d & b Y7P lip fills
“ Massey ’ s not an easy place to work ,” McKendrick admits , “ particularly the conduit runs and rack locations and transformer locations , which are all upstairs , so it wasn ’ t a brand new , modern building where you could roll in prebuilt racks . Virtually everything had to be brought in piece by piece and put into place .”
The main d & b J-Series system features left and right arrays with eight J8 and three wider-dispersion J12s per side , plus six V-SUBs flown behind the main hangs . The centre cluster includes eight J12s and three J8s . On the deck are two J12s and two J-SUBs per side .
As for the delay system , it includes : six d & b Vi12s as the gallery delay cluster ; eight Y7Ps as lip fills ; eight E6s under the balcony ; six Yi7Ps as proscenium fills ; four 10S-Ds as corner fills ; four Y97Ps and four E8s on the balcony sides ; and a single Yi7P at the main mix position .
All of the DSP and tuning is handled within the d & b amps – a large complement of 24 d & b 30Ds plus four D80s and two 10Ds ; however , the goal was to offer a degree of control and EQ capabilities to visiting engineers without them having to mess with the sophisticated internal tuning . Subsequently , three Meyer Sound Galileo 616 AES loudspeaker management systems were installed at the front end , offering easier access to basic EQ , zoning , and delay control functions .
The venue also incorporated an Optocore fibre optic network for a full digital path from the console to the amplifier outputs . That includes an Optocore X6R-FX-8AE / 8LI network module for the FOH drive rack , three X6R-FX- 16AE network converter units – one per amp rack – and an X6R-FX-8LI / 8LO network converter .
28 • PROFESSIONAL SOUND
The package also included a Soundcraft Vi1 digital mixing system , which McKendrick says was chosen for its smaller footprint and flexibility , as it will typically be used for opening acts , simple spoken word applications , or as a monitor console .
As for the fill system , while it is indeed extensive , the replacement wasn ’ t as complicated as it could have been . After all , it was Van Dijk himself that had designed it years earlier , and McKendrick says it was replaced almost one-for-one with new boxes this time around , with a few extra locations added . They were even able to use much of the existing cabling .
“ Martin really is an unbelievable source of knowledge and experience ,” McKendrick shares , praising his collaborator ’ s performance . “ I ’ ve met very few people in my life that know as much about audio as Martin .”
Senior Systems Designer Mark Radu was Solotech ’ s lead on the project , and says his team largely stuck to the system spec . “ It was a thorough , well-thought-out design ,” he says . “ So much of it is rider-driven , and they ’ d made their decisions based on what riders were dictating for speaker choice , so it was pretty straightforward .”
Addressing some of the inherent challenges in the historic hall , Radu says the room ’ s configuration meant there ’ s more triangulation with the delays – particularly around the corners and sides – than is ideal .
For example , the hall ’ s support pillars are square to the venue , so delays had to either be placed straight along the balcony railing , or sideways 90-degrees out from the main arrays . “ So we couldn ’ t get that ideal position where you might want to put them underneath the balcony and shoot them in the same direction ,” he says .
The ultimate result was a lot of care put into time alignment ,
“ so we played a lot with psychoacoustics in terms of level and time and the Haas effect ,” Radu notes .
This is one key consideration that will be addressed in the upcoming revitalization , but Radu says that , all things considered , “ the current solution works very well in the room .”
He adds that the Meyer Galileo loudspeaker management system is the ideal solution to give simple control to guest engineers . “ We ’ re basically feeding the PA and fill system with eight matrix feeds ,” Radu begins . “ If someone just wants to give a left-right feed , you need a way to get that to all the amplifier sends , so the Galileo is great for that .”
Everything is networkable , with access available from a single computer via the Optocore network and Meyer Sound ’ s CompassGo iOS app . “ So it ’ s easy for someone to walk the venue with an iPad and adjust zone levels ,” Radu adds .
He concurs that the tight timeline was a significant challenge , though adds that putting a lot of work into the front-end design made things a lot easier on the integration side .
“ Between Martin , Trevor [ Nash of d & b audiotechnik Canada ], Doug , and myself , there was a lot of time spent in the prediction software ,” Radu says . “ We could take
Side stacks of two d & b J12s & 2 J-SUBs