Martin Audio deployed its largest ever MLA surround sound system for the first night of British Summer Time (BST) in Hyde Park this summer. Garnering positive feedback from punters and press alike, it was also the first time this particular set-up was used in BST’s six-year history. Daniel Gumble sent back this report from Roger Waters’ headline-making Us + Them set...

Wish you were here

A dizzying cacophony of ringing alarm

clocks fills the air in all directions as the

opening bars of Dark Side Of The Moon’s

Time play out over a sun and lager-

drenched Hyde Park. The response from the crowd,

consisting of both young Pink Floyd fans and a strong

contingent of seasoned aficionados, is one of awe, with

the effect produced by the Martin Audio MLA surround

system generally not one experienced in an outdoor

festival setting such as this. It’s the first real spine-

tingling moment of an evening that delivered many over

the ensuing two hours and 40 minutes of Roger Waters’

career-spanning headline set on the opening night (July

6) of the British Summer Time Hyde Park concert series.

Over the course of the show, the audience was

treated to an audiovisual feast, as the complex audio

mixes and productions of Pink Floyd and Waters’ solo

recorded material was brought to life via a barrage of

aural assaults and projections. The iconic Dark Side

Of The Moon cover was recreated with laser beams

over the heaving crowd, while the image of Battersea

Power Station filled the full breadth of the stage,

complete with artificial chinemys and, of course, the

famous flying pig. Perhaps the most poignant moment

came during Another Brick In The Wall Part 2, when

a choir of children from the Grenfell community took

to the stage dressed in black hoods and orange boiler

suits, underneath which they were wearing t-shirts

emblazoned with the word ‘resist’.

The following nights would see headline

performances from a glittering array of stars, including

The Cure, Bruno Mars, Michael Buble, Eric Clapton and

Paul Simon, but it was only Waters’ curtain raising show

that featured the MLA surround system – the first time

such a system has been used at a BST Hyde Park show

in its six years to date.

Supplied by Capital Sound, and in addition to

the system deployed for the rest of the festival, the

surround system in place for Waters’ set featured

an extra 12 hangs of MLA/MLA Compact on towers

positioned through the concourse to provide 12-point

surround sound effects at positions set by Loud Sound’s

Dan Craig and fine-tuned by Waters’ sound team. The

auxiliary towers added a further 112 MLA/MLA Compact

cabinets to the existing total of 206 MLA series cabinets

deployed in the Park. With 318 enclosures in total, this

was the largest deployment of MLA at any festival in the

world, eclipsing that of Rock In Rio and Glastonbury.

For the remainder of BST, the main stage was

equipped with two hangs of 16 MLA and one MLD

Downfill per side, with 13 MLA and an MLD Downfill

for the sidehangs. The sub array consisted of 32 MLX

in a broadside cardioid design (21 front facing, 11 rear

facing). With 12 MLA Compact serving as front fills all

MLA components were operating on the same network.

Out in the field, there were nine main delay towers,

seven comprising seven MLA and a single MLD Downfill,

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Young people from the Grenfell community joined Waters onstage for Another Brick In The Wall

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while for delay positions 10 and 11, eight MLA Compacts

were deployed. Four of the positions were supported by

12 MLX subs.

According to Toby Donovan, MLA system engineer

for the BST concerts, it was a challenging but satisfying

project to work on.

“It’s hugely different to anything we’ve done here

before,” he told PSNEurope. “This year with Roger we’ve

installed another 12 delay towers – a mixture of MLA

and MLA Compact. Roger Waters has been touring

this set up over a mixture of arenas, stadia and other

outdoor shows, and it’s what they’ve asked for and it’s

how they want to translate that show into a festival

of this size, especially one where there are noise

challenges with regards to sound offsite. It’s just about

integrating their requirements with what we’re doing.”

Donovan also highlighted the extra responsibilities

that come with incorporating a system on this scale.

“It does make the job more difficult,” he stated. “There

is probably double the infrastructure required, a whole

fibre optic network. It’s the same network as usual but

there’s twice as much of it so there are twice as many

units to configure and twice as many things to keep

an eye on. There is a whole additional team of people

required to fly the additional loudspeakers as well, plus

there is a whole lot more work involved in getting the

time alignments right for all those additional hangs of

PAs. But it’s really worthwhile; the effect is absolutely

spectacular. I’ve worked on shows involving surround

sound and different zonal systems before, but nothing

on this scale.”

He continued: “MLA has always given us good

results offsite because it’s got controllability. Applying

it to this surround system, we have walked the field

several times with Roger Waters’ guys and made quite

a few coverage changes to accommodate their needs

with how they want it to sound at FOH, how they want

it to sound at the back of the field, changing how far

the arrays are covering, changing what level they are

achieving over the different areas they are covering…

with different systems that may require physical

changes, whereas we’ve been able to implement

those changes in the electronic domain. That makes it

possible, and indeed, much easier.”

Capital Sound’s Robin Conway was called upon

to design a new Optocore multi-node system based

around 21 x X6R-FX-8AE/8MI interfaces and an

Optocore DD32R-FX at FOH to accommodate an AES

signal distribution and deliver the surround sound

experience for the show. The rental company deployed

all its own Optocore interfaces with Gilles Bouvard’s

GB4D in France supplying additional surround sound

units—linked by 24 lengths of multimode fibre across

1km of the site to create the loop—and the DD32R-FX

AES interface.

Conway explained: “I wanted to run the show AES.

The feeds onto the network were all AES and the

system was clocked from the Dante network. Everything

this year was digital and synchronous.”

Commenting on the control set-up, he added: “This

was the first time we had run a DD32R-FX at FOH and

certainly I have never programmed an optical network

of such a size. But Optocore is so good it just runs

and runs. Once we had synchronised issues such as

fibre speed, sampling rate and had assigned IDs to

the various devices, everything just fell into place and

worked fantastic.”

Heading up Capital Sound’s 24-strong crew was

Martin Connolly, account manager, Great Oak Stage,

with Capital operations and development director,

Paul Timmins, handling each of the other stages. As

for Martin Audio, Jason Baird was on-hand to provide

system alignment and propagation tests, while Chris

Pyne lent additional MLA support.

Commenting on the opening night of BST 2018,

Timmins said: “This is up there in my top five shows

of all time. We’ve never built a surround sound system

on that scale, and we were not only firing low-level FX

but high-level sources around the site, which needed to

be contained. But with everyone working to a common

goal, we were able to meet all sound level challenges,

and the reviews of the sound system in the media the

following day were 100% positive.”

Connolly was equally impressed: “Roger Waters’

production team, including sound engineer Jon Lemon,

system tech Dean Mizzi and Josh Lloyd, who did the

set-up with our system tech Toby Donovan, achieved

everything they wanted. All have sent us emails

thanking us, and we are delighted with the result.” n

The MLA deployment was the largest ever seen on a festival stage

Dark side: Waters was the first headliner at BST 2018

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