With sound pressure levels sometimes reaching nearly 120dB at the main stage's front-of-house position, and a need to deliver "ultra-pure" sound to a crowd spanning several city blocks, robust loudspeakers - and lots of them - became a necessity. Line array systems based on Meyer Sound's Milo high-power and Mica compact high-power curvilinear array loudspeakers gave event organisers what they needed.
"It's difficult to design and compensate for the broad range of styles and genres in electronic music," says systems designer Terry McNeil, who oversaw much of the sound system setup. "That's what I love about Meyer Sound. Every system has a strong low end, but with Milo, the mids and highs are so pure I can stand 100ft out and hear every nuance."
Thunder Audio provided the bulk of the audio equipment for the multistage show, including the main stage. Thunder vice president Paul Owen echoes McNeil's feelings: "We've been involved with the Ultra Music Festival for the last four years, and every year we've used a different system, with widely varying results. This year was the first time we used the Milo system, and everything was perfect right out of the bag."
The UltraLive! Main Stage necessitated one of the largest sound systems ever assembled for the festival, anchored by arrays of 16 Milo loudspeakers per side. Additional arrays of eight Milo loudspeakers per side filled outer areas, creating a formation that covered more than 250 degrees.
The secondary venue, the Carl Cox & Friends Arena, (with speakers provided by Concert Systems USA of Tampa) was powered by 12 Mica cabinets per side flown from the lighting truss, with 16 600-HP compact high-power subwoofers configured around the DJ booth with physical spacing and delays between cabinets calculated to create a cardioid coverage pattern, and four M'elodie curvilinear array loudspeakers providing front-fill.
(Jim Evans)
