The first major outing for satis&fy’s new Nexo STM modular line array system was the Rock’n’Heim rock festival at the Hockenheimring motorsports racetrack in Germany. It was a perfect opportunity to demonstrate STM’s sound quality and coverage to a 27 000-strong crowd watching a diverse line-up on the Revolution stage. The line-up included Outkast, DeadMau5, Jan Delay, Die Fantastischen Vier, Pretty Lights, Die Antwoord and Parov Stelar Band.

European full-service company for event equipment and event architecture satis&fy worked closely with Nexo to design the system, which required maximum cardioid sub efficiency to minimise spill to the second stage. It also needed to provide even coverage while controlling spill outside of the audience area.

The site itself came with a number of challenges for the team. The truss wasn’t designed to support a flown sub system, and because of video and photography sight lines, the subs could only be ground stacked two-high. System design was for main PA hangs of 15 sets of STM, using M46 Main cabinets and B112 Bass cabinets with two M28s as downfill. The right outfill hang used 12 sets of STM with three M28s for downfill, covering a distance of 80 metres. As the left side of the audience was bordered by a VIP area, left outfill comprised 12 x M28 to improve SPL and coverage control in that zone.

Three delay towers about 80 metres from the stage flew nine M28s, each covering about 60 metres, while two sets of two M28s at 120º were locked onto the subs to provide front row coverage.

Another challenge was the off-centre FOH mixing position. The team addressed this by using a side-to-side cardioid sub design, with digital steering to open the horizontal coverage close to 110º. Positioned well within the PA-right coverage area, the engineers were able to hear what the majority of the audience were listening to.
“For us it was a great premiere,” comments satis&fy head of audio Martin Ramrath. “The first really large job with a new sound system is always an important and thrilling event. We had big expectations and have not been disappointed. Sound performance was outstanding, and we just had to set a few specific filters in the system EQs. For me personally, the most impressive thing was the well-balanced and powerful sound. Together with Nexo, we’ve proved that the STM system is a major player amongst festival-sized systems, and we’re really looking forward to our upcoming productions.’

Stage Monitoring

Festival monitoring was an all-Nexo setup, including three deep, two wide, flown STM side fills per side, and three S118 subs on the stage deck below. 26 x 45N-12 stage monitors were used as floor wedges and, depending on requirements, were reconfigured throughout the event into single, double and triple wedge setups. The monitor system was driven by eight NXAMP4 4×4 Powered TDcontrollers.

Reiner Roters, monitor engineer for satis&fy, was pleased with the results from the range of speakers on the stage. “I liked STM a lot, again, it didn’t take much tweaking to get a good sounding sidefill, and the subs were great. I was impressed by the pressure you can get from the S118 using them in a drumfill application, just 2 metres away from the mic. The DJs and drummers loved their monitoring and it was also good to have the possibility of tilting and aiming the M28s to get sound onto a higher drum or DJ riser.’

Nexo’s technology was supported by a dedicated team of techs: Val Gilbert, Norbert Bund and Reinhard Steger. Nexo’s Joseph Carcopino was also onsite to ensure a smooth implementation of the Dante Network through the 50 x NXAMP 4×4 powered controllers. Interface to all FOH consoles was via an Auvitran Toolbox AVBX7 into the Dante network cards in the NXAMPS. Lake LM44 controllers, also all in the Dante network, were used to tune the system.