However beautiful the setting, and however precise the choreography of the military bands, the task of providing the sound reinforcement was no walk in the park. The team from the St Petersburg-based sound company Guildia of Masters had no fewer than 1,500 instrumentalists and 1,000 singers to mike up - for which they needed 58 Electro-Voice microphones - and with the wind blowing at over 10 metres per second.
Supported by Ruton S, the Russian EV distributor, Guildia of Masters' technicians decided to rely on the sovereign virtues of the Electro-Voice X-Array (see below for details), thus laying the foundations for a homogeneous, powerful sound that carried to the furthest row of seats. Ruton S's managing director, Gregory Ronin, was there in person: "Everything worked magnificently, but I can tell you, it was no easy task."
Nor did the difficulties confronting the sound engineers go unnoticed by experienced observers; one who appreciated the delicate feat Guildia of Masters had pulled off was the music critic of the St Petersburg daily 'Smena', who wrote: "As a piece of sound engineering, it was extraordinarily impressive: not even the strong wind blowing across the Neva could impair the quality of the sound."
The equipment used included an Electro-Voice X-Array system, consisting of eight EV Xds, 16 EV Xb, six EV Xn, eight EV Xf, 20 EV P-3000 amps, three Klark Teknik DN8000 and a Klark Teknik DN3600.
(Lee Baldock)
