Vortex made its debut at Göppingen’s EWS Arena pumping techno, trance and hardcore, continuously over 12 hours, through Martin Audio’s Wavefront Precision line array series.
Jürgen Schuster, from Skyeline Live, who provided the technical equipment for the Vortex Festival, commented: “There were no noise complaints and zero problems with the volume for the audience.”
Martin Audio’s advanced DISPLAY software had been essential in controlling the WPS and WPC line arrays deployed. “It was a real blessing,” he explained. “I was able to calculate the entire system cleanly and deploy it accordingly. This made it possible to predict in advance exactly how the system would behave in terms of sound levels.”
“Ambient noise from the street was louder than the sound coming from the festival, while inside the venue the sound was characterised by the evenness of distribution across the entire event area,” He added.
Schuster deployed 24 Martin Audio WPC as the main system, with eight WPS as front- and sidefill. The sub frequencies were pumped out through six towers of three SX218, designed in cardioid, with a further four SX218 provided for DJ monitoring. The rig was powered by 12 of Martin Audio‘s iK42 multi-channel, process-controlled power amplifiers in three-box resolution.
Schuster attributed the success of the event to two Martin Audio technologies: the Wavefront Precision loudspeakers and the DISPLAY simulation software. “The combination of these two aspects made it possible to calculate the sound solution for the event so precisely that sound emissions were minimised [offsite] while still providing uncompromising sound for the 4,000 dance fans,” he commented.
But the real success of the event, he emphasised, was the reaction of the artists themselves: “They didn’t want to leave at all,” he affirmed. “It’s normal for an act to come, deliver their set and then go but at the Vortex Festival, the acts enjoyed it so much that they stayed for hours after their performance and simply enjoyed it.”
“The Vortex Festival runs for 12 hours through the night—from 7pm until 7am—and the system has to work reliably,” he continued.
“WPC and WPS are different size formats but they fit together perfectly in all technical respects—phase response and so on,” he concluded. “With many manufacturers this provides problems as the speakers don’t fit together in terms of sound. This is certainly not an issue with Martin Audio, as the different series work wonderfully together.”
