Atlanta, GA (August 2, 2011)–Gerber Acoustics recently provided audio for Primerica’s national meeting, using a d&b audiotechnik system to fill Atlanta’s Georgia dome with sound.
Infusing the excitement and atmosphere of a big rock show into a largely speech-based national meeting can be a daunting prospect, “during the awards segments of the show, the dBC weighted reading reached 106-108 dB SPL, said sound supervisor Chas Gerber of Gerber Acoustics, “the program was underpinned by lots of upbeat dance music with plenty of low end.” Add 37,000 highly motivated sales people for Primerica that thronged the reverberant confines of the Atlanta Georgia Dome and it’s not hard to imagine the challenges facing Gerber. “With two cross stage lecterns for the presenters reading off the award winner’s names, I needed to be extremely careful.”
Gerber Acoustics has managed the audio responsibilities of this annual presentation before, and called upon the services of frequent collaborator Florida-based Beachsound to provide a d&b audiotechnik J-Series PA system. Working through producers Switch Productions, Gerber knew what to expect.
“I had to give up the notion of a stereo PA in order to gain intelligibility in this gigantic space,” said Gerber. “I specified an exploded center cluster of J8/J12 combination for the mains and the same again with delay for the far seating at the end of the oval shaped arena, flown J-SUBS at center, and my own Nexo 1210s for fills. Seems simple, but the ability to place huge loudspeaker clusters so close to the stage and get good gain before feedback from a Lavalier is not easily achieved. This could only have happened with a loudspeaker whose coverage pattern is well defined, and reasonably uniform with frequency at the extreme horizontal sides of its pattern. Line arrays are not known for great off axis response, but the d&b J systems gave us really good gain before feedback, and precise pattern control.”
Neil Rosenstock from Beachsound system tech’d the set up for Gerber, “Chas really knows what he wants to achieve. We had the systems trimmed out at 100 and 109 feet respectively, the highest audience members in the high nosebleeds were at 130 feet above the stadium floor, so the Js are tilted up. The prediction from the d&b ArrayCalc was completely accurate when we hung the rig.”
Gerber noted, “What Beachsound brought to the table was really knowledgeable, effective people, both on site and in the prep phase for the show. Their gear is well maintained and packaged for efficient set up. As a result of their exhaustive prep’ work we were able to set this whole system up in a day and half, which cut in half the set up time required for the last one of these events that I did a few years ago.”
Beach Sound
www.beachsound.com
Gerber Acoustics
www.gerberacoustics.com
d&b audiotechnik
www.dbaudio.com
