SACRAMENTO, CA — Sacramento Production Services (SPS) provided sound production support for a worship event held at the Memorial Auditorium, the Northern California/Nevada Assemblies of God Youth Convention. SPS once again supported the annual event with crew and equipment, including gear from Martin Audio.
The crew included Keith Wackford (Monitor Engineer & Production Manager), Dwaine Wise (FOH Engineer) and Josh Sumpter (Systems Tech). They used 24 Martin Audio W8LC line array enclosures for Mains along with 16 Martin Audio WSX Subs stacked in the pit as a center cluster. Front fill consisted of four Martin Audio W8C and three Martin Audio WT2 passive 12” two way boxes.
According to Wackford, “This is a very difficult room, with lots of hard surfaces and RT60 times in some frequencies reaching the 2-second mark. Pointing sound directly at the audience and keeping it off the negative surfaces is a must. The Martin W8LC’s warm, smooth sound kept any harshness away and has been the box of choice in this venue for many clients. They are just so easy to make this room sound great.
“We also used Martin Audio’s Viewpoint program to help predict where to aim the top box,” Keith continues. “The top seating rows are just concrete with hard walls behind and it’s just so important to keep sound under control up there and not let it hit those hard surfaces and bounce around.”
The rest of the system included a Yamaha PM5D FOH console with XTA graphs and crossovers. Monitors were mixed through a Yamaha M7CL Digital desk with twelve Martin Audio LE1200J wedges, and a Martin Audio WT3 run bi-amped for drum fill. Amplification was handled with QSC PL2 and PL3 amps. We used Xcilica for monitor processing.”
The crew and gear supported a musical lineup that included Method Echo, Nashville Tennessee’s Grits, and worship bands Worth Dying For and the Doug Reid Band. The event brings youth members from the district together. Youth members are encouraged to save up and contribute to the organization’s Speed The Light ministry to buy cars and trucks for foreign missionaries who need transportation to deliver food clothes to the less fortunate.
Asked about the reactions of musicians and techs to the loudspeakers, Wackford concluded that “I would say about a significant percentage of visiting engineers and bands had not heard Martin Audio. But when they did, they quickly fell in love, it doesn’t take much tweaking to get them to sound great, which gives you more time to build a great-sounding mix and make the audience, client and artist happy.”
For more information, please visit www.martin-audio.com.
