The crew at Showtime Productions in Sydney loaded up the truck and tackled the Sunset Music Festival in Armidale NSW. Alongside their A-grade trussing and lighting equipment, the Showtime crew deployed a devastating Nexo PA for the event. Although very small in footprint, the Nexo PA was easily ready for an 8,000+ crowd.
The affectionately called Nexo STM ‘6 Banger’ was utilised for Sunset. This included a 3×6 combination of M46, B112 and S118 modules a side. The basses were ground stacked and distributed across the front of stage to create an evenly spaced and very deep LF across the entire field. The entire STM component of the PA was powered by two NUAR racks per side.
Front fill was handled by 2 x PS15’s and another 4 x PS15’s took care of fold back with the monster monitoring rig comprised of 2 x GeoS12 per side stacked on 2 x LS18 subs per side. These were all powered by 2 x Nexo NX4X4 Amplifiers.
Of course DiGiCo also made an appearance with an SD11 and D-Rack taking care of console duties with ease. The D-Rack, which features 32 in and 16 outs was barely breaking a sweat given this was a DJ based festival. There were six inputs coming in from each DJ rig – Main L\R, Booth L\R and 2 x Spare for Radio mics (for those critical moments when an MC wanted to jump in for their 2 cents).
With the DJ mixers having typically unbalanced outputs, they went into the console via an Apex dBDI-2 dual active DI sending them into the console as a balanced signal. The Apex dbDI-2 is a true ‘pro’ DI box featuring fully shielded transformers which eliminate common problems such as ground loops. It also features XLR and TS inputs, active or passive, stackable, or rack mountable in pairs. The dBDI-2 can also run linked in stereo mode with channel summing.
For outputs, the main PA and DJ booth outputs went through an Apex Intelli-X48 which provided parametric EQ and time alignment for the mid and bass modules. An additional two stereo pairs were sent out directly to the main subs and PS15 front fill through SD11’s in-built Matrix which handled multi-zone time alignment for these.
An Apex Argos was inserted onto the main outputs in order to ensure sound the PA did not exceed the established sound restrictions. With the VCA driven Argos, system gain reduction it far more transparent than traditional limiting and does not compress the signal far less aggressively. To monitor the system volume, two Apex Hera units were setup also. One was setup in the console rack with a microphone placed in front of the PA for local monitoring, while the second unit was setup remotely at the furthest perimeter of the field in order to ensure that noise limitations were enforced and neighbouring residents were not disrupted by the event. The Hera units also kept a running log every 15 minutes of LEQ which provides a pinpoint accurate gauge of volume across the entire day. Each Hera unit also featured a Leto unit which is a large format LCD display that provides a real-time dB volume display for the system techs, DJ’s and promoters alike.
The SD11, D-Rack, Apex Intelli-X, Argos, Hera, CD player, radio mic receiver and UPS are all housed nicely in the custom and very compact DiGiCo SD11 case which, even if we do say so ourselves, is quite slick.
As cann be seen below, a screenshot of the festival system which was designed using Nexo’s NS-1 prediction software. NS-1 enables system technicians to accurately calculate coverage and SPL disperion over the event showground.
As we’d expect, flawless execution from the Showtime crew. Enough from us though, check out a few more shots of the gig!
