LONDON – Subfrantic owner/GM Steve Davies got his start in audio back in 1991 at age 17, and expanding after he set up the company two years later. By the mid-1990s, he had acquired his first Turbosound gear – "a pair of trapezoidal Floodlights" – and has since expanded his inventory considerably.
"We then bought eight touring Floods a little later, and added to them a few years later with another eight. We've sold the traps on now and they're still working hard at a club in Shepherd's Bush, but the 16 tourers are still with us and still go out for certain shows and applications. Because sometimes only Flood will do," he said.
Today, along with the venerable Floodlights – numbering in total 16 TFL-760H mid/highs and eight TSW-718 double 18" subs – the current loudspeaker inventory also includes TQ-445 three-ways and TQ-310 two-ways with TQ-425 double 15" subs; a sizeable 34-box Aspect TA-890 touring rig; 16 TFM-450 all-neodymium wedges; and the most recent purchase of 24 TFA-600H three-way Flex Array cabinets together with eight TSW-218 double 18" horn-loaded subs. Amplification and processing is via MC2 T series amps and Turbosound LMS-D series controllers, all housed in custom Subfrantic racks.
"Initially it was the Turbosound name that swung it for me," said Davies. "There was little else on the market that competed with the sort of quality and ease of use of a Floodlight or Flashlight rig, and owning Turbosound guaranteed that people knew you had the right quality product for their show."
Operations manager Sean Murphy, who joined Davies in 1997, noted that, "from the initial acoustic model through to actually putting the rig into a venue, and listening and tweaking, it is imperative that we get it right. We don't just want to have a great sounding Turbosound rig, we want to have the best sounding Turbosound rig, and we think we've achieved this by trialing and working with the guys at Turbosound to come up with different configurations of systems and settings."
Murphy and Davies are both accomplished musicians as well, a background that has undoubtedly enhanced their mixing careers by giving them a deeper understanding of exactly what a band is trying to achieve on stage. "Mixing is as creative an aspect of a live show as the musicians on stage, and part of our job is to get inside their heads to best understand what they are trying to achieve and the way they want their sound portrayed," said Murphy.
Although still (in terms of staff at least) a small company, employing mainly freelance engineers, the amount of equipment and collective experience that the company can muster means that Subfrantic can handle large events and compete with the larger rental companies.
"The lack of superfluous permanent staff means that we can still have a personal relationship with our clients, whether we are doing a festival outside for 20,000 people or a corporate event for just 50. And many of these relationships have turned into solid friendships."
A sampling of recent clients and events includes: the British Society of Haematology in Edinburgh; Wellington College's Speech Day; the opening of the Scarborough Open Air Theatre by HRH The Queen; Jose Careras and Dame Kiri Ti Kanawa; Justin Fletcher, The Doves, The Futureheads and Newton Faulkner in Scarborough; Brighton Pride; the Notting Hill Carnival; Bucks Fizz; Bjorn Again; the Bluewater Xmas Lights Switch on; the Make a Wish ball at the Dorchester and the RCCG Festival of Life workers meeting at London Excel.
The continual process of equipment investment over the years was one of evolution, according to Murphy, starting from the original two stacks of Floodlight and expanding to 18 stacks, and from there to the next natural step of Aspect, Turbosound's logical development of virtual point source technology that used the new Polyhorn design to minimize destructive interference between cabinets and improve coverage and arrayability.
"At the time a lot of people were already well into buying line array systems. However, we knew what we wanted – we stuck to our guns and bought the point source Aspect system," said Murphy. When Subfrantic started work on a major project in Scarborough in 2008 they quickly realized that more boxes were needed to complete the system and so another 18 were added to inventory.
Fast forward to 2011, and it was clear to Davies and Murphy that they needed a line array. "After considering several factors – namely sound quality, price, how it fits in with our current infrastructure, and the relationship with the manufacturer – there was only one real choice," said Murphy.
"Our most recent purchase of 24 Flex Array cabinets was a big decision for us," added Davies. "The line array thing had totally changed the market, so we had to get on board and add one to our inventory. The quality of a lot of products out there is really very good nowadays so picking the right system for us was a long and arduous process during which we learnt an awful lot. As Sean said, there are a lot of factors that we had to consider, from price to how it fits in with our existing infrastructure, but another was also how it fits in with our plans for the future.
"What really swung it for us was hearing Flashline in development at Turbosound's factory and seeing how well it interacts with Flex. It's a truly amazing box and I think it's already getting a lot of attention. I've never heard a line array that sounds like that."
But owning a great rig isn't enough. It is as much how you use it, and again Subfrantic brings its expertise to bear on getting the best out of Flex Array. "We run our Flex system five-way, adding the Aspect TA-890L boxes in order to get more punch out of the rig without affecting the low end of the subs."
Subfrantic's 2011 calender is filled with projects including the Bucks Fizz 30th anniversary gigs, ABC, Bjorn Again, Sugababes, Katherine Jenkins, Wynne Evans, and McFly to name a few. For Wellington College's Speech Day, three separate Subfrantic rigs were used over the expansive site – Flex Array, Aspect and a TQ system – and from there the gear went straight on to Luton for the BBC Introducing Festival Main Stage.
Subfrantic's client list provides an effective endorsement of the company's choice of Turbosound equipment over the years, as Davies is keen to point out: "Ultimately as our business grows, it's our clients and our potential clients that determine our equipment choices as much as anything else. Turbosound has some interesting developments in the pipeline, and our aim is to continue to be the guys with the best sounding Turbosound rig."
For more information, please visit www.turbosound.com and www.subfrantic.com.
