WPS makes Access The Festival debut
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The festival, organised by DJs Will Darley and Alex Neidhardt, continues to evolve its concept (this year adding a third day). But mindful that with three stages in close proximity, and a lot of low-frequency energy to contain, Sound Access owner Joe Baker’s rationale was simple. “The organisers wanted to upgrade the audio this year because we all felt that the listening experience was the most important.”
In order to mitigate sound spillage, tight control was required. “Last year, noise rejection out the back was quite bad with the system we used,” acknowledged Baker. But there were no such problems this year.
Sound Access have collaborated with Martin Audio partner dBS Solutions on several tours - including Burn The Floor, where they carried a WPS rig. “It was the first time I had used it, and I had the best time. I never had to change my mix even when we dropped boxes for smaller venues, whereas with other systems you have to work hard to get that consistency.”
When ATF came around Baker was back in contact with Chris Bogg at dBS Solutions who was happy to cross-hire his WPS and Torus systems for the summer party. Sophia Livett from noise consultants Acoustec set site sound thresholds, which Joe Baker knew he could meet by deploying Martin Audio’s ‘Hard Avoid’ feature in the proprietary DISPLAY software.
The event featured live performance as well as DJ playback from house, disco and techno specialists. The main Daylight Disco stage was bedecked with mirrorballs and set in a Clearspan marquee, with a stage thrust, enabling dance aficionados to experience the extravaganza from all sides. On the opening night French exponents, Session Victim and Bomel starred with live sets which were played out through six WPS elements per side, ground-stacked on 2 x 4 decks, working within the limitations of the marquee structure.
With this configuration they could project the sound above the head height but were restricted by the lower-than-expected roof height, and after time alignment they were experiencing bounce back of the roof girders. “With an accumulation of reflections, we used Hard Avoid [in DISPLAY]; this worked extremely well and gave us the coverage we wanted.” They were comfortably able to achieve level at the FOH measurement position, with most of the HF firing down into the arena stage itself.
A pair each of Torus T1230 on the outside edges of the marquee, where the audience was bleeding out, filled the gap and sounded “absolutely brilliant”, according to Joe Baker. As for the LF, a broadside array of eight SXC118 single cardioid subs provided tight control and the all-important rear rejection in the 15m x 15m space.
The smaller Groove Garden stage deployed a Torus constant curvature ground-stacked system, three T1230 elements per side, attached via scaff bars and battens to the estate trees; these were illuminated by LED uplighters to create a great atmosphere.
Further Martin Audio XD12 were used as biamped DJ booth-fills, while a pair of CDD6’s were deployed for front-fill duties and a pair of WS218 subs (in stereo) were mounted onstage either side of the booth.
Summing up, Joe Baker said the supreme control and optimisation characteristics of the Martin Audio software had paid dividends both within the sound field and offsite.
