It’s not only the squints who are going green. Audio is getting onboard as well.
How does sound go green? The best it can do is by being efficient. It’s still a fundamental truth that you have to move air to make sound, and moving air takes power. A lot of it. Recently, Radiohead took a new approach to touring that they hope will inspire others in the industry. Throughout their 2008 In Rainbows tour, Radiohead has been keeping an account of the carbon footprint they are creating and comparing it to past tours. This means that even in the realm of sound gear every choice is weighed against the ecological impact that each piece would have. The equipment chosen not only had to sound good — but it also had to be “green.”
Going Green
Beyond minimizing the amount of gear, “green” was achieved with new hardware, including the new K1 System from L-ACOUSTICS. As part of an advanced beta-test, the K1 enclosure and its related system components, the K1-SB, SB28 and the LA-RAK, were used during the last leg of the North American In Rainbows tour. (System engineer Sherif el Barbari had a hand in the development of the system.)
The K1 earned its place in the green zone due to its durability, venue adaptability and predictability. Unlike a rigging system of V-DOSC, the K1 rigging system allows for a high degree of angular adjustment from 0 to 5 degrees between boxes and offering half-degree increments between the 0- and 3-degree positions. The system is designed to suspend 24 enclosures on one bumper. The tour was carrying 32 K1 enclosures, 16 KUDO, 16 K1-SB and 24 SB28 and 12 of the LA-RAK turnkey power-amp/signal distribution systems. In use at Chula Vista were 28 K1 (14 per side), six K1-SB per side and 18 SB28s in three cardioid clusters (left, center, right).
According to el Barbari, the size of the rig and the configuration varied according to the venue size; outdoor venues like the festival in Montreal’s Parc Jean Drapeau featured the entire rig, while indoor gigs used a slightly truncated version like the Santa Barbara Bowl show (4,500 seats), which used effectively half the equipment. In wider venues, 16 KUDO enclosures, (eight per side) were used to provide a “narrow sliver” of fill to the left and right regions on either extreme, according to el Barbari. The KUDO enclosures were set to the 50-degree horizontal configuration for this tight-fill application.
The Driving Force
Driving the system was industry veteran mixer Jim Warren, who kept the footprint small with a Digidesign Profile system at front-of-house. System control was provided by Dolby processors, which fed the LA-RAKs on stage. Additional control and monitoring of the system was provided via the L-ACOUSTICS Network Manager software. ( LA-RAK is L-ACOUSTICS latest version of turnkey processing, power-amplification, signal and network distribution. The LA-RAK is a 9U, shock-mounted rack containing three LA8 “amplified controllers” — remember when we used to just call them amps? — an LA-PANEL signal and network distribution panel, AC power distro and additional room for network switches.) These racks were stacked in “twos” so that a grouping of six racks per side only occupied about a three-foot-by-seven-foot parcel of the stage wing.
The Character of Sound
Ultimately, it’s the character of sound that can make or break a show, and this is a system to which the engineers are giving high marks. Warren said, “I know all the techs were very impressed by the rigging and also by the whole LA8 setup with the L-Net. In short, it’s V-DOSC updated for the 21st century, but without losing the character of sound that was my main reason for choosing them in the first place.”
And that whole “green” thing? Smaller (and fewer) amp racks and the onboard processing of the Venue system ultimately meant less audio gear on stage and less in the truck. Less in the truck means fewer trucks. The lower power consumption of the LA8 compared to fully analog amps with the same output horsepower also played a part. The result? Great show, great sound and a lower carbon footprint all around.
Crew
FOH Engineer: Jim Warren
Audio Designer: Sherif el Barbari
Audio Techs: Jamie Pollock, Tim Fraleigh, Charlie Campbell
Monitor Engineer: Graham Lees
Monitor Technician: Ross Anderson
Gear
FOH Equipment Provider: Firehouse Productions
96-channel (2 stage racks) Digidesign Venue console with 2 sidecars, Venue pack Pro 2 plug-in software, 2 Hdx cards fully loaded with DSP
Plugins: Waves Live Bundle
McDSP FilterBank & CompressorBank
Focusrite Octopre 8 way mic pre
Digidesign ProTools HD recording system
Dolby Lake speaker controllers
Main PA system L-ACOUSTICS K1 line array system
SB28 subs
Kudo side-hangs
dV-DOSC down-fills and lip-fills
LA8 amplification
L-Net amplifier remote control network
