HOF deploys largest Alcons system to date   June 18, 2007

For it’s 40th anniversary, Dutch Evangelische Omroep (Evangelic Broadcasting company, EO) staged their annual choir event “Nederland Zingt” (Holland Sings) at the Gelredome stadium in Arnhem.

Besides the celebration of the EO’s 40th anniversary, the event also marked the 15th year collaboration between the EO and Hof audio - licht – beeld, who again received full confidence from EO to engineer the sound reproduction from design to execution.
System engineer Auke Meijer from Hof designed a system that combined the latest technologies in sound systems, processing and mixing control into a “state-of-the-art” sound reinforcement.

The challenge was to combine a massive mixed choir of 4600 singers with a symphonic orchestra, a 60-piece brass band and a pop/jazz combo, during a six hour show before an audience of 23.000 in the “not-so-favourable” acoustic environment of the massive Gelredome.

The design Auke came up with, meant the deployment of the largest Alcons sound system to date; No less than 132 line-array cabinets were part of the configuration design.
“The main challenge here was to combine optimal speech intelligibility with live music reproduction,” Meijer said, “and thanks to the Alcons pro-ribbon line-array system we managed to achieve a very nice presence and intelligibility on the stands.“

The four main array clusters, consisting of 21 pcs. LR16 and 3 pcs.LR14 each, powered by 28 ALC amplified-loudspeaker controllers with analogue/passive on-board SDP processing, covered about 85% of the venue. Another 30 pcs LR14 were used as monitor sets for the huge choir, in 5 flown arrays of 6 pcs. LR14 each. The sixth array of 6 pcs. LR14 was flown as center cluster, in front of the main stage. Each LR14 array powered and controlled by one ALC, including on-board SDP processing.

The massive speaker inventory was compiled in collaboration with four other partners in the Alcons Ribbon Network; AVM Veranstaltungstechnik and Blue Sound Veranstaltungstechnik from Germany, Almaro sound + vision and TTM sound from The Netherlands.

The unique full compatibility of the Alcons systems, with identical speakers, amplifiers and processing allowed a very quick ”plug & play” integration of the biggest configuration of Alcons ribbon equipped speakers ever in the world.

“In a situation like this, the big advantages of the ribbon system show: the wavefront technology allows maximum control and the energy is directed to the stands without any loss,” comments Tom Back. “Here, thanks to the high ceiling, we have the option to fly long arrays – the bass output is sufficient and limits the number of extra sub cabinets near the stage. For a rock ‘n roll show we would have added LR16B low-mid modules and more subs, but the whole emphasis in this project lies on intelligibility.”

A central (digital) Lake Dolby LP4D12 contour processor was added to the (analogue) SDP processing in the ALCs to enhance the system’s fine-tuning. Meijer eq’d the system wirelessly, by walking around the venue with tablet PC and wireless measuring microphone: “It’s the combination of the Lake Dolby processor, the tablet pc and the SMART integrated analysing system that provided the excellent results in such difficult acoustic environment,” says Meijer, “The Lake’s stabile latency is very important with these arrays, and allowed us to supply a very coherent sound quality.”

The mixing control was done by three (another premiere!) Midas XL-8 consoles; One for FOH, one for monitoring and one for the choir sub-mix. All 96 channels were used for FOH and DutchView broadcast recording tapped their signal from the Midas signal distribution network.

Together with extra QR36 cabinets as side fills and four SR9 ultra compact front fill speakers a very good overall soundscape with excellent intelligibility throughout the Gelredome was obtained.

”We’re very proud, that HOF, with a very high profile in audio reinforcement, took on the courage to do this job - they were amongst the first to start using Alcons pro-ribbon technology in 2004, when this was not the most obvious choice. Hof is a forerunner of new standard-setting technology and with this project they made it all come together. Respect!”, concludes Tom Back.

 

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