Colin
Ellis is Savage Garden’s soundman, and will be at the engineering
helm for the complete duration of the world tour. He explains
his job.
"Bob
(a member of the sound crew) sets up the system, then I’ll
come in the morning and discuss the main points — we have
to liase with the promoter’s rep to find out how far around
they’ve sold the seating, to find out what we actually
have to cover, as far as the PA goes. So from there we work
out what sort of layout we’ll do for the system. Then I
come out here and wire up the console, while Bob and the rest
of the crew get the speakers up and everything."
"The
system we’re using tonight is what they call an X-array
system, the new EV system," points out Ellis, "And
its got different types of cabinets in it (60 in total): there’s
18 XNs, 60 X 40 short throw cabinets (an 18" bass driver,
12" horn loaded mid driver and a large format compression
driver for hi’s); there’s 18 XFs, 40 x 20 long throw
cabinets (two 12" horn loaded mid range drivers and two
large format compression drivers), it’s like a four-range
cabinet; there’s 16 XBs, the bass cabinets (two manifold
loaded 18" drivers); and then there’s 12 XDSs, the
double subs on the ground down there (two manifold loaded 18"
drivers in a double volume cabinet providing six db more output
from 40-80Hz than an XB)."
"The
system is run off Electro Voice P3000 Power Amplifiers which
provide 1400 watts per side into 4 ohms," outlines Phill
Webb from Electro Voice, "And the whole system runs at
4 ohms. The hi and mid components are 16 ohms which allows for
four devices to be run off each amplifier channel, while the
18" drivers are 8-ohm components. And the speaker system
runs via 8-core speaker cable on NL 8 connectors with the configuration
allowing for 8 cabinets to be run off a rack of 4 amps. The
front of house utilises a 48-input Midas H2000 mixing console
to cater for the support band, and a 56-input Midas H3000 mixing
console to cater for Savage Garden."
With regards
to getting the equalisation right, Ellis confesses that luck
plays a big part in the matter, "As far as getting the
right eq with an empty room, in the end it becomes a big guess
I reckon. ‘Cause like today, it was a total hotchpotch,
but I think we’re going to be really fine for the gig."
Ellis has
quite a lot of control over the system because it’s configured
in different zones. So he can actually turn different boxes
up or down, by using the XTA crossovers and the computer. "We
firstly pink noise the system, and try and get it looking fairly
flat on the XTA, which is equalising the crossover," he
says of the initial step, "And then from there I use the
Klark Teknik DN 3600 for the band related eq. But because we
can change different zones on the XTA, I’ll go round with
one of those hand-held dB meters, walk around, and change the
zones so that we get a consistent sound pressure level reading
all round the gig — which doesn’t really tell you
anything about frequency response; it just tells you that it’s
about the same volume up there as it is up around the back.
So we level up the system as best as we can, and that’s
about it."
