PRISTINE SOUND
ON THE PLAINS
The 2018 Festival d ’ été de Québec
By Andrew King BELL STAGE AT THE 2018 FESTIVAL D ’ ÉTÉ DE QUÉBEC
PHOTO : STÉPHANE BOURGEOIS , FESTIVAL D ’ ÉTÉ DE QUÉBEC
Not only is the annual Festival d ’ été de Québec ( Quebec City Summer Festival ) one of the hottest tickets of a typical Canadian summer ; it ’ s also one of the most economical .
Where else would eager concertgoers be able to take in 11 days of music with headliners like Foo Fighters , Neil Young , Lorde , The Chainsmokers , Shawn Mendes , and Alexisonfire for a single $ 100 ticket ?
While this year ’ s edition , which ran from July 5-15 , included nine indoor and outdoor stages , the one that hosted the biggest artists – and , subsequently , the biggest crowds – is the main Bell Stage , situated on the expansive Plains of Abraham adjacent to Old Quebec .
Over the years , the site has hosted crowds in excess of 100,000 people , and so the expansive audio system covering it is designed to ensure that every fan – even those over 800 ft . from the stage – get an exciting and impactful experience that belies the price of admission .
Patrice Lavoie is an audio technical advisor with Solotech , and explains that the Bell Stage system was largely redesigned and revamped ahead of the 2017 edition of the festival in tandem with Director of Production Patrick Martin ; this year ’ s deployment mimicked that , but with a few enhancements .
“ The festival was looking for a system that would cover the biggest and most demanding artists in terms of headroom , power , and coverage ,” Lavoie begins about 2017 , citing examples including Metallica and some bass-hungry EDM acts .
“ Another consideration is that we have some leeway with dB levels in the area . Often , the challenge with festivals is keeping the frequency response while dropping the gain , but because that ’ s not an issue [ on the Plains ], we just wanted to deliver the best experience in terms of frequency response and loudness across the whole site . That ’ s kind of a luxury for us here – of course we don ’ t want to hurt anyone ’ s ears , but we can focus on delivering the right experience .”
The resulting system introduced last year includes eight delay towers on top of the main and outfill arrays flown from the stage , with every loudspeaker component covering the house coming from L-Acoustics . “ A main goal last year was to have the same brand across the whole site ,” Lavoie says about what informed that decision .
The system is largely built around the company ’ s K1 and K2 WST line source cabinets and almost entirely driven by LA-12X digital amplifiers . To further enhance the performance and control of the system for this year , Solotech deployed L-Acoustics ’ brand new P1 AVB processor and measurement platform .
Solotech was part of the pilot phase for the P1 in North America , and was sent three of the first units to test and offer feedback . The pilot phase ended just a week before the Festival d ’ été and the product went to wide release . Lavoie and his team , having already had some experience with the units under their belts , decided to use the P1s for the event – reportedly their first large-scale festival deployment .
“ Using the LA-12Xs keeps everything on the main system and two delay rings entirely digital ,” Lavoie explains , meaning they could work in tandem with the P1s via AVB . “ It brings the system to a new level in terms of sound quality . Having only one stage of conversion and maintaining that one sample rate really simplified the signal path and kept us at 96 kHz all the way , so it really brings the resolution to the max .”
Two of the units were doing AVB while the other two were used for an analog backup , so the amps were basically being driven on two networks for redundancy .
With the two delay rings based on arrays of K1s over some K2s , Lavoie says it ’ s almost like having a new main PA 230 ft . from the stage . “ There ’ s a lot of headroom and power there to 500 ft ., where the second ring
30 • PROFESSIONAL SOUND