TORONTO – Canadian musician and record producer Daniel Lanois used 100 Meyer Sound loudspeakers as part of the fifth annual Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, Toronto's all-night celebration of contemporary art in Nathan Phillips Square.
Lanois composed the live and recorded music that accompanied layered video images and lighting effects for the all-night multimedia show entitled Later That Night at the Drive-in.
"I've been dreaming about this for years," Lanois said, shortly before the event. "At some rock shows, if you're not in the lucky first 30 rows, you don't get full fidelity sound. Here, no one gets a bad seat."
The show began at sundown on Oct. 2, and to ensure adequate audio coverage, Mark Howard, Lanois' longtime recording engineer and artistic collaborator, who also mixed the sound for the event through a 28.24 system during the event, worked with Meyer Sound Design Services on a distributed, tower-borne layout for the sprawling concrete expanse.
The sound design called for Meyer speakers mounted on 24 towers. Twelve CQ-1 loudspeakers plus a total of 60 UPA-1P and UPJ-1P VariO loudspeakers were mounted on the 24 "sound pods" scattered throughout Nathan Phillips Square.
Twenty 650-P and eight 700-HP subwoofers provided the low end, with system drive from a Galileo loudspeaker management system that included five Galileo 616 processors. The Toronto office of PRG supplied all Meyer Sound equipment.
Julian Sleath, special events programming manager for the Department of Economic Development and Culture, coordinated the event for the City of Toronto. "It is terrific that Meyer Sound has jumped on board with the Lanois project," he said, shortly before the event. Sleath's colleague, special events production supervisor Joe Sellors, also played a key role.
An Ontario native, Daniel Lanois is best known as producer of albums by U2, Bob Dylan, Peter Gabriel, Emmylou Harris, and others. His Nuit Blanche event featured performances by Trixie Whitley, Black Dub, and also four songs from Neil Young's recently-released album, Le Noise.
In all, more than 500 artists performed and displayed 130 works of all genres during the event.
For more information, please visit www.meyer-sound.com.
