San Francisco, CA (November 9, 2023)—In a city of legendary “must-play” venues, San Francisco’s The Great American Music Hall has long been one of the names on that short, revered list. The 700-capacity venue serves up shows for every conceivable taste, with acts as far ranging as Ry Cooder with Taj Mahal, Napalm Death, John Zorn, Julian Casablancas of The Strokes and more gracing its stage in recent times. Helping audiences hear every note is a likewise recently installed house sound system, put in place by the integration arm of Sound Image.
“Many bands and artists have told us that it was the best sounding venue on their tour for them, and ultimately there is nothing better to hear than that; it is what we are striving for every day, to try and deliver the best possible sound experience for the audience and the best possible playing experience for the performer,” said Fred Barnes, GAMH general manager and booker.
The new system centers around a pair of new Avid S6L consoles—a 32D control surface at front of house and 24D control surface for monitors—and a sizable d&b audiotechnik XSL loudspeaker rig. The P.A. includes a dozen XSLi8 and four XSLi12 loudspeakers, eight per side as L/R for the main hangs. There’s also four SL-SUBs, a pair of 10S point source boxes as balcony fill, two 10S for delay balcony fill, and four 44S for front fill, all powered by 10D, 30D and D80 amplifiers. Meanwhile, for the monitor system, there’s a half-dozen d&b M4s and a pair of M2s, all powered by a trio of 30D amplifiers.
Mixing Liam Gallagher Live
Jake Hendricksen, design consultant & account executive, Sound Image Integration, explained, “With the tight stage and reverberant space, we needed all the pattern-control we could get. Weight is also a concern in a historic building like GAMH. The main structural members are 100-plus-year-old hand-hewn redwood timbers spanned with structural steel. We needed to engineer and certify new rigging points that met strict California requirements [and we found] the performance-to-size ratio with XSL is unlike any other product on the market.”
Since the system has been installed, house engineer Elijah Dowd has been carefully evolving how it’s all used: “Over the first couple of months, I paid attention to what engineers were doing EQ-wise on the Avid console, and what I was doing from show to show. I’ve made a few minor EQ cuts to account for the liveliness of the room. At this point, 7 out of 10 times, we are running it flat, and it just sounds incredible.”
Summing things up, Barnes offered, “The number of patrons who have raved about the new system this year has confirmed that we made the right choice.”
