Delta Sound provides PA for Eagles concert
Published: MEA
UAE: In an event produced by Done Events, Delta Sound provided a complete PA system for a recent Eagles concert in Dubai Festival City. Overcoming the challenges created by the arrival of a huge sandstorm, the team managed to make a success of the large-scale event, which attracted a reported 20,000 fans.
The sandstorm brought with it winds measuring 120kmh, so the team opted to take the entire system down to keep it safe. ‘We only got the system back up and trimmed by 5pm when the venue decided it was safe to do so,’ said Al Woods, Delta`s system engineer. These delays left the Eagles` engineers with just one hour to set all levels and EQ before the start of the show.
The main arrays were split into long-throw and medium-throw V-Doscs and dV-Doscs for down-fills, centre-fill and side hangs, whilst an additional eight 112XT cabinets were used for front-fills. A total of 50 V-Doscs were utilised for the main PA speakers with 18 dV-Doscs supported by 48 SB218 subwoofers. 20 L-Acoustics Pad 4 LA48 amplifiers powered the system, and PA processing was completed with four XTA DP226s, four DP448s, and two DP446 controllers.
The main hangs covered the majority of the site, whilst the VIP section was catered for by 10 dV-dosc elements hung five per side on masts. ‘Out-fills did a lot of work too, covering 110m into the field corners, and in the outer near field where the main hangs did not reach,’ said Mr Woods.
For delay, two sets of 12 V-Dosc speakers hung six per side on 12m masts were placed 60m from the main hangs. ‘It could have been blown around in the wind, but luckily the evening was dead calm unlike the afternoon,’ said Mr Woods. ‘I timed the centre-fill and front-fills back to the main PA and then the 16-aside flown subs back to the PA. Then I timed the centre-fill 16 subs to the main fly subs,’ he explained.
‘I used a Smart system with an Electrosonics RF RTA microphone – which made it pretty quick,’ he added. ‘Using the simple impulse measurement function, I acquired the delay time between the information sources, then checked the phase of the low and mid frequencies with a transfer function to make sure that the system coupled correctly. I would then move the time to get the exact phase wrap at the crossover point, which in this case was 60hz.’ Delays of six V-Dosc speakers were then timed in the same way as the other hangs.
An additional PA set-up comprised 12 L-Acoustics V-Doscs, 12 dV-Doscs and four SB218 subs, powered by two LA8 and two Pad 4 LA48 amplifiers. An additional six ‘loose’ LA8 amplifiers were also put to use for the concert.
A DiGiCo SD9 and a D-Rack digital console were used at FOH, supported by two Avalon VT737 valve pre amp/compressors. For playback, a Tascam W900SL CD burner was utilised, and PA processing was completed using an XTA DP448 and two DP446 controllers. Additionally, a Pioneer DJM 800 mixer was put to use, as were three CDJ 2000s multi-format players.
For IP audio, one Horizon IP audio unit was deployed along with six BSS Soundweb London Blu-160 with Delta sleeves and six additional Blu-160 signal processors.
Motorola equipment was deployed for the communications element of the project. A total of 24 GP340 radio handsets were used, in addition to 24 remote speaker/mics, 12 discreet earpieces and microphones, and four six-way chargers complete with Delta 13A IEC cables.
‘It is great when international visiting engineers say how impressed they are with the service Delta Sound provides,’ smiled Mr Woods. ‘Some are very dubious of the unknown and I'd like to think that I can contribute to them wanting to use Delta again.’