Formed by Harry Zinken, Purple Group numbers among its clients some of the country's biggest artists and corporate clients. Among them is top Dutch rock band Kane, and the latter's rise from pub roots to arena-scale superstardom was one of the factors that spurred Zinken to sign up to the extensive rental resources and expertise of the Synco Europe Network.
Harry Zinken comments: "We had worked with Kane since they playing bars and clubs, and when they started to become really big their management, who had been very happy with our service, wanted to continue with us. Their lead singer, Dinand, is the main driving force behind the band and he's an incredible perfectionist - they've had several changes of personnel in the band in the past few years, and he takes a great interest in production issues, and we wanted to match his standards. So we invested in a line array system and Midas consoles, but then we realised that with the right setup there was the potential to grow even further.
"So we decided earlier this year to join the Synco Group and change everything to their standard equipment - Renkus-Heinz Synco Touring System [RH-STS] cabinets, Synco by Martin Audio line arrays and Synco stage monitoring - which would allow us to do the very largest tours and events using extra resources, when necessary, from the Synco Network, in particular Ampco Pro Rent. As our engineers were already in regular communication with theirs, it made a lot of sense."
Kane's sold-out run of pre-Christmas shows showed the new rig to its full potential, playing to 8,000 people a night at the Ahoy Arena in Rotterdam. With seating sold through 270 degrees, the main left / right 13-deep hangs of Synco by Martin Audio W8L were supplemented by side hangs of eight cabinets and near fill hangs of four, along with a further pair of four-box delay hangs to cover the extreme upper corners of the arena. RH-STS cabinets provided stage sidefills and near fills.
Hugo Scholten mixed the shows on a DiGiCo D5 while a Midas Heritage 3000 served the monitor mix. Zinken adds: "Every song has its own sound, some special effects and EQ, perhaps a lot of high in the kick on one song and then more mid in the next on the bass guitar, and so on. Last year we toured with a Heritage 2000 with four drive racks, compressors, gates, a lot of outboard to get where we wanted, and it's now all done entirely in the D5.
"It made a lot of sense for us to join the Synco Network, to help us provide a very high standard of equipment and service, and to get the maximum return on our investment by being able to service more clients through working together."
(Lee Baldock)
