HOUSTON — Houston-based LD Systems designs and deploys sound reinforcement and lighting for the annual Houston Rodeo and Livestock Series, held at the city's Reliant Stadium. LD Systems oversee the installation of Electro-Voice equipment for the HLSR, featuring 108 EV X-Line boxes powered by EV P3000RL remote control DSP amplifiers. For 2007, LD Systems incorporated EV's NetMax networked matrix system controller into their system design for the first time for remote supervision of the system. Running from February 27th through March 18th, the HLSR celebrates western heritage, community and charitable work, and features a program of rodeo competitions and nightly musical entertainment. More than 73,000 people saw the show by Disney star (and Billy Ray Cyrus' daughter) Hannah Montana.
It requires some serious sound reinforcement to come to terms with Reliant Stadium: 54 P3000RL amps a side sit racked on two catwalks 200 ft above the dirt powering 12 eight- and ten-box hangs of X-Line Xvls and Xvlt, with each array alternating left and right channel output for a full coverage stereo image around the room. More than 2400 ft of fiber optic cable is used to simultaneously feed signal to the NetMax N8000 controllers and 54 P3000RL amps racked on each catwalk.
"This is our third year using X-Line for the rodeo," reports Robert Ausmus, director of operations, LD Systems. "The show used to receive complaints regarding sound quality, due to the acoustical issues inherent in a large space like Reliant. The stereo setup has increased intelligibility in the stadium dramatically. This configuration is also helpful when touring engineers are dialing in their mix in this large space, as they can mute the rest of the room and just keep the L&R arrays facing them at FOH turned on."
Mike "Monk" Shear, audio tech & crew chief for LD Systems, prepared the IRIS-Net software for the Houston Rodeo, rewriting last year's file to use NetMax. Says Shear, "Instead of having to hook everything up, mute and unmute, and turn all the amps down, I can go online via IRIS-Net with a wireless tablet, mute and unmute from anywhere in the room, and tweak the levels so quickly that I don't need another guy shouting across the room telling me he's ready to turn up the next amp."
For more information, visit www.electrovoice.com.
