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Shakedown at the Royal Agricultural College |
Subsequent to the purchase of a new Turbosound Floodlight system, we
booked up the Boutflour Hall at the Royal Agricultural College for a
bit of a system test and shakedown. Assisting as usual were Fully
Loaded, using the shakedown as an opportunity to rehearse with a full
rig!
Purchasing a new rig is never a straightforward process, even at
non-stadium scales. So we booked a day at the local Royal Agricultural
College's Boutflour Hall to shakedown the newly purchased Floodlight
system. At the same time, we also tested out the new Turbosound TMS-2
side-fill monitoring system (also used for discos and smaller main PA
requirements). Way too much gear for such a small hall, but we weren't
doing a real gig here...
After a few hours of setup and careful configuration, including shaking
out a couple of very annoying bugs in the system (a cross between a
reversed polarity balanced line connector and a normalled input), we
got the rig fully cranked. Man, that's a loud rig! For those that care
about such things, the FOH rig can now be considered a "10k rig". I
personally don't like to talk in those terms as they totally
nonsensical. This rig is considerably louder and clearer than many
competitor's 10k or even 15k rigs..
Anyway, back to the day. First pass checks were done with CDs, played
through the system at FOH. Quite surprisingly, we managed to make the
CD skip on several occasions from the amount of bass in the room...
wild! Next up, we herald the arrival of Fully Loaded, who have
volunteered to rehearse with us today. There's not much space on the
stage for them with the amount of speakers, but they struggle on
regardless! After a short setup period, they start playing and ignore
me walking between them miking up and setting up monitors. On a stage
the size of a postage stamp there was over 3K (yep, meaningless number)
of monitors including the sidefills. Too loud doesn't even begin to
cover it... Anyway, it all worked fine, and there was no problem of not
being able to hear!
The acoustics in the hall were surprisingly good. That
church-style curve to the wall combined with the upstairs balcony
really cut down on the nasty reflections, leaving only a pleasant
ambience to work with. OK, a bit too much ambience, but not too bad!
Bottom line: The new system really rocks!
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