Though pleasing to the eye, the Grand Hall presented Jason Price of JAP Sound Hire with more than few acoustic problems. He takes up the story "The awards ceremony is the biggest event in the mobile industries calendar. For us it's not only the voice presentations, but the system also has to support the after show band and party. We have provided the audio system for this event for the last few years now and the Grand Hall does not take any prisoners with regards to the sound. Glass everywhere and then there is the suspended gallery walkway which is also glass. We have found that the use of a compact line array has always been the best solution making use of the narrow vertical dispersion."
Having seen the new RCF TTL33-A Active Line Array, at the recent PLASA show, they decided to use it. Price says: "I thought that it would be a good test, for the system having used RCF products in the past and knowing the quality of their products. I contacted Greg Oliver to see what he thought. Greg suggested we use four TTL33-A's flown aside and two TTS28-A's on the ground."
Oliver also followed up his suggestion with a print out of the coverage and SPLs for the area using the RCF Shaper prediction software. On the day of the event Fraser Munro, who was engineering the event, said: "The system was quick to set up and sounded like a huge Hi-Fi system from the moment he powered it up." This only left him with a little room eq. Munro added: "The system acted perfectly which made the job very easy to engineer."
RCF's Greg Oliver says: "Having worked with Jason in the past he's a bit wary of active boxes and prefers passive boxes and conventional amps, but I am trying to change his views on active systems. Getting him in front of and using the system is the only way to change his views.
"The TT+ products all use light-weight digital amplification and neodymium drivers resulting in very compact and light weight speakers often weighing less than a standard passive speaker on its own. I feel that RCF have created really impressive and exciting products with the TT+ range and ones that surpassed my expectations. The TTL33-A line array modules with their onboard push button dsp and their simple plug and play simplicity really make it a very quick and simple system greatly reducing load in/out times and set up time, couple that with its lightweight and compact design and it really is an impressive system, that also doesn't need a lorry to transport it around which also reduces costs."
Price concludes: "We where contracted to cover the sound by Universal Events who produce the whole event and they where so impressed they used the system a few days later on a charity event in London's Grosvenor House Hotel and again the system was perfect, the power and clarity that it delivers is amazing, add that to its compact, lightweight and simplicity and RCF really have produce a product that can become top of the class."
(Chris Henry)
