Located in an old church building, The Hub hosts some of the hottest events in the Jazz Festival - in this 450-seat hall with high ceilings and a wraparound balcony, the neo-gothic interior décor has not been compromised by the addition of a small Geo S12 system flown above the stage, and Nexo's new RS15 subs on the floor.
Long-time Nexo user A&R Martin has supplied rental systems to this venue in the past. "In here, the acts are acoustic by nature, so subtle reinforcement is the name of the game. We needed the highest-quality sound system. The configuration is straightforward, we didn't need a full array, and we just use in-fill coverage for the balcony. The Hub is a low-reverberation, flat-EQ room, which is very good from the PA provider's point-of-view, although some artists can find it a bit dry. We find ourselves running the systems virtually flat, the amount of EQ is kept minimal thanks to the quality of the S12 system."
The system is in The Hub only for the duration of the Jazz Festival, but across town, the Queens Hall is going to retain its Nexo arrays permanently.
Dougie Martin from A&R Martin reports: "The Queens Hall is a flagship venue for the Edinburgh Jazz Festival, but it also hosts events for the Edinburgh Fringe, and is popular and well-used throughout the year; it's the only medium-sized venue in the city which can accommodate 1000 standing, or 800 seated. Originally, the Hall wanted a speech system which they could also use for light-duty gigs, but, after a demo from Fuzion's Paul Ward and Ed Draycott, the spec was revised to incorporate the S1230 - the cost of the S12 tangent-array system was entirely comparable to the Nexo PS15 system we'd originally recommended for them."
Thus, A&R Martin has equipped the Queens Hall with a compact line array, featuring three S1210 and one S1230 flown per side, with an extra S1230 per side to handle the balcony, and some PS8s for fills. The system, which has Nexo's Alpha S2 subs running off analogue processors, is processed by NX242s and powered by CAMCO's Vortex 6 amps.
(Jim Evans)
