Audio rental company Audioservices and Design recently provided the live sound system for DJ Tiesto’s “Elements of Life” tour throughout Europe, including a recent live concert at the unique venue “Pyramide” in Vienna.
Because of the consistent high energy of DJ Tiesto’s concerts, the company needed a line array capable of handling high SPLs on a continual basis, as DJ Tiesto takes very few breaks during performances. Additionally, Audioservices and Design needed a lightweight line array system. To that end, the company deployed a touring system for European dates based on JBL VerTec VT4889 large-format line array elements, with JBL VRX932s in use for additional fill speakers.
“In standard rock ‘n’ roll setups, the music allows for a lot of pauses for the equipment to rest momentarily, but with an environmental dance-music act like Tiesto you need permanent energy from the amps and the loudspeakers, virtually nonstop,” says Arno Voortman of Audioservices and Design. “In such setups, where all the program material is leveled between +/-3 dB, you need that permanent energy. That means that all the equipment runs at 110 percent of its capacity. Very reliable products were a must.”
According to Voortman, the locations of some of the venues on Tiesto’s tour also posed a setup challenge. “In Western Europe, there are no problems with speaker rigging and array loads. You can have CAD files from all the venues and you can prepare everything beforehand,” Voortman adds. “However, most of Tiesto’s summer concerts took place in Eastern Europe. As soon as you go to ex-Soviet Union countries, things become more complex. Architectural drawing files aren’t available and there is limited or no information regarding the venues themselves, so we didn’t have prior knowledge of how much weight each roof could handle. We wanted to maintain the highest trim possible if we needed to hang from a single point, and the VerTec line array was the only system that we could rely on to provide this every time.”
For the event at Pyramide, the rigging provided a distinct challenge. “How do you hang a line array inside a glass pyramid structure?” Voortman asks. “Luckily, we had great support from Bart Roelen, our production manager, who understands the criteria behind our sound design and made it possible to have the stage construction designed around our sound system. In this case, we had massive ground support.”
According to Voortman, the VerTec line arrays have performed beyond expectations throughout the tour. “Thanks to JBL’s new DSP preset library developed by [JBL Professional’s director of tour sound product and application engineering] Paul Bauman and his team, we have had an excellent-sounding and smooth stretch of shows with VerTec,” he adds.
Audioservices & Design can be reached at www.audioservices-design.com. For more information on JBL, visit www.jblpro.com. For additional SR news, visit The Briefing Room.
