Coachella is slated as one of the most forward-thinking music and arts festivals in America. This requires a sound system that can live up to this ethos. Accordingly, rental company Rat Sound provided Turbosound Aspect loudspeakers for two of the five main performance stages. This year, the attraction of Madonna's festival debut drew record numbers of fans - reportedly in excess of 60,000 on each day - out into the heat, which soared close to 100 degrees. Thousands packed into and around the Sahara tent, which was doubled in size from previous years to accommodate the expected crush, to see the dance music diva debut her upcoming touring show.
The line up also included Depeche Mode, Massive Attack, Franz Ferdinand, Bloc Party, and Editors and US bands Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Scissor Sisters and Coheed & Cambria.Manny Barajas, Rat Sound's crew chief in the Gobi tent, explains the set-up: "We had four flown TA-890H mid-high Aspect boxes and three trap TA-880H Aspect boxes in a ground-stacked configuration a side. We also had nine of the TA-890L low boxes, and two of the TSW-218 subs per side."
"We flew six Aspect boxes per side in the larger Mojave tent, and had two Aspect boxes with the rotated horn configuration for a ground-stacked front-fill. We had nine of the low boxes per side, and four of the 218 subs per side." Barajas notes that the flown Aspect cabinets only recently returned from a nationwide solo tour by Pink Floyd front man, David Gilmour.
The Aspect series provides accurate vertical and horizontal control. With each high output Turbosound Aspect cabinet generating a phase-coherent curved wavefront with a 25° horizontal by 15° vertical dispersion pattern through the use of proprietary multi-cellular Polyhorn technology, reflections are reduced to a minimum and horizontal control maximized resulting in clear, clean and extremely directional sound, say Turbosound.
"We've had great results from Aspect since its launch," adds Turbosound sales director, Rik Kirby. "It performs equally well both indoors and outdoors - as Coachella has proven - and it will continue to be put through its paces around the world during the summer."
(Lee Baldock)
