SHEFFIELD, England –The Academy Music Group has opened its newest live music and club venue in Sheffield in the UK. Although AMG has a chain of live clubs around the country, this is the first one that has been equipped with NEXO by Adlib Audio, the Liverpool-based touring and installation company.
Adlib Audio has had considerable experience with NEXO systems. Having toured with some of the UK’s most prominent bands, the Adlib team has heard what GEO D can do on the road. Last year, Adlib’s installation division put D10s into the prestigious Liverpool Philharmonic Hall where they have performed successfully.
Sheffield is one of those British cities that boasts a vibrant local music scene, and has produced some of the finest bands in the country, including Def Leppard, Joe Cocker, The Human League, Pulp and lately The Arctic Monkeys. Building on that tradition, AMG has created its new Carling Academy venue out of an old purpose-built ballroom, which had been used as a discotheque before falling into disrepair for several years.
In fact, there are two venues here; the main stage has a capacity for 1800+, while Academy 2 is another production–complete space for around 500 people. Both rooms use NEXO’s D10 line array modules as the main PA element.
The sound design was created by Adlib’s Andy Dockerty in conjunction with Roger Kirby and Mark Burnley, working closely with AMG’s Group Technical Manager Ed Jackson and Group Operations Manager Richard Maides. All NEXO loudspeakers and processors were supplied by Fuzion plc.
The main venue features a deep balcony wrapped around a dancehall-style room, so the sound design uses traditional side hangs stage left and right, each comprising nine NEXO GEO D10 cabinets complemented by a block of six ground-stacked NEXO S2 subs per side. All loudspeakers can be moved and stored under the stage to accommodate visiting production and there are also extra loading points next to the house PA for touring systems.
Says Adlib’s Roger Kirby, “the D10’s main strength is its fidelity. With the boxes running flat, with just the desk output from a CD or a microphone, they are very true. It is a more musical system than most line arrays, giving a very honest representation of source material – what you put in is what you get out!”
He continues, “We considered using the GEO SUBs but, unfortunately, we were restricted by the available trim height of the ceiling. To fly the GEO SUBs at the top of the arrays would have pushed the D10s too low for them to be effective on the balcony. The S2s offer excellent low-end output from a ground-stack.”
To ensure coverage across the main room’s interior, over 20 of Adlib’s own range of cabinets have been positioned as peripheral speakers around the room. “We’ve put in the Adlib delay boxes mainly to lift the sound press levels to the rear of the room, in particular for the club nights. We’re very pleased with the coverage of the D10s to the edges of the room under the balcony, even when we get a full house and it gets humid.”
The NEXO G10s are powered by six CAMCO Vortex 6 amplifiers, the subs and Adlib boxes by a combination of Crown I-Tech and XTI amplifiers. Processing is via Soundweb London, which has been used for a matrix setup, which allows any of the sources to be played in any of the rooms, via the BLU80 Cobranet network bussing signal around the building.
In Academy 2, Adlib has spec’ed three D10s per side. These are supported by Adlib’s own AA218HL horn-loaded subs. All the boxes have been strapped together in custom hardware, “forming one complete stack which allows us to set an extreme cabinet angle that remains stable,” explains Kirby. “Utilising the 120º HF dispersion angle of the D10 cabinets, we are projecting sound across a reasonably wide room and the coverage is excellent and again the audio response is very true and flat. Our first thought for this room was NEXO Alpha, but listening to the GEO D in this application, we’re very impressed with the results the system has to offer in a smaller room.”
For control in the main room, there are two Soundcraft Vi6 digital consoles, with outboard graphic equalization and playback. A third Vi6 is used in Academy 2. Adlib Director Andy Dockerty has been a big advocate of Soundcraft consoles, and, although he’s not the biggest fan of digital desks, he is happy to specify the Vi6. “We get a lot of positive feedback from touring engineers using the Vi6 consoles in our rental stock, and we felt it was the right choice for house production at the Academy,” says Kirby.
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For more information, please visit www.adlibaudio.co.uk or www.nexo.fr
