LONDON – Entec Sound moved into London's Royal Albert Hall for the seven-day run of 2011 Teenage Cancer Trust (TCT) shows, which kicked off with a comedy night on the Monday followed by a mix of music for the rest of the week including headliners Squeeze, Biffy Clyro, Roger Daltrey, Beady Eye, The Editors and Tiny Tempah.
Entec has serviced the event, now in its 11th year, from the start. For the last four years, they have used a similar d&b sound system, which is designed by systems tech Liam Halpin, and refined, fine-tuned and tweaked slightly each time they work in the venue.
Effectively a seven-day festival set up, the system is designed to accommodate the wide range of musical styles that need to be heard loud and clear throughout the numerous nooks and crannies of the voluminous space.
Squeeze was accompanied by a 30-piece orchestra, and Tiny Tempah also brought an orchestra …. so the crew ran 80 channels of splits between FOH, monitors and the record suites just for the "house system."
Halpin, who also served as crew chief, worked with Entec's crew of four engineers – Matt Butcher (FOH), Mark "Magic" Ellis-Cope (monitors), Adam Draper (patch) and James Kerridge (stage technician). The event was project-managed by Entec's head of sound, Dick Hayes.
The "house" consoles included a DiGiCo SD7 for FOH and a DiGiCo D5 for monitors. An Avid Venue running a two expanded Pro Tools record rigs was also available. These had additional HD192 interfaces for all the ambient mics, effectively giving 64 channels of record, with some elements of the orchestras sub mixed.
The speaker system consisted of a main left and right hang of 14 d&b audiotechnik J8 cabinets and outer hangs for each side of nine Q1s, along with a center cluster of six J-SUBs.
A single flown C4 (top) out-shooter per side was used to fill the areas at the ends of the circle, while the choir stalls were covered by a Q10 and a pair of Q7s per side.
For front fills, on each side, the crew used 2 Q-SUBS and a Q10 for the front of the arena floor, plus a single Q7 to handle the front of the stalls and a Q7 positioned at the top of the stairs (i.e. far upstage) for the top halves of the stalls. A pair of E3s provided coverage from the stage lip center.
Four B2-SUBS running in "infra" mode were ground-stacked beneath the stage – starting at 60 Hz and going downwards.
All FOH speakers were powered by d&b's D12 amps.
For monitors, d&b C7s provided side-fill cover and 18 M2 wedges were available, with some Q-SUBs for drums. Five channels of Sennheiser G2 from Entec were offered as the 'house' IEM system, with main acts supplying their own.
"It's a highly reliable, tried-and-tested system that delivers stunning sonic results," said Halpin on the design, citing practical advantages including the fact that the one side can be built without affecting the venue's elevator, preserving harmony between the various technical crews as the PA is rigged.
The audio crew used Dolby Lake and Lake Contour processing for time alignment and EQ and the system was configured to run AES3 digital throughout, complete with a "hot" analog backup in place, which was, thankfully, not needed.
The crew used the "house" SD7 console to mix the opening acts each night, with most headliners bringing in their own FOH setups and desks (Squeeze and Roger Daltrey's were also supplied by Entec).
A couple of outboard Summit "festival spec" valve compressors were available at FOH, along with a TC M6000 system reverb. A Yamaha LS9 dealt with the comperes, VT play-ins and other additional feeds, with a Dolby Lake processor used as a matrix unit.
Entec also supplied a full mics-and-stands package including Shure, Sennheiser, AKG and others, and Squeeze's orchestra was mic'd up with a series of DPA 4061 kits.
This year, Entec also provided a complete 8-channel show-wide RTF comms system, distributed to all departments, so that everyone was on a single show ring.
"The RAH is always a challenge to work in – acoustically and space wise – to get it sounding fabulous from all angles," noted Halpin. "With 60 or 70 channels of bands, orchestras and extras, the stage suddenly becomes very small!" For that reason, practicalities like keeping the monitor and FOH areas small to accommodate incoming productions, all helped keep things running smoothly.
"As always, it's a great honor to work on this high profile event for such a worthy cause," noted Hayes. "Although we have developed what we consider to be the optimum audio system for the space for everyone's enjoyment of the performances, we are constantly listening and making small improvements that only come with long-term experience and understanding the nuances of such a complex space."
For more information, please visit www.entec-soundandlight.com.
