NASHVILLE — There were a record 23 music performances for the 43rd Annual CMA Awards, heard over JBL’s VerTec line arrays supplied by ATK/Audiotek. Pat Baltzell, principal at Baltzell Audio Design, designed the event system. Brooks & Dunn, Kenny Chesney, Dave Mathews, Kid Rock, Lady Antebellum, Tim McGraw, Brad Paisley, Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood and Keith Urban were among the artists performing for the event, which was broadcast on ABC from Nashville’s Sommet Center arena.
The sound system included five line array clusters made up of a total of 88 VerTec VT4889 full-size line array elements, joined by a separate flown cluster of 14 VerTec VT4880A full-size arrayable subwoofers.
Four VerTec VT4887 compact line array elements were built into the stage as front fills. Baltzell and Rick Shiner were co-FOH mixers for the show; Baltzell mixed the performances that used re-recorded backing tracks and mixed all the production dialogue, while Shiner mixed the music performances, all completely live.
Keeping continuity between the live and backing-track performances required a lot of coordination between the two mixers. “Even though we’ve been getting more stereo stem tracks, which gives us a greater level of control over the mix than stereo 2-track backing tracks, we still have to work hard to make the transitions between each type of mix,” said Baltzell, who mixed his 14th CMA Awards Show this year.
This year’s configuration differed from clusters that Baltzell devised three years ago (and has been refining ever since) to address the fact that the host podium microphones are located downstage on a thrust platform, slightly forward of the flown PA clusters.
Baltzell wired the bottom pair of speakers on each cluster as a separate mix and reduced their level during dialogue segments of the show, thus increasing the system’s gain-before-feedback capability.
That would typically mean the first several rows of the audience would have diminished sound levels, but Baltzell addressed that by placing JBL Control 25T Control loudspeakers under every other seat in the front rows as a forward, hidden system, assuring consistent sound level throughout the arena.
“I have to take the dialogue audio down six to eight dB in the speakers that I have on a separate mix, but I can make that up easily by adding level to the Control 25T forward fill system, which we’ve timed and tuned to match the larger overhead VerTec system,” Baltzell said.
“The VerTec is an amazing rig and it just sounded fantastic all night long for every type of audio we had to run through it. The Sommet Centre is an asymmetrically shaped venue and one of the best-sounding arenas I’ve ever worked in. When you put this incredible VerTec PA in there with these amazing, award-winning artists, that’s as good as it gets.”
For more information on ATK Audiotek, please visit www.atkcorp.com.
