In its third year of providing technical services for Warwick’s EDM Access The Festival (ATF) party, events specialist Sound Access deployed Martin Audio’s Wavefront Precision (WPS) for sound reinforcement for the first time.
The festival, organised by DJs Will Darley and Alex Neidhardt, added a third day for 2023. Mindful that with three stages in close proximity, and a lot of low-frequency energy to contain, Sound Access owner Joe Baker’s strategy was simple.
“The organisers wanted to upgrade the audio this year because we all felt that the listening experience was the most important,” he said. “Last year, noise rejection out the back was quite bad with the system we used,” added Baker. But there were no such problems this year.
Sound Access has collaborated with Martin Audio partner dBS Solutions on several tours - including Burn The Floor, where they carried a WPS rig.
“It was the first time I had used it, and I had the best time. I never had to change my mix even when we dropped boxes for smaller venues, whereas with other systems you have to work hard to get that consistency.”
When ATF came around Baker was back in contact with Chris Bogg at dBS Solutions who was glad to cross-hire his WPS and TORUS systems for the event. Sophia Livett from noise consultants Acoustec set site sound thresholds, which Baker said he knew he could meet by deploying Martin Audio’s ‘Hard Avoid’ feature in the proprietary DISPLAY software.
The event featured live performance as well as DJ playback from house, disco and techno specialists. The main Daylight Disco stage was kitted out with mirrorballs and set in a Clearspan marquee, with a stage thrust, enabling dance fans to experience the event from all sides.
On the opening night French exponents, Session Victim and Bomel starred with live sets which were played out through six WPS elements per side, ground-stacked on 2 x 4 decks, working within the limitations of the marquee structure. With this configuration they could project the sound above the head height but were restricted by the lower-than-expected roof height, and after time alignment they were experiencing bounce back of the roof girders.
“With an accumulation of reflections, we used Hard Avoid [in DISPLAY]; this worked extremely well and gave us the coverage we wanted.”
A pair each of TORUS T1230 on the outside edges of the marquee, where the audience was bleeding out, filled the gap and sounded “absolutely brilliant”, according to Baker.
As for the LF, a broadside array of eight SXC118 single cardioid subs provided control and the all-important rear rejection in the 15m x 15m space. “This was necessary because the sound was firing out across a lot of farmers’ fields and towards a noise sensitive country house,” he explained. “We were only talking about notching 2dB at 50Hz, so it was nothing drastic, but without that noise rejection from the main stage we would have had massive problems.”
In the event they were able to isolate this area from the other two stages.
The smaller Groove Garden stage deployed a TORUS constant curvature ground-stacked system, three T1230 elements per side, attached via scaff bars and battens to the estate trees; these were illuminated by LED uplighters.
“TORUS was mounted on chain blocks above head height angled down to prevent any bleed,” continued Baker. “The coverage was fantastic even right down at the front. TORUS did what we wanted 100%—the quality was fantastic and when DJs did big HF sweeps the sound remained really clear without biting.”
Further Martin Audio XD12 were used as biamped DJ booth fills, while a pair of CDD6s were deployed for front fill duties and a pair of WS218 subs (in stereo) were mounted onstage either side of the booth.
Bogg noted: “You could have a normal conversation as you walked into the tent but as soon as you crossed the threshold it was pumping. The pattern control once you walked into the tent was amazing.
“Once Joe had done a couple of tours on Martin Audio systems it was a natural step to advance the festival’s sound knowing that we were on hand to provide support if necessary.”