BERLIN – A variety of companies brought Adamson gear to the party called Bundespresseball 2009, which was held at the Inter Continental Hotel in Berlin. Organized by Germany's National Press Association, the annual event was attended by 2,500 of Germany's top politicians, cabinet ministers, media and corporate personalities, including Horst Köhler, Germany's president.
The Intercontinental hotel was completely transformed by a large team of builders, artists, and technical designers taking some 5,600 man-hours to complete. The companies involved in producing the event included Deco Sun. L&S GmbH & Co. KG, Hupfer Beschallungstechnik, and Darkselection GmbH & Co. KG, all whom own Adamson inventory. They came together to provide sound production, and Kaluza & Schmid GmbH managed the event, while PAM Events GmbH, Jands, LichtBlick Bühnentechnik GmbH provided the lighting.
The sound design created for four separate stages was executed by Adamson Europe GmbH applications specialist David Dohrmann, who used Shooter 2.7.1 software. Dohrmann also oversaw the setup and tuned and time aligned the systems.
Each of the four separate areas needed their own sound designs, and between them, speeches and various musical styles from a classical String Quartet, a Big Band, Rock Bands and DJs had to be considered. The organizers had a strict corporate design in mind. The promoter and design agency wanted the sound system to be completely camouflaged or hidden away, yet that request conflicted with for a powerful PA system requested on the various artists' technical riders. BAP, Stefanie Heinzmann, Andrej Hermlin and his Swing Dance Orchestra headlined the event.
The main stage had a unique design. It measured 40 feet deep, with three elevations, from two feet to five feet to 8.2 feet. It would have to support a classic 1930s-style Big Band playing in the back with vocalists in the foreground, and also a rock band that would play in the front of this stage. These two bands would alternate right through the evening, and at midnight, an Italian "Tombola"-styled raffle would demand accurate and evenly-distributed speech reinforcement so those buying tickets would know if they won something.
The Big Band leader, Andrej Hermlin, had initially refused any use of sound reinforcement, but was won over on the basis of the sophisticated design. The main stage setup consisted of two Adamson SpekTrix cabinets with two SpekTrix W 15 degree under hangs per side firing front and flown off the truss L & R of the stage. Due to the design of the hall, both sides of the stage had large wings off the dance floor, therefore side fills consisting of Metrix 5 and 15 degree cabinets were hung on a 100+ degree angle beside the main arrays, a single flown Point 8 center fill was added, and finally two Spektrix Subs per side were hidden into the stage structure in an end-firing cardioid configuration. The monitor rig used on the main stage was a full Adamson lineup, lead by eight M15s, one M215, one M12, and two 10MXs.
By delaying the Adamson system, an image of a barely-there PA was created. The result was an even Big Band sound in the entire venue. During the demonstration to the bandleader, the sound team hit the "mute" button for comparison, and as the image collapsed, making the Big Band sound dull and inaudible, especially in the back of the venue, the leader was persuaded to modify his anti-PA stance. For the tombola, the long throw capabilities of the system provided speech intelligibility throughout the venue. For the rock band, a dynamic system sound with a lot of headroom was achieved with the addition of Adamson SpekTrix Subs to the mix.
The FOH engineers Achim Schnall (BAP), Ingo Thuerauf (Stefanie Heinzmann), Pieter Stellingwerff (Andrej Hermlin and his Swing Dance Orchestra) were kept satisfied, and the appearance of the Metrix and SpekTrix cabinets won favor from the promoter and design agency. Some of the crew members, who were new to the Adamson Systems, were surprised by the ease of setup and sound quality.
The B stage ground-stacked rig featured four Metrix per side placed on two Spektrix Subs and a single Metrix Sub, with two point 8s as a side PA. Six 10MX monitors were used on stage. Lab.gruppen amps were used for the setups on all stages, and all processing was provided by XTA. The FOH consoles used by the FOH Engineers included a DiGiCo SD8 and a Soundcraft MH3. At monitors, two Yamaha M7CL consoles were used.
For more information, please visit www.adamsonsystems.com.
