BLACKTOWN, Australia – Bowman Hall hosts concerts, wedding receptions, meetings and other events within a large, reverberant and asymmetric space with galleries on each side of the long axis.
Audio consultant Trevan Johns met the challenge of improving on the sound design, working with the contractor, Sound on Stage, to update the old system with Electro-Voice speakers and other audio gear from Bosch.
The brief to Johns' firm, Trevan Johns and Associates Pty Ltd, was to design a new audio system with a level of protection and performance to allow for intuitive operation in a simple user mode, or full access to a digital mixer in concert mode.
Because the ceilings in the gallery areas are at a lower level and shade the central cluster, Johns opted to install delayed loudspeakers to provide acceptable performance. This was particularly important on the northern side of the hall, where an extension to the hall increased the low-ceilinged area to more that 5 meters wide.
Johns specified a front of house loudspeaker array consisting of six Electro-Voice XLD 281 compact line-array elements with dual EVA XCS-312 cardioid subs, all with an EVA EG grid suspending them.
Two Dynacord VL262 loudspeakers are installed on the proscenium wall for side fill, located beneath the 3800mm high bulkhead. Two delay arrays are located either side of the hall and each of those consists of two groups of four Dynacord VL62 delay loudspeakers. Spaced equally, they are configured in two delay groups, front and rear.
"I worked closely with Bosch's Bryan Davidson when designing the system," said Johns. "We ran a few predictions, and it looked like the E-V XLD281 cabinets would do the job the best. The result is that it sounds unbelievably good, and the client is absolutely delighted."
The FOH array is powered by two Dynacord H5000 amplifiers (with two more driving the subs) as well as an H2500 amplifier. Delay and side fill loudspeakers are powered by a single four channel EV CPS4.5 amplifier whilst monitor wedges are driven by an H2500.
"The amplifiers contain all of the smarts such as delay times which are all done onboard," said Johns. "This was essential as we didn't want to be placed in the position where it was done back in the front end as we needed both simple and complex modes for the hall."
The project is based on an 8 x 8 E-V NetMax N8000 networkable digital matrix for Simple Mode. The EV NetMax N8000 is expandable to accept additional inputs and outputs and is controlled by a touch screen and PC.
"I had to take into account that many hall users are not qualified to control a conventional multi channel mixer based system," said Johns. "Therefore, when a relatively simple system is required, control is by touchscreen, directly accessing the control protocols of the E-V NetMax N8000. This screen and its custom built GUI allow even novice users to intuitively operate the system."
To select different modes, such as banquet, forum, lecture, live music or theatre, the system does not require more than a preset selection or scene recall to configure the room in any default, with nominal gain, EQ presets and delay available as required.
