MILWAUKEE, WI — Clearwing Productions deployed a Martin Audio MLA (Multi-cellular Loudspeaker Array) system at the Miller Lite Oasis Stage at the 11-day Summerfest here recently. Guinness World Records-certified as “The World’s Largest Music Festival,” Summerfest was held at the 75-acre Henry Maier Festival Park along the lakefront here.
The massive music event lasted for 11 days, included 17 stages, the 23,000-capacity Marcus Amphitheater and performances from over 700 bands that drew close to a million fans.
For more than 16 years, Clearwing Productions has handled the challenge of coordinating sound, light, staging and logistics for the festival.
This year, Martin Audio’s MLA (Multi-cellular Loudspeaker Array) system made its Summerfest debut at the Miller Lite Oasis Stage. The MLA 36 system included 11 MLA and one MLD downfill cabinet per side along with 12 MLX subwoofers.
The eclectic lineup at the Oasis stage included the new alternative band, Fun., along with Kool & The Gang, Joe Walsh, Ziggy Marley, The Roots, Cake, Sublime with Rome, Atmosphere, Paul Oakenfold, Robyn, and Rodney Atkins and Garry Allan from the Country Throwdown tour.
Designing a loudspeaker system that could provide exceptional sound quality and coverage for all those types of music without spillage onto adjacent stages played a large role in determining MLA as the system of choice.
“We went with 12 MLA per side, rolling out at 63 Hz to keep as much low-end in the main array as possible,” said MLA support specialist Jim Jorgensen. With that approach, the subs were used “as more of an effect. One of the goals of this particular event was to maintain the coverage in a specific area, which MLA is really designed for.
“In terms of the low end response,” Jorgensen added, “Ziggy Marley’s engineer first brought up the system without the subs on, and he was happy. When he added in subs, the ear-to-ear grin on his face was priceless.”
According to Jorgensen, “One of the main things that people experienced using MLA was that the PA never got in their way.” Reactions from FOH engineers to MLA for the different bands were “uniformly positive,” Jorgensen added.
Robyn’s engineer called it “pokey in all the right places,” which in Scottish audio speak means it stood out where it was supposed to, Jorgensen noted, adding that Fun.’s engineer said it was the biggest-sounding PA he’d ever worked with. “He kept pushing and pushing it, and it just kept getting bigger.”
Jorgensen also noted that Clearwing system engineer Steve Harvey, who had previous experience with Martin Audio’s W8LC arrays, “quickly understood how MLA worked and was able to explain the system to other people — he’s quite sharp and has great ears, so he got it right away.”
Working in tandem with MLA were 12 Martin Audio LE2100 stage monitors and Wavefront enclosures for sidefill along with a DiGiCo SD10 for FOH and a Yamaha PM5D for monitors, all provided by Clearwing.
For more information, please visit www.martin-audio.com.
Photo credit: Paul Weber
