To meet the requirements of the artists performing on the stages in the Mojave and Gobi tents, Rat Sound, the production sound provider for the Coachella Festival for the past 11 years, this year supplied two complete systems comprising a total of 28 EAW MicroWedge12 (MW12) stage monitors.
"We provide the artists with what they want rather than what we think they should have, and we offer three premium monitor systems," stated Dave Rat, Rat Sound Systems founder and co-developer of the MicroWedge line with EAW. "The sound quality, volume level and feedback stability of the MicroWedge are exceptional and meet or exceed the competing products."
Some of the artists appearing on the Mojave and Gobi stages and benefiting from the EAW MicroWedges included Monarchy, Raphael Saadiq, Neon Trees, Boys Noize, Steve Angello, Bloody Beetroots, and many, many others. "Paul van Dyk used two MicroWedge12's on tripods, with six more behind him configured as a subwoofer," added Rat.
Cage the Elephant, performing on the Outdoor Theater stage at Coachella this year, made use of their own MicroWedge12, MicroWedge15 and MicroSub monitors. Space is at a premium for the band, which has been touring with just a bus and a trailer, according to monitor engineer Jay Rigby. "The wedges I had out before were about 150 pounds apiece and I had four amp racks. The same package with MicroWedges is one compact amp rack and the wedges are less than half the weight. The stagehands love them because they're so light that you can pick two of them up, one in either hand."
He continued, "More importantly, "I was able to get the SPL out of them that I needed with drums and vocals right off the bat. I got my dB meter out the other day and in front of a pair of MW15s it was 115 dB, A-weighted. That's somewhere between spaceship and Armageddon levels."
(Jim Evans)
