An outdoor amphitheatre whose origins date back to 1935. A big-city government that, appropriately, isn't keen on wasting the taxpayers' money. A venue that needs to suit the definition of diversity: from an international blues festival to the symphony; from Aretha Franklin to the Dalai Lama.
Oh yeah — it's also real windy.
It's Chicago's famed Petrillo, located in Grant Park, and home to the Chicago Blues Festival, Chicago Jazz Festival, Taste of Chicago, Viva Chicago, Celtic Festival and World Music Festival — all of which were attended by a combined total of more than one million people last year. Located right off the harshness that can be Lake Michigan, it is within a proverbial stone's throw from homes, making noise pollution a real issue as well. Yet a new install by Chicago Sound using SLS line arrays left everyone happy. Satisfying All
"I think it's a brighter sound than we've had," says Barry Dolins. "The new technology has provided a clear signal to all parts of the seating area, and I think it gives a better sound, even for the people directly in front of the stage."
Dolins, the honorable mayor's deputy director who has worked with events in the park since 1984, adds, "We've gone through a number of different sound systems since 1984. There comes a time when the wear and tear on the electronics makes the equipment almost unusable. Certain artists would perform here and say we need to upgrade — a number of these artists requested it… but rather than piece-meal something together, Ian Hunt put together a completely new design that would satisfy all."
Hunt, vice president of Chicago Sound, has been working with the Petrillo since 1992, when the city invited them to provide some equipment and staff to that year's Blues Festival. That quickly evolved into running and maintaining the equipment for all of the Petrillo events. "That was a fully flown system with EAWs, and it wasn't a safety issue, yet, but would certainly be in the near future."
The first challenge in designing a new system was creating something for the sheer diversity of acts and events that take place in the Petrillo, an old style shell that must also contend with the infamous wind that comes off Lake Michigan. "We needed to specify and design a system that could handle high-energy rock shows as well as the finesse and delicacy of a classical concert and everything in between. And it also needed to be rider friendly, so acts wouldn't want to take it down and put their own equipment up. And some of these ideas are conflicting things." Another challenge was figuring out how few speakers they could use to do the job yet reach every single audience member equally in the 5000- seat area, in addition to the lawn beyond that.
"We wanted it to sound good no matter where you sit, and I'm pretty sure we achieved that," Hunt says. "And we went with a less-ismore approach, as we didn't want a lot of loud speakers hanging in front, which can look bad, particularly when they are in front of an orchestra."
Budgets always figure in, of course, but the stakes are higher when you're dealing with city officials. "We had to be aware that this was public money — we couldn't just throw money at the problem. We had to be responsible to the citizens of Chicago." They were able to promise them that the new system would require less expensive maintenance, and that made it more financially attractive to the powers that be.
Flat Lined
"We looked at different systems, and a couple of companies came to the forefront right away," Hunt says. "Horn-loaded speakers have their own qualities, but were not going to be the best-sounding box in this setting." That eliminated many possibilities, so they were drawn to Stage Accompany and Alcons, both of the Netherlands, neither of which use compression drivers for high frequencies. Unfortunately, neither company was well-represented in the U.S., and that made getting his hands on their arrays difficult.
"Down the road," however, was SLS (and by "down the road" we mean in the southwest corner of the state next door– in Springfield, Mo.) "So we drove down there, and we liked their speakers so much we bought some for ourselves, as we were looking into these types of speakers nine months before the Petrillo job came open to us." They were impressed enough that by the end of 2005, they owned 120 SLS small and medium-size boxes.
But it was more than proximity that led Chicago Sound to doing business with SLS on this extremely important job. Hunt says that in addition to having quality speakers that looked nice and were easy to operate, he was wowed by the company's attitude. "The factory was easy to deal with," Hunt says. "They responded to comments and suggestions and were willing to make changes, so we quickly developed a good relationship with them."
Using modeling software, they came up with a system using 54 flown cabinets with another 14 on the stage that would meet the minimum technical needs — and more. Hunt says the process of designing a system lead to a few discoveries, including that the extremely tight pattern control the speakers yielded meant they could focus more accurately on the seating area and not the outlining neighborhood, which meant a big drop in noise complaints.
"I guarantee we didn't play any quieter — we just had better control."
Hunt says the system designed offers a "cardioid feel" with a total of four vertical rows, two on each side of the stage. The second rows are hung between 28 inches and 32 inches behind the firsts and are low-frequency speakers relegated to handling frequencies 120 Hz on down. "We delay the front row to match the back row, and the advantage there is less chance for feedback, plus it puts less bass onstage."
The system isn't a permanent install (in fact, in January they took it to the International Association for Jazz Education in New York). At the Petrillo, it is a simple system to rig, Hunt says, all done from a single point. The trick is maintaining that exact distance from the front to the back arrays, and also keeping it to the sides of the stage as much as possible.
The actual install took only two days and ended up including 36 LS8800s, 18 LSB8815s, eight EL218s and eight SS2605s. There are 18 Apogee AE-8 delay speakers, and the stage monitors are EAW 200s and Apathy IE6s.
"We've been working with Ian for quite a while, and he's always accommodated our needs," Dolins says. "I think it's a brighter sound than we've had, and the new technology has provided a clear signal in all parts of the seating area. The line array has impacted the effect on our neighbors positively."
Hunt adds that they put on more than 100 wildly different events in the 2006 season, without a single problem with the system.
"Now the challenge is keeping the rig functioning normally despite the sometimes bad weather," Hunt says. "At the end of the season, we open up the cabinets, inspect for water damage, and get them to 'new' status. So far, there's been next to nothing needing to be done, and the previous system ran 14 years without major problems, so we hope this one does the same."
