d&b thoughts…

This week was a big one in the life of music and technology at Kensington.  If you’ve been following me for any length of time, you know how much I love my job at KCC.  However, the single biggest struggle I’ve ever encountered in many years of mixing has been my love/hate relationship with the EAW KF650 rig that was in the room.  A combination of KF650s, KF300s, KF260s, and SB1000s all blended together to create a transmission system full of sonic, phase and comb filtering inconsistencies throughout the entire room.

For the background on how we’ve gotten to this point in the upgrade, check out this post I wrote a few weeks ago if you missed it.  This week was the big week to install the new rig!

All of the system components arrived from d&b by early last week so on Monday, the crew from Advanced Lighting & Sound began the install.  The process went very smooth and by the end of the day, both arrays were in the air and cabled, plus all of the old amps had been removed and the new ones mounted.  Tuesday morning began with connecting the new arrays into the existing lines from the grid to the amp/dimmer room and cabling and dressing the new amp racks.  By lunch time, we were ready to start tuning the rig in preparation for the first rehearsal on the new system to begin at 6:30p.

Awesome surprise #1 was what Easera Systune software showed when we turned on pink noise through the T10 arrays for the first time.  With the measurement mic placed about 1/2 way back from the rig, the response curve was literally FLAT.  Our team was floored.  A first pass of some tracks from ProTools sounded incredible.  We’re using three EQ filters on the entire rig just to provide some artistic sculpting.

Pleasant surprise #2 was the consistent coverage throughout the entire room from a single pair of T10/T-Sub arrays.  It was jaw dropping how smooth the 105 degree pattern of these boxes covered exactly where the array calculation software said it would.  At the edges of the pattern, the sound smoothly begins to roll off.  This creates some great “shaded” seats where those who prefer things just a bit quieter can be happy.  The spectral response in these seats is still very pleasing and even, it’s just a tad softer.  For the first time ever in this room, the listening experience at FOH is nearly identical to that 15 rows in front and 5 rows behind.

Surprise #3 was how efficient the rig is to get up and go with SPL.  Our team decided the T-series rig would be a solid solution for our room based on our tests with some of our campus’ rigs (L’Acoustics Kiva/Kilo and ARC’s).  However, if I had one nervous spot, it was based on whether the new system could keep up with our 650 rig when it needs to fill the room and get in your face.  While we don’t do it very often (95 dbA and up), I knew we might miss that extra headroom we’ve had with the current system when the room is full and energy is high.  Believe it or not, this d&b system is the little rig that can.  Early tests show we have no trouble ramping up into the high 90′s without getting beyond the first signal light on the amps.  Things start to break apart a bit once you start hitting around 100-102, but this is fine for us because like I said, our cap is really 95-97 peak.

I’m going to write more in the next week about the system configuration we went with and learnings along the way.  For now, here’s a few crude photos shot before I left Wednesday night for a few days off after a very long week.