Meyer Sound CAL arrays
along each of the four suspended trusses – 16 in total – to boost coverage on the field of play and , particularly , help push out more low-end , as they intentionally avoided using subwoofers for any part of the system . “ Everything below 80 Hz in there is totally out of control ,” Lafontaine notes , “ so we decided to not even go there .”
Lastly , to cover the press box , they chose to tap into some of the venue ’ s roof-mounted loudspeakers , and though it was a particular challenge , managed to properly time-align everything so that the media covering the event had as true an experience at possible .
When it came to tuning and calibration – almost a three-day process – Lafontaine reinforces that timing was the main consideration , though they were also careful to avoid any slapbacks . “ With the beam steering and a focus on direct sound , we were able to cut through that reverberant environment and get intelligible sound to every seat ,” he says , noting they had levels of 90-96dB throughout the field and audience area – which Vincent says “ may seem like a low level , though it was all direct sound ” – with only a +/ -3dB difference from the loudest to quietest audience seats .
“ Basically , they used only eight speakers to do almost half of the bowl , and the sound was perfect ,” Tessier says about One Wave . “ You could hear every word the MC was saying . Even the staff at the stadium was surprised ; wherever you were in the stadium , you could clearly hear a conversation through the system .” “ It was definitely a challenge ,” Lafontaine says , “ and that ’ s what made it fun . Everyone was set in the same direction to make it all work .”
In addition to his involvement in the basic design and equipment selection , Tougas ’ main role for the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships was as the house engineer throughout the week-long event . Tougas has mixed his share of events in Olympic
Stadium ’ s main bowl , including the anthems , announcements , and half-time show for the 2001 CFL Grey Cup in front of 65,000 spectators .
“ I know pretty much what to expect as far as frequency response , range , and directivity ,” he says about the venue . His unique positioning at the judge level alongside the international production team meant that he was getting a mix of the CAL and UPQ-2P reinforcement , and thus had to rely on calibration tools and some legwork to get himself a decent reference .
“ I was more than pleased ,” he says of the coverage at his mix position . “ Control of directivity [ throughout the venue ] was amazing . I ’ d never heard such intelligibility in that environment and I was thankful to the [ event organizers ] that they were open to this design .”
Tougas chose a Yamaha CL5 digital mixing console for the application “ for many reasons .” Among those : “ Reliability , the Dante redundancy – and not the daisy chain loop back used in other products , which is useless with complicated long cable runs – the Dante network over fibre , and the fact that I ’ m very familiar with Yamaha digital products , going back to the D2040 , DME32 , and ProMix 01 . Also , the onboard Automixer and premium plug-ins – those were useful .”
Working in tandem with the board was a pair of Yamaha 3224D patch boxes – one at FOH and one used as a stage box communicating over Yamaha Dante network switches . “ We customized the Yamaha switches to connect in single mode over fibre , as this was the transport mode for all media ,” Tougas shares . They had an additional 1608D patch box at FOH and a 12-input analog console for the floor gymnastics audio playback .
The 3224D stage box was feeding a pair of Meyer Sound Galileo Galaxy 816 network processors via AES3 , giving Tougas control over all of the CAL zones and floor zones , from matrix and mix buses via the CL5 .
36 • PROFESSIONAL SOUND