03. Making of Arenal Sound – Part 3

In a large outdoor arena, it is essential to add delay towers to the system to achieve even coverage for the whole audience, even those at the back. In this case, they used D.A.S. Audio Aero 50s, fourteen a side, for the main left and right line array hangs, which will project the sound about ninety to a hundred metres. From there, delay towers are used to extend the coverage another fifty or sixty metres. The idea is to create the same sound pressure levels for the whole audience. Setting up the towers needs some attention. Firstly – safety! The towers are in the middle of the audience, so the structure really needs to be sound and carefully designed. Secondly they need to be high enough to provide the required coverage without blocking the view, so in this instance they chose 8 Aero 50s a side, flown at 8m high. Instead of a centre cluster to cover the front areas that the PA doesn’t reach (this would be inconvenient as the lighting rig needed to be lowered each day to re-focus) they used four Aero 12s as a front fill along the front edge of the stage. The monitor system consisted of the Road series – 12A and 15As. The 12-inches are preferred by most singers, as the response is quicker and more accurate, whilst bass players go for the 15 inch monitors as the have more presence in the bass frequencies. Processing and amplification are also discussed.