Cornwall, UK (July 3, 2024)—Sun, fun, beaches and music have always gone together, and that’s the simple, solid premise behind Tunes in the Dunes, an annual three-day festival on Perranporth Beach in Cornwall. When the event recently held its 11th edition, audio provider Nub Sound from nearby Plymouth was on hand to ensure headliners McFly (Friday), Craig David (Saturday) and Ocean Colour Scene (Sunday) were heard well—but not necessarily far and wide.
Nub deployed its Martin Audio Wavefront Precision Compact system, using eight elements a side, plus a cardioid sub array of eight SXH218 in a castellated format, to ensure rear rejection and stage spillage. A trio of WPS enclosures provided nearfill coverage, with the main hangs driven in two-box resolution from Martin Audio iKON multi-channel process-control amplifiers, and the front fills individually amplified.
While Nub was looking to get consistent audience coverage from in front of the pit to right out to 55-60 meters behind the FOH position, there were concerns about distinctly not reaching the surrounding areas. Nub Sound Director of Operations and sound engineer Josh Small explained, “We were aware that we were in in a really residential area. Although Perranporth is only a small town, there are a number of high-quality hotels and residences on the cliff-top which we were pointing towards, and our neighbors naturally have concerns about being disturbed by events happening on this site. Therefore, we have to be really considerate about our offsite noise and we have to be really thoughtful about how we are going to impact the local populous.”
Using Martin Audio’s proprietary Display software, the Nub team used the strict Hard Avoid setting in Display at the back of the arena, ”really pushing the priority in the optimizations to get as much offsite noise control as possible,” Small said. “We specifically aimed the PA acoustically to avoid sending anything offsite.”
