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d&b's J-Series Reinforces Daft Punk at Bang! Music Festival

Daft Punk, the absolute embodiment of European rave culture made live, has recently delivered one of the seminal performances of their career. That's not to say this was easy; Daft Punk's conceptual stage show, featuring a fusion of lights, LED and video was so unique that a fifth, separate stage was added to accommodate them. Technical production manager for the Bang! Music Festival in Florida, Andre Serafini, explained: "This was very much eleventh hour. As soon as we saw the renderings of their huge triangular set, a mass of Pixel Line, Versa Tubes and video wall we knew there was no way we could put other acts on in front of them without revealing the magic."

Fortunately promoters Haddad Productions also saw the dilemma and without hesitation ordered in another 60 x 40 outdoor stage: such is the mystique of this act. "We also had to pull in another PA system," continued Serafini. "My company, Beach Sound Incorporated, already had the other four stages covered, but we were max'ed out equipment wise with some simultaneous corporate events elsewhere in the States taking the last of our inventory." Serafini was anxious to provide the best for what was, after all, the headline act. "This needed to be a top line system; Daft Punk has a reputation for extreme high energy performance, I didn't want to draw upon any old pick-up system," he said.

As is so often the case in such pressured circumstances, fate intervened.

"I'd recently purchased a d&b audiotechnik Q-Series line array through Chris Carlton at Carlton Audio Services. It was for a specific installation, somewhere demanding a small, lightweight system; frankly there is no other PA on the market that can deliver the kind of levels and musicality this client demanded with a rigging weight close to what the Q system can do."

The experience was enough to tempt Serafini out to LDI in 'Vegas where d&b audiotechnik had a stage in the ET Live area and were demonstrating their latest product, the J-Series, a full size line array. "It was astonishing," said Serafini, "I didn't think a midsize line source box could exceed a large frame system's output and performance. Very fat and rich sounding." The J-Series rig being demonstrated belonged to Spectrum Sound out of Nashville. "They'd obviously done a good job there," he continued, "so I had no hesitation in contracting them there and then to cover the Daft Punk extra stage for Bang! Music."

His faith was well made: "When Daft Punk's audio supervisor Peter Franco turned up he was very thorough." As Franco himself confirmed: "I thought the clarity was great," he said. "Frequency response was pretty stellar, and we had good coverage all the way to the back."

Serafini was impressed with Franco's work. "When you consider this is just a two-channel show he knew his stuff. He checked all Smaart parameters, component checked every inch of the system, time alignment, coverage, and at the end announced himself very pleased. Check the reviews in all the Florida press and you'll know this was an outstanding audio event; loud and clean. For me I was especially impressed with the cardioid subwoofers. We were already using d&b B2s in cardioid mode for the other main stage where Gnarls Barkley and Duran Duran headlined, but the flown J subwoofers were just amazing, low end control almost as good as what we've become accustomed to in the higher frequency ranges."

The festival was hugely successful. "For me it was exceptional," said Serafini, "and I have to say a lot of that is thanks to the support I've received from Chris Carlton at Carlton Audio, and also Rusty King from Spectrum."

This was Miami Florida, four o'clock in the morning, but when Daft Punk came on, for ten thousand ecstatic revellers there was just no stopping them. No wonder the Bang! Music Festival has, in just two short years, acquired such a reputation.

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d&b's J-Series Reinforces Daft Punk at Bang! Music Festival

29th March 2007

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