EV MAKES A PARTY OUT OF A CHALLENGE
Capital FM's annual Party In The Park benefitted from some new technology this year from the PA team at Britannia Row. As more than 100,000 music fans of all ages crowded into central London's Hyde Park for the annual concert, Brit Row's high-tech arsenal included new speaker and amplifier management software from ElectroVoice, being trialled for the first time over distances in excess of 600 metres.
Over 20 UK and international acts joined HRH The Prince of Wales at the event including Lenny Kravitz, Alanis Morissette, Anastacia, Will Young, Blue, Jamelia and The Corrs. As in previous years, Brit Row was using an EV X-Line array system as the main and delay systems, with EV P3000RL remote amplifiers with IRIS remote control.
As with any digital serial buss, the speed of data transfer has to be reduced as cable length is increased. So, according to systems engineer Cris Morrison (pictured above), the main challenge at Party In The Park was to see how EV's powerful management software IRIS, with its CAN bus network, would perform over long distances, with delay towers more than 600 metres from the stage control positions. "I found it to be a solid buss running at 62.5 Kbit/s," was his verdict.
EV's Precision Series remote-controlled amplifiers, which were powering all the systems on the day, were programmed with all the parameters for the enclosures, and the IRIS software also allowed real-time monitoring of every driver and amplifier via the CAN bus network.
The main X-Line system comprised of 12 Xsubs and 12 Xvls/t speakers with three EV1152 speakers as a centre-fill and three further cabinets as outfill. There were four EV1152 speakers set up with the video screen behind the FOH tower, plus a further six delay towers, each using six Xvls and two Xsubs to ensure blanket coverage of the Hyde Park concert area.
"At the front of house control tower were four mixers, two Midas H3000, a Yamaha PM1D and a Midas XL4 - Lenny Kravitz's tour console," explained Morrison. "These desks were run left and right into a pair of BSS Soundwebs (using AES/EBU for the PM1D). There were also two aux inputs for separate aux/sub control if required. The emergency mic was also run via a pre-amp into the Soundwebs.
"The outputs from the Soundwebs were fed into Brit Row's line drivers (designed by Jerry Wing to drive multiple amp channels as needed with IRIS remote amps). These line drivers also provided the low-loss needed to drive the cable over the 600 metres for the delays.
"To make sure we had the quality of sound throughout the park, we used the new Teqsas remote tablet, which gave us access to any part of the IRIS/Soundweb controls in the field - from system EQ to individual box EQ, delays, zone levels, etc."
Morrison, one of the first people to master EV's IRIS system, has spent two years developing individual templates to his specifications, which he uses to set up programme quickly and easily as needed on a show-to-show basis.