From June 29 to July 18, 2005, Québec-based sound/lighting/video company Le Groupe SPL provided audio for the Festival d’été de Québec, held at Abraham Plain in Québec City, Québec, Canada. Artists included 78-input Starmania Symphonique to Simple Plan and ZZ Top and more.
Head sound engineer Jacques Boucher remarked of the E-V/Midas/Klark Teknik/Telex system used: “I have often worked with other line arrays and it was my first time with E-V’s X-Line™ for this outdoor venue. In using E-V’s IRIS software for P3000-RL amplifiers, and Klark Teknik’s EQs and processors, I have been amazed by how quick and easy it was to get precisely the sound I was looking for. During 11 days and a total of 35 shows, from symphonic concert to trash metal bands, every front-of-house sound engineer, including myself, was thrilled with the tuning and the performance of the system.”
Emeric Demangel, sound engineer with Le Groupe SPL, commented: “The venue is a free field, almost flat, with a bump of 17 feet from 600 feet to 700 feet from the stage. The mixing position was at 147 feet from the stage, so we were really close. The first challenge was to achieve excellent coverage for the entire field while keeping an SPL level coherent at the mixing position. It was difficult for us to bring enough distance between each P.A. side [only 70 feet]. Of course, this reduced the overall stereo effect.
“The second challenge was to provide bass frequencies as far as possible,” he continues. “I resolved both problems with the E-V LAPS software, especially for the subs. The software showed me how to increase the diffusion of 2 dB all over the field. I used eight E-V X-Subs flown and two stacked on the floor. The sound engineer in charge of the event, Jacques Boucher, and I decided to put a highpass filter on the Xvls and Xvlt at 65 Hz to transfer the energy where the system needed it. It also gave us more precision on the low frequencies. We then aligned the phase between the X-Sub and Xvls at 80 Hz.
“After that, all we had to do was trim down a couple of frequencies and that was it. It was really sounding great. Most of the sound engineers who were mixing didn’t even touch the EQ. I used a delay tower of six E-V XLC compact format line array loudspeakers to help the sound climb the hill at the end of the field. I controlled the P.A. with the latest version of E-V’s IRIS, thanks to E-V’s technical support guru, Ethan Wetzell. It makes everything possible! Controlling everything in the rig, knowing if any speaker is broken or even checking amp temperature makes my job really easy.”
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