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Millwall's Global Day of Prayer with d&b
A family day out for twelve thousand at Millwall football ground, an unlikely setting you might say, but Millwall has travelled a long way from its dreadful reputation of the eighties. Focussed on the day of Pentecost, Global Day of Prayer, celebrated at Millwall and simultaneously at many other venues throughout the world, is an apt demonstration of what can be achieved with a proper sense of community and belief. Conducting the style of religious celebration typical of these large Christian events is also not without its challenges. The GDOP at Millwall ran for four and half hours, featured a choir of five hundred adult and two hundred children’s voices, singing against a musical backdrop provided by a thirty piece conventional orchestra and six piece electric contemporary band.
Andy Barr from Pure Solutions provided the production expertise for GDOP, engaging the very able services of Reading based SFL Group to supply sound, lighting and video expertise. "It's the second such event we've done for GDOP," said SFL's MD Mark Payne. "Last year it was staged at West Ham's ground; the shift this year to be accessible to different parts of the community. We provide a full stage lighting system; the front end video PPU, cameras and mixing; and a comprehensive audio system."
With such a large and dynamically varied range of performers the audio side appears a big job to manage? "In some ways it's harder than any rock event, even fast turnaround festivals. People forget how challenging it can be, a massive mix and in the midst of it tiny children's voices, but you've got to find room to get them across. There are two main factors to contend with, the performers you already know about, though I would add there were also three solo vocalists, nine backing singers, three Worship leaders and a full orchestra plus the high energy contribution from the Psalm Drummers, an astonishing group of thirty percussionists. The second is the audience. Because this is a family event, access is given to all the grandstands as well as the pitch itself. Naturally the audience moves around throughout the day so audio cannot be attempted in the fashion of a rock show. Coverage and intelligibility are paramount for obvious reasons, and levels across the full audio spectrum need to be sustained at even and comfortable levels. And that doesn't mean quiet; excitement is an important factor, but we’re not here to exhaust, rather to delight."
Of note on stage was Payne's use of DPA Millennium Bug mics for the string section; "We had to make an acoustic design of the stage to control the variety of local levels. The Bugs are a custom development by Greg Jackman that enable really close mic'ing of sensitive instruments like violins in noisy environments, and they produce a really fresh vibrant sound, you can really capture the life of the strings."
"But as ever it's all in the preparation and that means system delivery and for us that means democracy for all the listeners. The field is a hundred metres long; we rigged two eleven metre tall tepees from which we suspended d&b audiotechnik J-Series J8 line array loudspeakers, with two of the wide angle J12 cabinets at the bottom of each hang. The only areas these couldn't cover were the extreme sides of stage into the stands. Here we ground stacked the more compact d&b Q-Series loudspeakers, curved upwards, which worked exceedingly well. With no public access within five metres of the stack, this enabled the correct application of power to reach the topmost seats without blasting the people sitting closest. Across the front of stage we also placed three cardioid J subwoofers per side, to relieve the orchestra from having to hear the low end on stage; these also had Q10s on top of them for front fills."
"With the main system J loudspeakers toed out 10° this gave me perfect coverage across the pitch and stands to seventy four metres from stage, well behind the mix position. There was of course slight decoupling of the main system in the middle ground, but the J12s covered that area perfectly. At the seventy four metre point I chose to rig delays to cover the rear and side stands, again Q-Series loudspeakers ground stacked; this time on top of cardioid stacked Q subwoofers. It's a way of using the Qs we had perfected the previous year at West Ham, when the stage was placed mid-field facing straight into the grandstand with no people on the pitch at all. There we provided a distributed system of ground stacked Qs; an easy and effective solution for a wide, high tiered audience area."
Payne mixed using a pair of Yamaha M7CLs front of house (PM5D for monitors with d&b MAX wedges). "This was a ninety six input show and I ran the whole output system digitally in AES/EBU to the d&b D12 and D6 amplifiers to minimise the number of AD/DA conversions. Because of the distance limitations of AES/EBU over standard balanced lines we ran into Neutrik impedance conversion transformers enabling us to run the signal over 75Ohm video coax cable still in digital form over 100 metres all the way to the various amplifier locations where it was converted back to 110 ohm AES/EBU before going into the amplifier system. All the D12 amplifiers were positioned local to their relevant stacks and linked by CAN-Bus driven by the new d&b R70 interface that enables long distance remote control over Ethernet, a system that performed absolutely as expected. With the d&b R1 Remote control software and a wireless station FoH, I was able to access all parts of the system and my desks from my laptop anywhere in the stadium for EQ and delay settings. The most difficult part to set was the delay for the Qs at the stage sides; effectively for the listener who is sitting at the extreme side of stage these loudspeakers have a different point zero to the main system, you can’t align them to the same point as the main PA, you have to use your ears and the natural environment to tell you what works, focussing on the transition point between them and the main system. Because the character of the two boxes, the Qs and Js are so alike this is a lot easier than you might think."
Besides the performers already detailed, London's newly elected Mayor, Boris Johnson, made an appearance at GDOP. There to talk about street crime reduction and how communities can help, his talk held a particular poignancy on the weekend that Londoner's remembered Jimmy Mizen, the young man so senselessly murdered at a baker's shop, and the inspirational example of Mizen's devoted family and their very Christian demonstration of the strength derived of Faith.
www.SFLgroup.co.uk
www.pure-solutions.co.uk
www.gdoplondon.com
www.psalmdrummers.org
www.dbaudio.com
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