Craft-Work Sound of Chesapeake, Va. deployed its EV XLC line array rig for the 24th annual Norfolk Jazz Festival in Town Point Park on August 4, 5 and 6. The festival included headline performances from Brian Culbertson and from the Guitar and Saxes Tour, featuring Gerald Albright, Richard Elliot, Jeff Golub and Peter White.
“We’ve been running sound at this event for the past 24 years,” says Craft-Work operations manager Doug Arble, “and this year sounded better than ever with the XLC/X-sub combo, getting our best reviews yet from the clients, the crowd and the engineers.
“We flew eight XLC127+ [units] per side over six X-subs per side, stacked in threes,” Arble continues. “It sounded wonderful. In the past we’ve faced some challenges at this venue, which is a natural amphitheater setting. It’s been hard to reach the audience at the back without blowing away the people in the front, angling cabinets up to hit the back rim, etc. This year we didn’t have to worry about that—we put the measurements into the LAPS software, did a little tweaking with the Dx38 processing and everything came out perfectly.
“The X-subs delivered the low-end all the way to the back with ease; they’re extremely tight, with tons of punch—a truly satisfying sub. I even backed off the subs a bit when dialing in Friday’s headliners. The lows came through smooth and seamless. I engineered the four bands on the second day of the festival and left the subs as they were; it was very comfortable on the ears and a pleasure to tune and mix the system with all that sub headroom to work with, if necessary.
“You don’t have to fight for a mix with this rig; these boxes simply sound good, and the graph is pretty much flat every time we use them,” Arble concludes. “I’ve only needed to dial in minor EQ details to get great sound, no matter what style of music. You really feel you’re working with the music rather than negotiating it through the equipment.”
For more information, visit www.electrovoice.com, www.craftworksound.com and www.festeventsva.org.
