After evaluating various systems, he purchased 24 x Martin Audio W8L Longbows, and gave them a powerful initiation at the RockNess Music Festival near Inverness this month, where Prodigy, Basement Jaxx, Dizzee Rascal and Flaming Lips were among the headliners.
'Knocker' Neal ran 12 W8L hangs a side, with W8LD down-fills on the front corners providing the necessary in-fill, while Martin Audio's predictive 3D Display software made sure the coverage was fully optimised.
"The system definitely throws and there must have been 25,000 in front of it when Prodigy appeared on stage," Neal reports. "I have a good relationship with Martin Audio, and already run their W8LC Compact line array and Wavefront boxes in my hire fleet.
"We always knew Longbow would handle live shows but we first tried it out at a dance music event - and it was sensational." The clincher, he said, was the power of the low-mids. "We really like that because it's 1" instead of 1.4". This leads to a very sparkly system which goes all the way up and down the frequency range, which a lot of line arrays don't do."
Mark Neal's marketing rationale also appears to have been spot on. Whereas last year he had only been able to cover Stage 2 at RockNess for production company Loud Sound Events (using the seven-a-side W8LC rig) this year he could handle both, adding W3's for in-fill support on the second stage. "Aside from the additional festivals we can now do this summer, we have a series of Autumn dance events lined up, and Longbow will be perfect for that."
(Jim Evans)
