OSLO – In preparation for President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech and related music events, the sound system at Oslo City Hall was upgraded with Allen & Heath digital mixing and audio distribution systems and a low-profile Renkus-Heinz Iconyx IC32 Digitally Steerable Array system.
Benum, Renkus-Heinz's Norwegian distributor, had been contracted by Oslo City Council to design a permanently installed system capable of delivering high intelligibility throughout the large marble-floored hall.
"The hall itself has very hard acoustics with highly reflective surfaces, which is why we specified Iconyx for it in the first place," said Benum's Sverre Jøssund . "It was the perfect sound system for such an occasion."
The main audio system includes a pair of Renkus-Heinz IC32 digitally steerable arrays, supplemented by CF121M active monitors and PN212 active subwoofers. The Iconyx cabinets are custom colored to blend in with the surrounding architecture, mounted flush to the walls.
The IC32s had been installed this summer with fine tuning performed using Renkus-Heinz BeamWare and SDA's EASERA (Electronic & Acoustic System Evaluation and Response Analysis) software.
Benum's senior audio team, headed by sound engineers Morten Jorseth and Erik Bergersen, played a key role in the sound for the Nobel Peace Prize presentation, working with project design technician Sverre Jøssund, Ronald Hernes and Peder Krohn from Benum.
Mixing was handled on an Allen & Heath iLive 112 with an iDR-32 I/O, feeding the internally powered Renkus-Heinz IC32s. A total of five iDR-8 DSP matrix mixers were installed for audio distribution, accompanied by several PL units for remote control, including the PL-6 8-fader panel, PL-4 wallplates, and PL-8 logic control panels.
The venue has also installed Allen & Heath's iLive digital mixing system to manage live events, comprising an iDR10 MixRack digitally split to an iDR0 mini MixRack, with iLive-112 and iLive-80 Control Surfaces to manage FOH and monitors.
Along with Obama's acceptance speech, through a pair of AKG C747s, the event included musical performances from soprano Solveig Kringlebotn, bassist and singer Esperanza Spalding, and Chinese pianist Lang Lang. The Peace Prize ceremony was also attended by the Norwegian Royal family and celebrities including actor Will Smith and country singer Toby Keith.
For more information, please visit www.renkus-heinz.com and www.ilive-digital.com.
Photo by Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images.
