Grammy Award-winning rockers KoRn visited the world-famous motorcycle rally in Sturgis, S.D. on Aug. 3, 2009 for a concert at the renowned Full Throttle Saloon. Jacksonville, IL-based Mason Sound provided sound reinforcement for the event, including their powerhouse XLC system from Electro-Voice. Mason Sound’s Todd Spangenberg comments:
“We do the stage at Full Throttle Saloon every year in Sturgis, South Dakota and have a good working relationship with Mike Ballard, the owner of Full Throttle. This year Mike explained we’d need to bring in a bigger system as he’d booked KoRn to play the outdoor amphitheater behind the bar. We knew our Tour Grade (TG) powered XLC rig would be perfect for providing the perfect balance of punch and precision.�
Mason Sound’s original spec for the event included 36 XLC127DVX loudspeakers (18 per side), but height restrictions limited the hangs
to 15 boxes each.
3000 controlled the system from Front of House, with additional processing from a Klark Teknik DN360 EQ and a KT DN500 dual-channel compressor/limiter. The system was powered by 18 TG7 amplifiers with RCM-26 modules.
“This was a natural outdoor amphitheater of around 300 feet deep,� says Spangenberg, “but the 15-per-side rig pushed sound all the way to the back hill easily – and all with the warm, intelligible sound that sets the XLC DVX boxes apart. At first I wasn’t sure if we’d have enough PA for KoRn, but the TG7 amps (loaded with IRIS-Net-controlled RCM-26 DSP modules) did amazing things with our subs (from another manufacturer). We ran those subs for years with a different manufacturer’s amps, and I’ve never heard them sound as good as they do through TG7s. Our old amps used to run to their limit every night, but with the TG7s I didn’t see the limit light come on once. You don’t expect to have a lot of headroom to spare with a band like KoRn, but we did – it was simply amazing; I was floored – the combination of XLC DVX and TG is unbeatable for its size and weight.�
Mason Sound’s clients were happy, which is what counts for most. Spangenberg adds: “Mike Ballard said the show sounded great, and when KoRn’s engineer fired the system up, he joked that he might even want take the horns down 3dB because the rig so hi-fidelity!’ The band’s production manager and monitor engineer told us that he’d like to use the system again – it impresses every time.�
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