Bryan Ferry played the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie
Germany - With Roxy Music he celebrated international successes in the 1970s, in 2019 the now 74 year-old Bryan Ferry presented his greatest hits once again as part of a major world tour. For his concert at the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, PM Blue provided an Alcons-based sound system. For the 360-degree sound reinforcement, mainly LR18 and LR7 pro-ribbon line-array systems were used.
The main PA consisted of a stacked five-cluster of LR18/90 compact line-array on a BC543 triple-18" cardioid subwoofer. Right next to it, another BC543 was used. The near field in-fill was taken care of by four LR7/120 micro line-arrays. The rearward projecting sound system consisted of six LR7/120 each on a tripod, supplemented with two out-fills each consisting of three LR7/90, between the main PA and the first rear-fill. This ground setup has proven itself and serves PM Blue as the standard setup for the lower listening areas up to the first ranks. With minor adjustments, it has been used since the first rehearsals. "At the request of the artist, we only doubled the bass here,".
A truss circle placed above the stage was used for the sound system for the upper ranks. This set-up consisted of six 10-pce Alcons LR18/90 arrays for each left / right main, side and rear slope. Also, a cluster of two Alcons RR12 point-source arrays served as rear-fill for the nearfield; For the low frequency support, a cluster of eight Alcons LR14B line-array bass were mounted.
PM Blue's stated goal is always to make the sound in the concert hall as discreet as possible - a difficult undertaking with 70 loudspeakers in the ceiling, as with Bryan Ferry. "Imaging and fidelity to the original source are of great importance to us, which is why we try to follow the natural 'direction of sound' of the room," says Jo Stankowski, senior project manager at PM Blue. The world-famous Weinberg hall of the Elbphilhar-monie is designed according to acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota in all its details so that sound is carried from the stage to every seat.
"In order to realize the imaging and the appropriate sound direction here, we worked for a long time on our sound system design and made changes whenever necessary," says the project manager. "The Alcons systems are doing very well in the Elbphilharmonie. They are characterised by a very high degree of transparency, which in combination with the already extremely transparent sounding room, simply delivers the best result.”
(Jim Evans)

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