Taking everyone into 2015, the massive Sylvester party was attended by 1.2m visitors, entertained by Tony Christie, Katherine Jenkins, Annett Louisan, Howard Carpendale, Tokio Hotel, David Garrett and David Hasselhoff! As every year, it was enabled by key players Wohlthat Entertainment GmbH (production), auvisign GmbH (sound company) and Steel United Group (technical direction), reportingto organizer Silvester in Berlin Veranstaltungen GmbH.
Johannes Raack at auvisign has the responsibility of delivering high-quality audio over the 1.5k long party mile, running between the Brandenburg Gate and Siegessäule, and featuring three stages. A committed Nexo user, this year, Raack's system design made pioneering use of the new STM M28 compact line array - across the three stages and delays towers in the Fan Meile were cabinets from every category of Nexo's product portfolio.
This was the first time such a design had been used: long, elegant arrays of 18x STM M28 omni modules flown beneath three STM B112 bass cabinets formed the main PA on the principal stage in front of the Brandenburg Gate. On the ground, 32x STM S118s provided the subbass for the modular system.
Johannes Raack confirmed that, "without any doubt, the M28 did a great job as main PA. The variation we used showed unexpectedly high headroom in the low end; that's remarkable for such a thin column with a total weight of less than 950 kg. But what most impressed me personally was the handling of the M28 as well as the full STM system in every aspect."
Using Nexo Geo S8 cabinets for centre-fill and near-fill, the mainstage PA was set up on a Dante network, with a separate EtherSound network for all the delay lines. All power and processing came from Nexo's NUARs (Universal Amp Racks) with additional NXAMP4x4s.
Under the control of network operator Peter Sobisiak, the inputs for the showmixer were implemented via Yamaha AD8HR converters and Auvitran's EtherSound mini-YGDAI cards over another EtherSound network. All the different networks were consolidated into one Gigabit network, which used fiberglass links to cover distances of up to 400 metres between devices. All Dante and EtherSound networks were controlled from FOH, where Axel Falk and Alexander Garn were mixing the show.
On the main stage, Andreas Müller the monitor engineer was using Nexo PS15s as the standard wedge with Alpha cabinets for side-fill. More Alphas and dozens of PS Series cabinets could be found across the two other stages, where a combination of Nexo STM, Geo D10 and GEO S12 line array modules were used to provide main PA and delays.
(Jim Evans)
