The Saturdays specify RCF for special concert

Anglo-Irish pop group The Saturdays recently performed a special one-off gig during the June Bank Holiday weekend at Thurles Greyhound Stadium, Tipperary, with a RCF TTL33-A active line array specified for sound reinforcement.

The venue, which hosted a number of festivals in previous years, is now used exclusively for greyhound racing. And with a hospital overlooking one side of the stadium, Declan O’Sullivan, of audio production company Star Systems, was aware that the considered optimisation of the RCF TTL33-A (Touring & Theatre) line array inventory was essential.

The system was designed around hangs of 13 of the compact three-way active elements on each side of the stage, with a further pair mounted on top of four groundstacked centre TTS-36-A subs directly in front of the stage. Furthermore, an additional two pairs of TTS28-A subs provided further low frequency extension and were stacked stage left and right.?Star Systems also supplied a full monitor system (largely for the support bands), comprising six TT25-SMA stage monitors, while four TTS18-A provided low-frequency sidefill support to the full range fills and a TT25-A served as a drum wedge.

O’Sullivan was clearly impressed with the performance of the loudspeakers and the ability to use RDNet, RCF’s proprietary system software, with the DSP cards to optimise the coverage.??“We’re certainly glad we chose RCF as it fully lived up to our expectations,” he said. “Everyone was happy with the system, and any initial scepticism from engineers when they saw how compact the TT33-A completely disappeared as soon as it was fired up. The clarity and power were unbelievable — it was only idling in third or fourth gear.”

To exemplify this, he revealed that a measurement of 110db(A) at 40 metres had been recorded at the mixing desk, whilst also stating that the show had been a success for the time invested in the CAD design. “The results were identical to what the computer had predicted. We wanted even coverage over 60m, and to a width of 70m, and that’s what we got."?The control RDNet gave over the acoustics was spectacular — we could place the sound exactly where we wanted. All the boxes were in front of us and we could see what each individual box was doing and its performance status.”??

Equally impressed with the system was The Saturdays’ FOH engineer, Nick Warren, who said, “For a small PA it sounds like a big one … and we certainly like the sound of the big subs!”??Supporting The Saturdays was a line up that included Royseven, Smash Hits, Keywest, Boulevard, Gari Deegan (from The Voice of Ireland), and Whitewater.

Royseven and Key West sound engineer, Denis Powell, added: “The line array was very impressive, the vocal sound was great and the PA sounded very relaxed and never under stress. The subs [TTS36-A] were amazing and we loved the RDNet … it was great to view the system as it was at all times.”

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