The stellar line-up included Carsick Cars, Tang Dynasty, He Yong, Stalingrad Cowgirls, Gammalux and hundreds of other Chinese and international bands.
Scott Mason designed, tuned and aligned the GEO D main PA for Jack Guo, Audio Production Manager for Midi Productions and one of China’s leading FOH engineers. “ It’s great to have Scott taking care of the main stage,“ said Jack, „it freed me up to concentrate on organizing the other 3 stages. The GEO D PA sounded great and was very easy to mix on and get a sound quickly, which is really helpful on multi band festivals where visiting engineers only have 40 minutes to get their mix together.“
For the main system, 32x GEO D cardioid cabinets were used in Active Mode, accompanied by 18x CD18 Subs, powered by 12x NXAMP 4×4 amplifiers with built-in processors and management system.
„It can all be controlled from my laptop at FOH, using the EtherSound network system,“ explains Mason. „You just dial in the cabinet family and configuration you are using and hey presto, all the power matching, impedance, sense and protection is done for you by the amps. It’s so easy and works so well. You could run the entire 32-box line array with as few as 4 amplifiers in Passive Mode.“
A front-centre fill arrangement deployed 4 of NEXO’s RS15 subs in cardioid mode with 6x GEO S1210 12″ cabinets in a point-source arc. „The S1210s did an awesome job of front fill in this configuration. They give a smooth phase-less arc of sound right across the front of the stage that tonally sounds very similar to the main PA, and, when stepped back in time to the stage and PA alignment, it blends perfectly. Having a centre cluster of subs in front of your main vocal mic normally wouldn’t be a good idea, but with NEXO’s RS cardioid subs, just 1 meter of space is all you need between the front mic line and the front / centre fill subs for the audience: there is almost no bass going on to stage and therefore nothing annoying going into the mics.“
For monitoring, Top Plot was able to produce 20 of the brand-new PS15-R2 cabinets, a recently launched update of the industry’s favourite 15″ monitor, running with 2x RS15 cardioid subs and 2x S1230 12″ full range cabinets per side.
„Having cardioid equipment on stage is great for controlling the stage sound, especially with the subs, and the new PS15 R2 series of monitors sound smooth and tight.“ Mason continues, „NEXO’s cardioid technology is perfect for multi stage festivals because so much less interference spreads to the other stages; with the usual omni directional systems sound goes all over the place and spreads to the other stages. Therefore you can position the stages closer together, meaning you need less total area for the festival. Not only does this save money, but it creates more intimate atmosphere.“
Four days of perfect weather proved too good to be true! Luckily, Scott Mason lives in Beijing and had local knowledge of weather patterns. Together with Top Plot’s Taylents Lam, he prepared the PA, amplifiers and power supplies for heavy weather. When it struck, just as the final headline acts were about to play, the storms took out all the other PA systems, lighting systems and stages leaving only the NEXO GEO D still working.
„Taylents and I placed the amps deep under the stage with all the power distribution for the PA off the ground; we also had covers on standby and in position for the line array and subs, so when the bad weather hit us, we just shut down until it passed and the system fired straight back up again.“
For more information:TOP PLOT INTERNATIONAL
