicher and project manager, Darren Strom are confident in knowing that this solution will meet St. Peter’s needs for the foreseeable future.

UK: Since relocating its hi-tech studio in Bath closer to Bristol, Distiller Music has taken the opportunity to develop a spatial environment, building on the legacy of its historic use of Martin Audio speakers.

As the former ‘Distillery I’ space has made way for the new upgraded ’Distillery II’—a fully-rigged, adaptive environment for rehearsal, recording, performance and production—it has added Martin Audio CDD-LIVE 8 to the pre-existing TORUS PA rig, processed through an Airsound spatial system.

In its latest incarnation, the studio has opted to make the facility commercially available for use by recording, film, music video and content producers, after previously being for private recording use only—with no live facility.

The men behind the specification are Sam Cunningham and Dave Roden, respectively also the Stereophonics’ long-time monitor and FOH engineer, and thus already heavily invested in Martin Audio technology. It was they who had originally specified TORUS several years ago—with four TORUS T1215 (15°) boxes for each stage wing—along with four SXC118 cardioid subs and four XE300 wedge monitors. A rack of iKON process control amps—three iK42 and an iK81—have recently been upgraded with Dante cards.

However, once in contact with Airsound, Cunningham set up a demo in the live room, using existing CDD10s that were incorporated in their breakout rooms, along with some CDD8—using Airsound Dipole technology at the back of the room, to assess the impact of an immersive objects-based environment.

IT PUTS US IN THE IMMERSIVE LISTENING SPACE AND IT’S INCREDIBLY IMPRESSIVE.

“We added these speakers around the room on high- and low-level trusses to create an immersive system that would still respect the main L/R nature of the existing larger TORUS house system,” Cunningham explained. “The Airsound software basically takes an Atmos mix and allows it to tell where the speakers are placed.”

US: The Martin Audio and TiMax series of roadshows moves to Massachusetts for its next US Open Day, which will take place on October 28th, with separate presentations and product demonstrations at 11am and 2pm. Hosting the event this time are Charles River Studios (Studio A), based at 495 Turnpike St. Canton, MA 02021.

The US team will be on hand to present and talk to attendees about upcoming projects and the attributes and potential applications. They will demonstrate Martin Audio FlexPoint, TORUS constant curvature and Wavefront Precision optimised line arrays, as well as TiMax immersive audio solutions … all of which will be featured.

THE CUSTOMER RESPONSE AND INTEREST HAVE BEEN IMMEDIATE AND OVERWHELMING.

But pride of place will go to Martin Audio’s new BlacklineQ. This series is a reimagining of the iconic Blackline range delivers improved passive two-way point source loudspeakers, all-new column speakers and a suite of subwoofers. The entire series features intelligent design details, making it equally at home in portable or install applications.

This will be matched by Martin Audio’s customary hospitality, and refreshments will be served throughout the day.

Commenting on the choice of venue, Lee Stein, VP North America, said it was time to return to the Northeast US, and Martin Audio colleague Martha Callaghan had suggested the venue as she was familiar with the facility. “We chose Boston as we hadn’t done an event of this scale there previously,” he said. “Martha thought it would be perfect, both functionally and locationally, for a Boston based Open Day.”

As for BlacklineQ, he added, “We’re very excited to debut this product. It expands what the previous BlacklineX offered by featuring different form factors, configurations, and dispersion horns. The customer response and interest have been immediate and overwhelming, and customers will be delighted to hear what these speakers can do.”