Outline reinforces Avett Brothers at Red Rocks
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The 9,525-capacity mountain venue lies over 6,000ft above sea level and presents some unusual conditions to visiting sound reinforcement companies.
SES president Jason Farah comments: ‘Red Rocks is a challenging venue, as it is very long, very steep, and the PA is at the bottom of the hill with limited trim height. I employed a few innovative techniques to overcome these challenges, and the results were nothing less than remarkable - in fact, the Outline GTO / C-12 / Mantas design I deployed provided the best outcome of all the PA systems I've ever used there.”
Farah continues, ’Because the Avett Brothers’ music ranges from the very lively to tender moments, it was amazing to stand in the back row at the top of the venue and still feel every nuance of their music. It was utterly uncanny that they were so far away, yet felt so incredibly close.”
The main system used a combination of Outline speaker elements, all drawn from SES’s extensive inventory of the Italian manufacturer’s products. Each of the main L&R arrays comprised 10 GTO modules at the top for the long-throw with three GTO C-12 below them for the shorter throw, then four Mantas at the bottom for down-fill. Normally, Outline’s dedicated GTO-DF downfall cabinet would used for the lower cabinets but since at Red Rocks the bottom of the array was so close to the audience, Mantas provided more even coverage for that zone.
The main arrays were each flanked by flown arrays of eight GTO-LOW mid-bass modules per side for additional low-frequency support, while four LAB21-HS subwoofers were ground-stacked per side with the near-field covered by short ground-stacks of Mantas.
Everything was powered via Powersoft K-Series amplifiers and the processing was provided by Lake LM26 crossovers in each amp rack, all loaded with the Linear-Phase presets from Outline. The entire system was designed using Outline’s OpenArray software which provided very accurate predictions for Red Rocks, a vital key to creating the optimal system design for this challenging venue.
Andrew Steelman, audio department manager at SES and systems engineer said, “I have had the opportunity to bring several different PA systems to Red Rocks throughout my career but I have never had a PA cover the venue so well with so little effort. Many times during the shows I would take walks to various spots in the audience - the way that the system conveyed the band was phenomenal. The band can be quite dynamic throughout their set. To see the audience rise and fall with the band showed me a level of engagement I have not seen before.”
(Jim Evans)
