A pair of hard-working young American bands are currently touring their way around the States and further afield as far away as Australia: the All American Rejects and Taking Back Sunday, with special guests Anberlin, are pleasing fans and promoting their current albums coast to coast. Providing sound reinforcement for the show in Washington, D.C. was a Turbosound Flex Array sound system that, although a relative newcomer in the U.S., has impressed the bands’ engineers with its sound quality and the system techs with its ease of rigging.
The choice of Flex Array for the Patriot Centre in Washington D.C., a 10,000 capacity multi-purpose venue that is home to the George Mason Patriots basketball team, was largely down to artist preference. Virginia-based Southard Audio LLC was contracted to handle the bands’ production requirements for the show; the company has provided technical audio services on the East Coast since 1980 and has an extensive Turbosound inventory including Aspect 880s, as well as Floodlight 760s and TMS-4 systems. At the show advance meeting the bands voiced a preference for a Turbosound line array – enter collaborator Soundworks and its recently purchased Flex Array system.
Located in Richmond, VA, Soundworks services the mid-Atlantic area of the U.S., and is used to networking its Turbosound inventory with Southard Audio when required. Founder Steve Payne has been very satisfied with his current Aspect systems, and so following a demo of Turbosound’s latest line array product a further investment was a natural decision. The first Flex Array system to land in the U.S., it has since its addition to the company’s inventory of Aspect 880 and 500 boxes – and TQ-425/445DP systems – proven itself well up to the task of servicing its wide client base to the high standards that Steve demands of his equipment and company.
For the Washington show ten Flex Array TFA-600H mid-highs were hung per side for the main PA, supported by a total of 20 TSW-721 subs ground-stacked in a gentle arc in front of the stage. Aspect TA-880s atop TSW-721 subs provided side-fill coverage. A Digidesign Profile console allowed for easy scene recalls, while processing and power duties were handled by Turbosound LMS-D26 controllers and Lab Gruppen FP series amplifiers respectively.
The Flex Array boxes proved to be quick and easy to rig. Southard Audio’s system tech Jesse Stover and Grant Howard, Soundworks’ VP and senior engineer, worked together on the PA hangs: “The fly bars are significantly smaller and lighter than with other arrays,” says Jesse, “and lining up the boxes to pin was fairly easy.”
“The rigging system is top tier,” adds Grant, “there’s just enough tolerance in the self-contained rigging components to make things line up quickly and easily without being sloppy. The provision of a single lift point on the fly bar with the adjustable centre of gravity is just brilliant.”
The show went off without a hitch and everyone was all smiles. In particular all the band engineers, who are routinely used to Vertec, d&b, Meyer, or similar systems on a day-to-day basis, were happy with the PA.
Marc Hudson, FOH engineer for Taking Back Sunday, found the Flex Array to have a very pleasing, hi-fi quality: “Frequency-wise, any areas where the system isn’t totally ‘flat’ seem to sit in appropriate musical sounding areas, there’s nothing harsh or imposing to have to contend with. Apart from a few minor tweaks to the system EQ, and minor changes to the guitar EQ from the previous night, I was able to run the vocal mics very close to flat.”
“The Flex Array sounded great,” agrees Anberlin’s sound engineer Todd Neal. “My job is to make stuff loud, and I had no problems at all in that area – Flex has the SPL of a much larger box if not quite as much low-mid energy. Another advantage is that the boxes are small and light, and rig easily enough – I’ve hung these more than a few times with great results.” The wide 100° dispersion pattern also worked well for Todd: “coverage of the venue was excellent, and for me this is one of Flex Array’s stand-out qualities.”
Soundworks’ Grant Howard confirms that Flex Array’s reputation is spreading rapidly in the touring market. “When we do our date advance we find that engineers are eager to give Flex a try. They are always pleased with the results at the end of the show.”
Reflecting on his experience with Flex Array in the Patriot Centre, Southard Audio’s system tech Jason Misterka observed: “Flex has impressive SPL, and that Turbosound ‘tonality’ that I love, having used the Aspect 880s for so long. The rigging also seems solid and practical. The rig produced all of the level the engineers wanted, and we still had 6db of headroom. I would have to hang 16 to 20 boxes of most other mid-size line arrays to get the kind of level we were getting… AND we’d be hitting the low-mid limiters!”
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