For the second consecutive year, Powersoft partner Barowski AG provided sound reinforcement for the main stage at Bardentreffen Festival in Nuremberg situated on the Hauptmarkt in front of the city’s main town hall.
Barowski AG had first fielded their X8 racks for the 2015 edition, but according to Michael Barowski, Chairman of the Board, they increased their inventory for this year. “We now have five X8 racks and an additional X4 touring set,” he said. “Each amp in our rental stock occupies a single rack for maximum flexibility.”
In addition to the X4 / X8, the production company also deployed additional Powersoft amps for other applications, such as driving delays and nearfill speakers.
The main PA in this case consisted of EV X-Line, with further EV Xi-series enclosures deployed for outfill and nearfill duties as well as drumfill on stage. Other monitor speakers included wedges from Rocksound and L-Acoustics.
The move to Powersoft had been carefully thought out. “We spent a lot of time researching how to replace our stock of different amps and controllers in the most efficient manner,” Barowski continued. “We sold most of our recent amps in order to use our X4 / X8 to power everything — from 5-inch nearfill speakers to full festival-size PA.” Barowski also knows that additional headroom is available if necessary, via a further X8 rack and X4 patch-bay from the demo stock of Powersoft’s German distributor Laauser & Vohl GmbH.
The advantages, he said, are obvious. “We have significantly reduced our variety of amp racks and therefore our time for setup, checking controllers, false deliveries on site. In fact since using Powersoft, our rate for checking misapplication or false cabling within racks is at zero.”
“On top of that, we need less space in our warehouse as the racks are fully stackable, easy to handle and lightweight compared to our previous inventory. The ability to store several controller setups and configurations, even via smartphone, along with the wide library of supplied presets for different types of PA are a major step forward for our company.”
In terms of deployment at Bardentreffen, Barowski ran the complete sound system on Dante using Powersoft’s two redundant digital streams, connected to Yamaha CL5 digital mixer for FOH, PM5D for monitor, and two Rio 32-16 stage boxes. The entire festival was run via 5-core Ethernet Multicore (one line adapted for analogue signals as Intercom/Talkback/Shoutbox via CatCore stage boxes).
Michael Barowski describes CatCore as “the perfect fit for Powersoft X8 or similar 8-Channel amps” as it meets their requirement for a compact patchbay solution.
“We were looking for a scalable solution for transporting, renting and using our X8s,” he revealed. “Our wish was to establish a standardised rack for dry hire, providing the user all necessary connections on the front and keeping the rear of the case closed. And so we decided to design a multifunctional panel in cooperation with the CatCore guys.”
As for the touring racks, these are modified CPA racks manufactured by Amptown, and have a footprint of 60cm x 80cm, measuring a third or quarter width of a standard truck. “A double stack is exactly 120cm high, which matches most of our cases when tipped in the truck, therefore a real advantage compared to what we had previously. Now we can load our trucks faster and more effectively; being able to dispense with super-heavy amp racks is a real advantage especially for delivery to small locations with mini-trucks.”
Barowski regularly controls and configures its amps via the Powersoft Armonía software, and logistics within the warehouse have also improved.