As the crowd was entertained by stars such as Anthony Callea, Rhonda Burchmore, Samantha Jade, Nathaniel and Peter Combe, the S6L used all 64 inputs, as well as 16 outputs which fed eight front of house audio zones to the system and eight orchestral submixes to the AVID SC48 monitor console.
Legendary Australian sound engineer Jon Lemon, who has worked on the global stage with artists as diverse as Seal, Christina Aguilera, Smashing Pumpkins, Pink Floyd, INXS, and Sia, was full of praise for Novatech and the S6L. "The S6L only arrived in the warehouse last Tuesday; it was the first one in the country." Jon reports. "I was suitably impressed, and I think it's a wise investment for Novatech, who I believe are in the premiere class among Australia's production companies.
"The S6L made a monster gig easy. We built 65 snapshots over six hours of rehearsal, and operation was completely intuitive. I particularly liked the Custom Layouts feature, being able to choose what channels are on the surface's 32 faders for each snapshot. I also found having three customisable control modules makes life easier. And sonically, running at 96kHz makes such a difference."
To ensure full and clear coverage around Elder Park, Novatech deployed a distributed PA system from industry-leading manufacturer L-Acoustics. 24 elements of their K2 line array system covered the crowd, augmented by eight SB28 subwoofers.
Four L-Acoustics KIVA modular line source cabinets provided in-fill, while six Kara modular line source loudspeakers covered the back of the crowd as delays. Fourteen L-Acoustics 115XT HiQ stage monitors provided crystal-clear audio to the performers. The whole rig was powered by just eight L-Acoustics LA-RAKs, which house three LA8 power amplifiers each, plus signal and power distribution.
(Jim Evans)
