The fast growing boutique event, which began as a birthday barbecue for founder Alex Trenchard in 2001 before becoming a single-stage, one-day live music event in 2004, has since grown exponentially. Today it occupies the picturesque Standon Lordship site, where Suede, Kelis and Jess Glynne were the main stage headliners.
Dominating the landscape, the vibrant red and white canvas of the Big Top, which was largely used for electronic dance and other diverse acts, could be seen for miles around. Here the line-up included Goldie MBE, Greg Wilson, Theo Parrish, Joey Negro, as well as rising talent Gold Panda, Luke Abbott the Mercury Prize nominated Ghostpoet.
Glasgow-based Alive Sound are the traditional sound system providers, and their MD, Iain Mackie is production manager for the entire site.
A meeting between him and Stuart Strachan, from Harman Pro UK & Ireland distributors, Sound Technology Ltd, at PLASA Focus in Glasgow back in January - followed by a series of product demos - convinced the Scottish company's sound engineers that this was the system to back.
Said Strachan, "We knew the JBL dual 10" of the VTX-V20 would be a straight replacement for what they had used previously." He also realised this could be optimised with the use of JBL HiQnet Performance Manager configuration software.
Mixing at FOH, experienced sound engineer and musician Keir Long was able to pilot Soundcraft's new generation Vi3000 digital mixing console, having previously familiarised himself with the Soundcraft topology on the Vi series forerunner, the Vi6. This time around he was boosted by the Soundcraft Realtime Rack, offering the full suite of UAD Powered Plug-Ins.
As one of the sound engineers who had previously given a favourable opinion following that Glasgow demo he found the transition from Vi6 to Vi3000 an easy one. "It's a very similar layout and I really enjoyed the sound, which was noticeably different from other desks I had used. I would probably opt for the Vi because it is slightly more forgiving and more analogue-sounding."
As for JBL's flagship VTX, this was configured in two hangs of eight V20 per side, with left/right stacks of four S25 arrayable subwoofers and a centre cluster of four S28 dual 18" subs, supported by six JBL VerTec VT4886 for front-fill, helping to provide even coverage. These were powered on the side of the stage by Crown amplification, with a total of six VRacks, comprising a total number of twelve I-Tech 4x3500HD and six I-Tech 12000HD.
"I was very happy with VTX," concluded Keir Long, "Stuart did well to achieve even coverage [with Performance Manager] and the front to back coverage of the arrays was very even." He added that the predictably narrow vertical response calculated accurately by JBL LAC prediction software limited undesirable reflections from the tent.
(Jim Evans)
